After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him.
Esther 3:1 ESV
While Esther is the heroine and title character of the book of Esther, the main plot seems to revolve around two men. The first is Mordechai, described as a son of Kish, a Benjamite (Est. 2:5), and Esther’s cousin and foster father (Est. 2:7). The second is Haman the Agagite.
Nothing is known of these two men apart from the book of Esther. But there are some intriguing clues to be found here. An earlier son of a Benjamite Kish is found in the Scripture—Saul, the first king of Israel (1 Sam. 9:1-2). And there is an earlier Agag mentioned, a king of the Amalekites (1 Sam. 15:7-8).
There is no certainty that Haman and the Agag from 1 Samuel are related. However, Jewish tradition links them together, and most scholars accept that there is a link. And some understand Agag as a royal title among the Amalekites rather than a personal name.
Mordechai and Haman – Another Chapter
Assuming that Haman is an Amalekite from the royal line and Mordechai is from the line of Israel’s first king, this sets up another chapter in what amounted to a long-running blood feud between Israel and the Amalekites. It is quite likely that the author of Esther included this ancestry information intentionally to set up this conflict between the two of them.
The first chapter in the conflict occurred when Amalek attacked Israel shortly after they left Egypt (Ex. 17:8;13). This was followed up by the conflict alluded to above. God, through Samuel, directed King Saul to annihilate the Amalekites for what they had done earlier. Saul destroyed their city but spared Agag, their king, although Samuel later killed him.
But not all the Amalekites were killed. We later see David fighting against them (1 Sam. 30:1-20). And it appears that enmity still remained hundreds of years later and reared its head again when Haman sought to destroy all of the Jews in the Persian empire (Est. 3:2-6). A plot that was ultimately unsuccessful.
I do not know what the future holds for the Jews. But despite their repeated rebellion against God and their rejection of Jesus as their Messiah, God has not abandoned them. Despite all odds, as the story of Esther illustrates, they continue to exist as a people.
