Q&A: A Question About the Plain Meaning of the Megillah
A Question About the Plain Meaning of the Megillah
Question
How could there still have been people who tried to destroy the Jews after Haman was hanged?
I’m trying to picture it: everyone knew about the reversal, and indeed dread of the Jews had fallen upon their enemies.
And yet 57,000 were killed outside Shushan (interestingly, it doesn’t say what the Jewish casualties were).
Did those who were killed attack the Jews despite knowing about the reversal? Were they somehow compelled to attack even though they knew they would die, like some kind of ancient zombies?
Answer
Apparently they weren’t surfing the internet and weren’t up to date. Though it does require discussion how דווקא those who guarded their eyes and didn’t browse the web, Heaven forbid, were the ones who got killed. The righteous man who suffers. Why does the way of the wicked prosper, why are all the treacherous at ease.
“The Jews gathered in their cities, throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, to lay hands on those who sought their harm; and no man could withstand them, for the fear of them had fallen upon all the peoples” (Esther 9:2)