In the first month, which is the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, and chose the twelfth month, which is the month Adar.
Parallel translations
- KJV In the first month, that is, the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of king Ahasuerus, they cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, to the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar.
- BSB In the twelfth year of King Xerxes, in the first month, the month of Nisan, the Pur (that is, the lot) was cast before Haman to determine a day and month. And the lot fell on the twelfth month, the month of Adar.
- NKJV In the first month, which is the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur (that is, the lot), before Haman to determine the day and the month, until it fell on the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.
- NASB In the first month, which is the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, Pur, that is the lot, was cast before Haman from day to day and from month to month, until the twelfth month, that is the month Adar.
- NLT So in the month of April, during the twelfth year of King Xerxes’ reign, lots were cast in Haman’s presence (the lots were called purim) to determine the best day and month to take action. And the day selected was March 7, nearly a year later.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Lots (Pur) are cast to choose the day for the slaughter, landing on a month nearly a year away. The delay providentially leaves room for deliverance.
Overview
The casting of Pur, from which the feast of Purim takes its name, was a pagan attempt to find an auspicious day. Yet Scripture teaches that the lot's outcome is from the Lord. The chosen date, eleven months off, gives time for Esther and Mordecai to act, showing that even the enemy's superstitious methods fall under God's sovereign control for the rescue of His people.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Ezra 6:15This house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king.
- Ezek 21:21–22For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination. He shook the arrows back and forth. He consulted the teraphim. He looked in the liver.
- Prov 16:33The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from Yahweh.
- Esth 9:24–26because Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast “Pur”, that is the lot, to consume them, and to destroy them;
- Esth 9:17–19This was done on the thirteenth day of the month Adar; and on the fourteenth day of that month they rested and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
- Esth 9:5The Jews struck all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and with slaughter and destruction, and did what they wanted to those who hated them.
- Esth 9:21to enjoin them that they should keep the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month Adar yearly,
- Neh 2:1In the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when wine was before him, I picked up the wine, and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad before in his presence.
- Matt 27:35When they had crucified him, they divided his clothing among them, casting lots,
- Esth 9:1Now in the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of the month, when the king’s commandment and his decree came near to be put in execution, on the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to conquer them, (but it was turned out the opposite happened, that the Jews conquered those who hated them),
- Esth 2:16So Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus into his royal house in the tenth month, which is the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.
- Esth 1:3in the third year of his reign, he made a feast for all his princes and his servants; the power of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes of the provinces, being before him.
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Christ at the center
Though God is never named, his hidden hand preserves the people from whom the Messiah will come — a deliverance 'for such a time as this' that anticipates the open deliverance of Christ.
How Esther 3:7 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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