The Timeline of The Purim Story
This coming Purim 5781 (Starting Thursday night, February 25th) we shall, G-d willing, celebrate 2375 years since the very first miracle of Purim.
Our Sages state that the Purim Festival shall remain on the Jewish calendar even after the arrival of the Righteous Moshiach.
Mordechai was a descendant of King Saul, from the tribe of Benyomin.
Haman was a descendant of King Agag (of the nation of Amalek) whom King Saul failed to exterminate as commanded by G-d., through the prophet Samuel. (See Haftorah of P’Zachor.)
Some 517 years after Kings Saul and Agag, their descendants confronted each other in the Persian Empire (Iran). Mordechai sought to correct some of his forefather King Saul’s failures by:
- Destroying Haman and all Amalekites of Persia.
- Ordering the Jewish troops not to benefit from the spoils of the war, as Saul had been ordered generations before (and disobeyed.) The Megilah mentions 3 times that the troops did not touch the spoils of war. (Chapter 9: 10-15-16)
Purim took place before the rebuilding of the second Temple
during the time of Mordechai and Esther.
The miracle of Chanukah happened much later during the second Temple.
| Year of Creation | Secular | |
| 3389 | Cyrus, King of Persia, encouraged the Jews of Babylonia to return to Eretz Yisrael and to rebuild the Holy Temple. Only 42,000 returned to Jerusalem. | -371 |
| 3391 | The building of the second Temple began but stopped. | -370 |
| 3392 | Achashverosh II (who was not of royal descent) becomes the emperor after the death of Cyrus and orders the cessation of construction of the Temple, at the urging of Vashti, his wife (“the Temple that my forefathers destroyed, you are permitting to be rebuilt?) | -369 |
| 3395 | Three years after coming to power, Achashverosh made his great banquet.
|
-366
|
| 3399 | Esther was taken to the palace in the 7th year of King Achashverosh, contrary to the wishes of Mordechai the Righteous. | -362
|
| 3404 | In the first month (Nisan) during the 12th year of Achashverosh, Haman cast the lot starting the plot to annihilate the entire Jewish people – men, women and children. In the same year, Esther took action against Haman’s decree. | -357 |
| 3405 | Eleven months after the decree, on the 14th (and 15th) of Adar, the Jews finally rejoiced in their relief. The entire Purim story happened within a 9 – 10 year period. | -356 |
| 3406 | Mordechai proclaimed Purim.
King Achashverosh dies; succeeded by Darius II, son of Esther. Esther was thus with the king about 7 years (from 3399 to 3406). |
-355
|
| 3408 | 70 years after the destruction of the first Temple, the building of the second Temple was resumed by order of Darius II.
|
-353 |
| 3412 | The Temple was completed on the third of Adar.
The King of Persia insisted that an engraving of the city of Shushan (capital of the Persian Empire) be placed in the Holy Temple, as a clear indication of who had authorized the rebuilding. It was placed on the eastern gate, which was consequently named Sha’ar Shushan (The Gate of Shushan). |
-349 |
| 3413 | Ezra, head of the Sanhedrin (Jewish Supreme Court) led the second return to Eretz Yisrael. | -348 |
Mordechai and Esther are buried side-by-side in Iran (the capital of the Persian Empire). Iranian Jews, for generations, have prayed at that site; they tell us that Moslems come to that sacred site to pray for themselves and their families, in the full knowledge that Mordechai and Esther were leaders of the Jewish people.
