1) The following is a copy of the letter:

“The great King Ahasuerus to the governors of the provinces in the hundred and twenty-seven satrapies from India to Ethiopia, and to those who are loyal to our government: Greetings!

COMMENTARY: Malachi takes care to put in that bit about being “loyal to our government”.  At this point the war is long since over, and the Jews have resigned themselves to being loyal subjects.  Obeying God does not always mean being in charge, or being the strongest. 

This matters in the USA, where Dominionists hope to discard the separation of church and state, and put in its place a government which would make Christianity the national religion.  (And which Christianity?  Even the fundamentalists can’t agree among themselves whether one should manifest the gifts of the Holy Spirit (as the Pentecostals do) or renounce all such as deceits of the devil (as the Southern Baptists do.)) 

But is this really what the Bible would want?  Not according to St. Paul, who in the New Testament urged his fellow Christians to obey and pray for Emperor Nero, except when commanded to disobey God, as when the emperor demanded that people burn incense to his statues.  This for an emperor who was actively throwing Christians to the lions!

Why wouldn’t God want theocracy?  Because human beings don’t do it well.  I fail to understand why people who don’t trust their government’s management of anything else think that the government would do a terrific job with religion.  Human frailty always messes it up, elevating personal priorities over those of Heaven; we confuse ourselves, in the end, with God.  I say this as a Catholic who knows too well our own history when we once had command over “Christendom” as Europe was once called.  The temptations of temporal power overwhelmed us, and we only recollected ourselves when we lost it.

Another reason is that forced conversion is no conversion at all.  You must choose to make it authentic.  If I hold a gun to your head and say that you must say the prayers that I insist upon, your lips would say whatever I told you to, but your heart would not pray.

2) “Many have become more ambitious the more they were showered with honors through the bountiful generosity of their patrons.

COMMENTARY: In the USA I have noticed that one difference between the classes is that the Middle Class believe that ambition is overall a virtue that in a few cases can become a vice, and the Working Class believe that ambition is overall a vice that in a few cases can become a virtue.  I wonder if it’s because the Working Class has more Catholics in it?  Just a thought.

3) Not only do they seek to do harm to our subjects but, incapable of dealing with such greatness, they even begin plotting against their own benefactors.

COMMENTARY: Haman did not overtly plot to overthrow Ahasuerus, but his manipulation in order to gather more and more power to himself amounts to usurpation.  He became, for a time, the virtual king of the empire, and abused his power to the extent of attempting genocide in response to a perceived sleight.

4) Not only do they drive out gratitude from among humankind but, with the arrogant boastfulness of those to whom goodness has no meaning, they suppose they will escape the stern judgment of the all-seeing God.

COMMENTARY: Haman must have known that Mordecai had saved the king’s life.  A truly loyal man would have felt gratitude.  Instead, in his arrogance, he forgot everything over a sting to his pride.

Mordecai, of course, believes as a Jew that his God will keep his promise that the descendants of Abraham will always be numerous beyond counting.  Attempts at genocide will always be punished.

This gives a new slant to what Hitler wanted to attempt in the Holocaust.  If he could have succeeded in exterminating everyone descended of Abraham, he could have destroyed the very foundation of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—the basis for the major religions of the West.  That would leave, in Europe, Paganism, Druidism, and Heathenism, which had too few theologians with too little influence to (so he hoped) defend their faiths from his distortions (unlike St. Maximilian Colby, who had plenty of precedent, documentation, and community respect to support  his refutation of Hitler’s distortions of Christianity.)  Hitler aspired to reshape religion into his own image.  To this day good Heathens fight to reclaim their religion from the lies that he propagated.

Ultimately he aspired to subvert or destroy all religions.  Take the swastika.  This symbol arose simultaneously among Buddhists, Hindus, Jainists, and multiple Native American tribes.  In the East it meant balance and prosperity.  Among American Indians, it meant the four races emerging from the same Source and therefore being kin (yes, we knew by prophecy that other races existed and would someday come in contact with us)—a meaning abhorrent to Nazism.  So Hitler took this solid, square symbol and tipped it on edge into a diamond (no longer in balance) and turned it backwards—the equivalent of the Satanic upside-down cross—to reverse its meaning into a rejection of universal brotherhood.  He put a lot of study into this before designing his symbol.

5) “Often, too, the fair speech of friends entrusted with the administration of affairs has induced many placed in authority to become accomplices in the shedding of innocent blood, and has involved them in irreparable calamities 6) by deceiving with malicious slander the sincere good will of rulers.

COMMENTARY: This deuterocannonical addition matters.  The letter confesses that even the highest in the land can make grievous mistakes when deceived.  Without this addition, chapter 8 sounds like the king just authorized contradictory orders that would inevitably end in pointless bloodshed, rather than admit to an error.

Mordecai takes care to acknowledge Ahasuerus’s “sincere good will”.  But even the most well-meaning can trust the wrong person and make the wrong decision as a result.  Human existence calls for humility with which to navigate it.

7) This can be verified in the ancient stories that have been handed down to us, but more fully when you consider the wicked deeds perpetrated in your midst by the pestilential influence of those undeserving of authority.

COMMENTARY: What culture does not tell similar stories?  We need to repeat these stories to remind ourselves of the pitfalls of pride and the evils of deception which it inspires.  (Haman, you will notice, didn’t exactly lie—he spun.  Malicious spin can do as much harm as lying.)  That is why factual and fictional books exist side by side in the Bible.  Inspired people chose to include stories that teach truths.

8) We must provide for the future, so as to render the kingdom undisturbed and peaceful for all people, 9) taking advantage of changing conditions and always deciding matters coming to our attention with equitable treatment.

COMMENTARY: Also important—a bid for more flexibility than the irrevocability of a decree allows.  This matters today, when people stick to the letter of the law instead of seeking its spirit.

Ezekiel saw this, by the power of God’s inspiration, when he realized that the law’s taboo against eunuchs entering the temple only applied in an era when castration was a voluntary consecration of a man’s body to a competing deity.  People will say that God is unchanging and I don’t dispute it—but when your nature is Creator, your essence is Creative, and that cannot help but lead to flexibility beyond our comprehension.

The nature of God may be Creativity, but the spirit of God is Love.  Love gives us the stable heart that transforms creativity from chaos into creation.  If an earnest soul seeks whatever is most loving in any given situation (what is truly most loving, not what can be rationalized as such to serve other motives) and sticks to that rule inflexibly, all else may flex around her and still she will remain steadfast.

Haman appealed not to the love which Ahasuerus felt for his country, but to his pride, deceiving him with the threat that Jews might be headstrong and disobedient subjects.  Esther appealed to love, that she could not stand by and watch her people slain.  In all dilemmas we do well to consult Love.

10) “For instance, Haman, son of Hammedatha, a Macedonian, certainly not of Persian blood, and very different from us in generosity, was hospitably received by us.

COMMENTARY: The writers in Greek change him from an Agagite to a Macedonian, because the reason they wrote in Greek was because they had been conquered by Macedonians, and they disliked it a lot.  We will learn more about that in the study of I and II Maccabees.

11) He benefited so much from the good will we have toward all peoples that he was proclaimed ‘our father,’ before whom everyone was to bow down; and he attained a position second only to the royal throne.

COMMENTARY: So Mordecai will have to explain why someone so exalted fell from grace.

12) But, unable to control his arrogance, he strove to deprive us of kingdom and of life, 13)and by weaving intricate webs of deceit he demanded the destruction of Mordecai, our savior and constant benefactor, and of Esther, our blameless royal consort, together with their whole nation.

COMMENTARY: Deprive him of kingdom and of life?  In a subtle way.  Manipulation sucks the life out of a person in all but biology, and even there it does damage.  In contrast Esther, though she carefully set up the right conditions before making her accusation, said nothing but truth.

14) For by such measures he hoped to catch us defenseless and to transfer the rule of the Persians to the Macedonians.

COMMENTARY: The later Greek writers would find this plausible, because the Persian empire did indeed, in their day, fall to the Macedonians under Alexander the Great, and his successors in the region, the Seleucid Dynasty, became oppressive of Israel.  Alexander’s father, Philip, first coined the words, “Divide and conquer” which have guided the destruction of many ever since.

15) But we find that the Jews, who were doomed to extinction by this archcriminal, are not evildoers, but rather are governed by very just laws

COMMENTARY: Thus Mordecai answers Haman’s accusation that the Jews were a lawless people.

16) and are the children of the Most High, the living God of majesty, who has maintained the kingdom in a flourishing condition for us and for our forebears.

COMMENTARY: Mordecai just couldn’t resist slipping that into a letter supposedly from a Pagan king.

17) “You will do well, then, to ignore the letter sent by Haman, son of Hammedatha,

COMMENTARY: Thank heavens!  Chapter 8, without this letter, implies a senseless war caused by conflicting proclamations.  Here we have an alternative to either obeying or disobeying the earlier command—just please, politely ignore it, the same as you would if the king had inadvertently farted in public.

18) for he who composed it has been impaled, together with his entire household, before the gates of Susa. Thus swiftly has God, who governs all, brought just punishment upon him.

COMMENTARY: So now I learn that his household paid in more ways than losing the property.  If we cheer evil on, we bear its guilt along with the evildoer.

19) “You shall exhibit a copy of this letter publicly in every place to certify that the Jews may follow their own laws

COMMENTARY: Mordecai wants to make it clear that he didn’t fail to prostrate himself before Haman out of disregard for the rules of court, but because he had his own people’s laws to follow.  He also wants to make sure that everybody gets the memo on the change of plans.

20) and that you may help them on the day set for their ruin, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, Adar, to defend themselves against those who attack them.

COMMENTARY: In case anybody missed the memo.  But this is much better than giving some marching orders against others who then get authorized to fight them.

21) For God, the ruler of all, has turned that day from one of destruction of the chosen people into one of joy for them. 22) Therefore, you too must celebrate this memorable day among your designated feasts with all rejoicing, 23) so that both now and in the future it may be a celebration of deliverance for us and for Persians of good will, but for those who plot against us a reminder of destruction.

COMMENTARY: And thus we have the holiday of Purim, observed today with the wildest revelry of all of the Jewish holidays.  During the partying people will read aloud the Book of Esther, and it is proverbial that “If you can tell Esther from Mordecai, you are not yet drunk enough.”  (There are sober ways to observe Purim, too, for the record, and some do just that.)

24) “Every city and province without exception that does not observe this decree shall be ruthlessly destroyed with fire and sword, so that it will be left not merely untrodden by people, but even shunned by wild beasts and birds forever.”