Esther 9:21, commentary and pictures

The verse establishes the yearly keeping of the fourteenth day of the month Adar and the fifteenth day of the same as the feast of Purim, an annual observance commemorating deliverance. The name Purim comes from Pur meaning lot, for the lot Haman cast to determine the time to destroy the Jews. The feast marks how God saved the Jews from the plotting of Haman, a descendant of Agag, who in Amalekite hatred toward the Jews obtained a decree from the Persian king to destroy them with a death threat of extermination.

That hatred was part of the war between God and Amalek from generation to generation, made stronger because Saul did not obey in utterly scattering the Amalekites. The verse belongs to the account of the counter decree that saved God's people from destruction and brought about the overthrow of their enemies, preserving the godly line. It gives the origin of the feast as part of the triumphant vindication of God's people and the utter and absolute defeat of wicked Haman.

In the account God frustrates Satan's attempt to destroy the people through whom the promised Man-child would come, with Haman acting as the devil's agent. The days mark the joy that followed the deliverance after the efforts and prayers of Mordecai, Esther, and their people. The verse stands in a book where the name of God does not occur in English and is found in the original only five times in the form of an acrostic. The continued celebration of Purim among Jews centuries later shows the endurance of this memorial.