9:32 Purim. The annual feast of Purim of the Jews was established by Esther and Mordecai as two days “of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor” (Esther 9:22), in commemoration of their remarkable deliverance from their imminent annihilation as a people and nation. The name Purim, meaning “lots,” seems a strange name for a holiday, but it was based on Haman’s evil device to “cast Pur, that is, the lot...to consume them, and to destroy them” (Esther 3:7; 9:24) when the month Adar (i.e., February–March) came. This decision by the lots (possibly specially marked stones), rather than helping Haman, turned out to have been so ordered by the Lord that a wait of almost a full year was required. It thus provided ample time for all the events to be set in motion which would finally bring Haman’s evil scheme back on his own head.