The Reversal

The book of Esther turns on a night the king cannot sleep and has the palace chronicles read aloud to pass the time, and the reader happens on the record that Mordecai once uncovered an assassination plot against Ahasuerus and was never rewarded for it. The very next morning Haman arrives at court to ask permission to hang Mordecai on gallows he has already built fifty cubits high, and before he can ask, the king asks him what should be done for a man the king wishes to honor.

Haman, assuming he means himself, describes an elaborate public procession, and is then ordered to lead Mordecai through the city dressed exactly as he described. At a second banquet Esther finally names Haman as the author of the decree against her own people, and the king, enraged, has him hanged on the gallows built for Mordecai that same day. The original decree cannot be revoked once sealed with the king's ring, so a second decree lets the Jews defend themselves when the day comes, and their survival and reversal of fortune becomes the festival of Purim, named for the lots Haman cast.