I am Haman the Agagite. Likely, when you hear my name you automatically associate it with the word, “villain.” I am known for convincing the king to sign an edict spelling death for all the Jews in Persia. I am hated, remembered forever as a heinous villain.
But I didn’t start it.
When Saul was king over Israel, he went to war against the Amalekites according to the instructions given him by the prophet Samuel. “Thus says the Lord of hosts,” he said. “‘Go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'” So Saul took thousands of foot soldiers into Amalek and totally destroyed it. They slaughtered the population of Amalek and kept the best livestock for themselves and took as a captive King Agag – my ancestor.
Yet the prophet of Israel felt that this destruction of my homeland and my people wasn’t enough. “Bring Agag king of the Amalekites here to me,” Samuel called out.
My ancestor bravely presented himself to the crazed man saying, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.” He had already experienced death at such an extreme level, watching his friends and family and subject put to the sword, his kingdom burned to the ground, that looking his own death in the eyes seemed like nothing. To look your oppressor in the eye and await your physical death can be no more bitter than to watch everyone you love perish.
Then, with the words, “As your sword has made women childless, so your mother shall be childless among women,” Samuel chopped King Agag into pieces.
I should have been born into the royal line of Amalek, but my family line barely survived with no kingdom to call our own. Still, I managed to work my way up to become the right-hand-man of the king of Persia. Not the same as being king myself, but a royal position that comes with power nonetheless.
Still, the Jews living in Persia refused to respect me. They treated my like a commoner, like a peasant, like dirt. They had never respected my family’s line. They had made us their enemies, attacked us, destroyed us, and spit on those of us who dared to survive.
You cannot blame me for wanting revenge, for wanting them gone. An eye for an eye, a race of people for a race of people. My people were gone. Because of them.
But of course I couldn’t win. They somehow weaseled their way into the royal family, took power higher than my own, and sentenced me to death, one of the few remaining Agagites in the world.
Esther, 1 Samuel 15
Neglected Word 