Esther drama is not about a final showdown between Amalek and tribe of Benjamin
by Damien F. Mackey Haman , formerly an apostate King of Judah, was not out to annihilate the entire Jewish race. He was bent upon destroying only those like his Yahwistic foe, Mordecai, who were working towards the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem. The standard view goes something like this: Hundreds of years later, Saul nearly fulfills the command by killing all Amalekite men, women, and children. But he spares their king, who keeps his people barely alive by having a child. Many more generations later, one of his descendants, the villain Haman, goes on to develop a plot to kill all the Jews living in exile under a Persian ruler. The lesson, when read literally, is clear: Saul’s failure to kill every Amalekite posed an existential threat to the Jewish people. We have just read that King Saul of Israel, defying the terrible herem ( חֵרֶם cherem ) command of the Lord to wipe out the Am...
