Tafsiran yang Mengutip untuk Ester 9:16

“What have they done in the other lands of the king” [9:12]. Ahasuerus said to Esther: the Jews have killed five hundred men and Haman’s children. They stopped in the evening since they feared me. The Jews have certainly killed many more in other cities and they have even killed at night. Then Esther said: I ask you my lord king, because the Jews feared you and stopped early, therefore allow the Jews to kill the Amalekites for another day. The king ordered and gave them a letter that they should kill as they pleased. The Jews gathered on the fourteenth day of Adar and killed three hundred men and they did not touch the money of the Amalekites. In other cities, the Jews killed seventy thou- sand-five hundred Amalekites.⁴⁵Esther 9:16 says, seventy-five thousand. The Jews gathered on the thirteenth and the fourteenth and made a holiday to drink and feast.

According to the plain meaning of the text the verse has G’d saying as an assurance to any future King of Israel that he is to fight a war on G’d’s behalf against Amalek. This war would be distinguished by the fact that any loot collected in such a war was out of bounds to any Israelite and would be exclusively G’d’s property. This is why Saul, King of Israel, was punished for allowing the people to retain part of the loot from his campaign against Amalek (compare Samuel I 16, 14-27). This stain on the character of the Israelites (Saul and descendants) continued until the time of Mordechai when the Jews took revenge on their enemies without touching any part of the loot (Esther 9,16). Saul was punished measure for measure. Seeing that the Torah had made the wholeness of G’d’s throne dependent on the war against Amalek being waged by the Israelites, G’d deprived Saul of his own kingdom for failing to heed His instructions to the letter. He did not leave much of a name behind, both he and Yonathan his eldest being slain in battle. Mordechai had appreciated this lesson of history and this is why he exhorted all the Jews that on the day they would confront their enemies and defend their lives they were not to touch any of the possessions of the people against whom they would fight. Haman was a descendant of Amalek. The Torah had warned to “wipe out the memory of Amalek“ (Deut. 25,19), i.e. not to retain anything which ever belonged to that people.
We find that also concerning the battle against Amalek in the future the prophet Micah 4,13 warns: “and you will crush many peoples; you will devote their riches to the Lord, their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.”

זה ינחמנו, Lemech prayed that this son would provide him with the ability to take a rest from his heavy labour. The root of the word נח is מנוחה, rest, (retirement). The word is also used in connection with giving one a respite from one’s enemies, as in Esther 9,16.