PURIM

(Puʹrim).

The festival celebrated on the 14th and 15th of Adar, the last month of the Jewish year, corresponding to late February and early March; also called the Festival of Lots. (Es 9:21) The name comes from the act of Haman in casting pur (lot) to determine the auspicious day to carry out an extermination plot against the Jews. Being an Agagite, perhaps a royal Amalekite, and a worshiper of pagan deities, he was resorting to this as “a species of divination.” (Es 3:7, Le, ftn; see DIVINATION; LOT, I; PUR.) In King Ahasuerus’ (Xerxes I) 12th year, on Nisan 13, apparently in the spring of 484 B.C.E., the official extermination decree that Haman had induced the king to approve was prepared for all the Persian provinces, commanding the destruction of the Jews.

A great slaughter took place on Adar 13, not of the Jews, but of their enemies. It continued in the royal city of Shushan through the 14th. On the 14th day of Adar the Jews in the jurisdictional districts rested, and those in Shushan on the 15th day, with banqueting and rejoicing.​—Es 8:3–9:19.

To commemorate this deliverance, Mordecai imposed upon the Jews the obligation to observe Adar 14 and 15 each year with ‘banqueting and rejoicing and sending portions to one another and gifts to the poor people.’ (Es 9:20-22)