What if Haman, the Hitler of the Book of Esther, was not of Amalek, but was a Jew?

 

 

by

 Damien F. Mackey

 

 

“It is of interest to note that from this point in Israel’s history as the scriptures record it, Amalek is on the scene more consistently than any other nation in attack against Israel for the next 300 years, first assisting Eglon, then in association with Midian (Judges 6:3), and then in the days of

King Saul and David (1 Samuel 15 and 1 Samuel 30)”.

 

Dr. John Osgood

 

Introduction

 

That there is real uncertainty regarding the ethnicity of the conspiratorial Haman in the Book of Esther is apparent from the fact that he is designated amongst the various versions of the story, now as an Agagite, now as an Amalekite, now as a Macedonian, and, finally, as a Bougaean.

 

It is not inappropriate that the LXX should describe him as “a Bougaean” (Βουγαîος) because that word, Boogey-an, with one consonantal addition, becomes Boogeyman.

And, not only is Haman like a Boogeyman for the Jews, but apparently they relish Boo-ing him during the Feast of Purim.

 

Moreover, the Amalekite (Agagite) race from which most think that Haman could trace his descent, was thought to hover, like a dark Boogeyman, over the history of Israel.

 

And, indeed, some of this is true.

 

Amalek was Israel’s first enemy after they had escaped from Egypt.

This formidable foe had looked to deprive Israel of access to drinking water.

For this, the race was condemned by God to annihilation (Exodus 127:8-16):

 

The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, ‘Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands’.

So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven’.

Moses built an altar and called it The Lord is my Banner. He said, ‘Because hands were lifted up against the throne of the Lord, the Lord will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation’.

 

And Amalek will continue to be Israel’s most persistent enemy for centuries, as noted by Dr. John Osgood writing of the Judges period (emphasis added):

http://creation.com/the-time-of-the-judges-the-archaeology-b-settlement-and-apostasy

 

It is of interest to note that from this point in Israel’s history as the scriptures record it, Amalek is on the scene more consistently than any other nation in attack against Israel for the next 300 years, first assisting Eglon, then in association with Midian (Judges 6:3), and then in the days of King Saul and David (1 Samuel 15 and 1 Samuel 30).

 

Amalek and Benjamin

 

Most famous is the war between Amalek and the Benjaminite king, Saul, meant to be that war of total annihilation (I Samuel 15:2-3), the dreadful haram (חֲרַמְ):

 

The Lord All-Powerful says: ‘When the Israelites came out of Egypt, the Amalekites tried to stop them from going to Canaan. I saw what the Amalekites did. Now go fight against the Amalekites. You must completely destroy the Amalekites and everything that belongs to them. Don’t let anything live; you must kill all the men and women and all of their children and little babies. You must kill all of their cattle and sheep and all of their camels and donkeys’.  

 

Consequently, King Saul destroyed the Amalekites, but not entirely, famously sparing their king, Agag, as well as seizing everything else worth keeping (vv. 7-9).

 

The completion of the unfinished work, so the story goes, would be left to the Jewish hero of the Book of Esther, Mordecai – a Benjaminite descendant of Saul’s father, Kish, (Esther 2:5).

 

Thus we read:

Mordechai, Esther, and her Father’s House

….

The contemporary scholar Yitzhak Berger sees in Mordechai’s words not an emotional flourish but a political argument. Haman, we are told was an Agagite, and Mordechai and Esther were from the tribe of Benjamin.

 

Six centuries earlier the Benjaminite King Saul spared Agag, king of Amalek, against the express direction of God and the prophet Samuel, and was stripped of his kingdom for this misplaced mercy.

 

So Mordechai wasn’t just making an odd rhetorical flourish, he was, Berger writes, “redeeming the Benjaminite line from its association with the inadequacies of Saul—particularly in fighting Amalek.” Moreover, Esther and Mordechai’s ancestor Saul had been replaced by the more worthy David; now Esther, who herself had replaced the unworthy Vashti, could flip the script of her father’s Benjaminite house. Mordechai was reminding her that this was an opportunity not only to save herself and her people but to salvage their ancestor’s political legacy. ….

[End of quote]

 

There is a nice symmetry in a view such as this, and it makes for a terrific story.

 

Mordecai and Haman are described in Mordecai’s dream as like two great dragons (Esther 10:4-9, RSV Catholic Edition):

 

And Mor′decai said, ‘These things have come from God. For I remember the dream that I had concerning these matters, and none of them has failed to be fulfilled. The tiny spring which became a river, and there was light and the sun and abundant water—the river is Esther, whom the king married and made queen. The two dragons are Haman and myself. The nations are those that gathered to destroy the name of the Jews. And my nation, this is Israel, who cried out to God and were saved. The Lord has saved his people; the Lord has delivered us from all these evils; God has done great signs and wonders, which have not occurred among the nations’.

 

The trouble is, the hopeful parallel is not really there – and Haman, once again, is the problem, the obstructive Boogeyman.

 

Why?

 

Because, as even Jewish legends tell, Haman was a Jew, known to Mordecai. “Ginzberg furnishes substantial evidence that Mordecai and Haman were both Jews who knew each other well …”: Eugene Kaellis:

Welcome to the Jewish Independent

 

And I firmly believe this to have been the case, and I hope to have proven it in articles such as:

Haman un-masked

 

(1) Haman un-masked

 

On this shattering piece of traditional information the whole wonderful tale of Haman and Mordecai perpetuating the feud between Amalek and Benjamin falls flat on its face.

 

The fact is that David, after King Saul’s abysmal failure, went on campaign against the Amalekites (I Samuel 30:1-20).

They cease to be a factor in the Bible after that.

 

A new Benjamin (Netanyahu), however, ‘tilting at windmills’, is trying to perpetuate the ancient feud with Amalek:

 

Netanyahu likes to recall Amalek

 

(2) Netanyahu likes to recall Amalek

 

But is Iran really “the same ancestral land of Haman”?

 

(2) But is Iran really "the same ancestral land of Haman"?

But is Iran really “the same ancestral land of Haman”?

by

 Damien F. Mackey

  

“Twenty-five hundred years ago, in ancient Persia, a tyrant rose against us with the very same goal, to utterly destroy our people,” Netanyahu said. “Today as well, on Purim, the lot has fallen, and in the end this evil regime will fall too”.

 Benjamin Netanyahu

 

It seemed inevitable that such a comparison would be made.

Had I not recently written that:

 

Netanyahu likes to recall Amalek

 

(9) Netanyahu likes to recall Amalek

 

With an enormous following of Christian Zionists the Jewish nationalists must consider it to be most beneficial to their cause to ‘justify’ their war with Iran from the Bible, just as they appear to be doing in the case of their genocide of the Palestinians.

 

Just call Iran, the Palestinians, “Amalek”, as, indeed, they are doing, and away we go.

 

For was not he, Haman, who had tried to destroy the Jewish race an Amalekite?

And did he not dwell “in ancient Persia”, in modern Iran?

 

Consequently, a host of articles have arisen such as the one that follows, generally celebrating the demise of the modern-day Haman, Ayatollah ali Khamenei.

 

Death of Iranian leader just before Purim revives Book of Esther parallels - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

 

Death of Iranian leader just before Purim revives Book of Esther parallels

 

By Andrew Silow-Carroll March 2, 2026

 

The timing of Israel’s strike, days before the holiday, prompted religious and political figures to invoke themes from the biblical story set in ancient Persia.

 

 

In Jewish time, history often has a way of rhyming with the calendar. So when Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed in an Israeli air strike on the Shabbat before Purim — the holiday that commemorates the downfall of Haman, a Persian tyrant who sought to annihilate the Jews — it was perhaps inevitable that rabbis, politicians and social media commentators would reach for the Book of Esther.

 

Some did so reverently, others triumphantly, and a few with a wink. But as Jews prepared to don costumes and drown out Haman’s name with noisemakers, the ancient story of survival in Persia collided with a very modern war in what is now known as Iran.

 

Damien Mackey’s comment: The suggested “rhyming with the calendar” here may jar, however, if (i) the Israeli leaders had deliberately planned the assassination for Purim; if (ii) ancient Persia was nowhere near modern Iran; and if (iii) Haman was actually, as according to Jewish legend, himself - shock, horror - a Jew.

On (iii), see e.g. my article:

 

Although Haman in the Book of Esther had an Egyptian name, he was not Egyptian but was a Jewish king

 

(11) Although Haman in the Book of Esther had an Egyptian name, he was not Egyptian but was a Jewish king

 

Andrew Silow-Carroll’s article continues:

 

The Orthodox Union, the Modern Orthodox umbrella group, put out a statement titled “Purim in Our Time: Standing Up to Iranian Tyranny.” “We will read the Bible story of Esther and Mordecai overcoming the genocidal plans of Haman, who sought to destroy the Jewish people. Today, in coordination with Prime Minister Netanyahu and the IDF, President Trump and the U.S. armed forces took defensive action to silence a modern threat from the same ancestral land of Haman,” the statement read.

 

Such comparisons have proliferated since the killing of Khamenei.

 

Damien Mackey’s comment: Further on, though, I shall be considering my (ii) “ancient Persia was nowhere near modern Iran”.

Actually, we should already have known this from the Book of Tobit, according to which, going westwards, Haran (Charan) was equidistant from Nineveh, on the one hand, and from Ecbatana, on the other:

 

Geography of the Book of Tobit presents a fascinating challenge

 

(12) Geography of the Book of Tobit presents a fascinating challenge

 

Andrew Silow-Carroll’s article continues:

 

In his first statement after the beginning of the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the connection to Purim explicit.

“Twenty-five hundred years ago, in ancient Persia, a tyrant rose against us with the very same goal, to utterly destroy our people,” Netanyahu said. “Today as well, on Purim, the lot has fallen, and in the end this evil regime will fall too.”

 

Known as Persia until 1935, Iran has been belligerent toward Israel at least since the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79, which brought clerics like Khamenei, with their frequent chant of “Death to Israel,” to power. 

The holiday takes its cue from the Book of Esther, which describes how the Jewish queen to the Persian king Ahasuerus engineers the downfall of Haman, an advisor to the king who was plotting the murder of the kingdom’s Jews. Although Jewish tradition treats the book as historical — and Ahasuerus is often associated with the historical ruler Xerxes I — biblical scholars and historians tend to regard the story as what scholar Adele Berlin, author of “The JPS Bible Commentary: Esther,” called a “historical novella.”

 

Damien Mackey’s comment: The Book of Esther is a pure history:

 

Real historical characters in the Book of Esther

 

(12) Real historical characters in the Book of Esther

 

Andrew Silow-Carroll’s article continues:

 

Jews across the religious spectrum noted the comparison, often to different ends. Agudath Israel of America, the haredi Orthodox umbrella group, talked about prayer and salvation in its statement about the war.

 

“The upcoming Jewish holiday of Purim celebrates the downfall of those who rose up against the Jewish People in ancient Persia nearly 2,400 years ago,” it read (the events described in Esther are thought to have taken place in the fifth or fourth century BCE). “We are reminded how the key to the miraculous salvation was the heartfelt prayers of men, women, and children. While prayer is always powerful, our sages have taught that it carries special power during the Purim holiday season. We call upon the Jewish community to unite in prayer and beseech the Almighty to protect all those on the front lines and in harm’s way in Israel and across the Middle East.”

 

Rabbi Nicole Guzik, senior rabbi at Sinai Temple, a Conservative congregation in Los Angeles, spoke about human agency in her hastily rewritten Saturday sermon.

“Right now we stand at a critical stage where the story shifts, where the final paragraph in the Megillah that we are reading right now, in real time, has yet to be written,” she said, using the Hebrew name for a scroll like the Book of Esther. “The U.S., Israel, our beloved nations are holding the pen, and they are declaring, with courage and conviction, that we will be the authors of our future in the same manner as Esther.”

 

Some of the comparisons have been offhanded, even flippant. The novelist Dara Horn, speaking Sunday night at a forum on combating antisemitism at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, said, “Tomorrow night is Purim, and I think it’s clear to all of us now that the best way to fight antisemitism is to take out Haman with an F-15.”

 

Comedian Yohay Sponder, an Israeli who often performs in North America, posted a video of a routine commenting on the death of Khamenei. Like the Purim hamantaschen cookies named after Haman, he predicted a time when Jews will eat a food named after the slain Iranian leader. He suggested khamin, the Shabbat stew also known as cholent.

 

Others have already adapted hamantaschen for the moment. Some have joked about baking “Khamentaschen,” combining the new nemesis’ name with the treat named for an ancient one. At least one bakery in Israel produced “Ayatollah-taschens” with a chocolate center resembling Khamenei’s trademark turban.

 

Evangelical Christians and Messianic Jews, for whom the Esther story has had increasing significance in recent years, also seized on the parallels. “It all made an amazing story back then, and we are praying for an equally miraculous outcome in our days that will lead to the salvation of many in Israel, Iran, and throughout the whole Middle East,” the One For Israel Ministry, a U.S.-based Messianic group, posted on Facebook..

 

Meanwhile, some suggested that the timing of the attacks appeared to be more than a coincidence. Digital creator Evan Pickus noted in a Facebook post that, according to the Book of Esther, Haman was hanged on the gallows just days before the calendar date that became Purim. “The evil Persian Prime Minister [sic], who issued a promise to kill all the Jews, destroyed on the same day as his ancestor,” wrote Pickus. “I honestly believe our leaders planned it this way, and I love that.”

 

Although no Israeli or U.S. official has said they planned the attack with Purim in mind, the idea became a talking point over the weekend, especially after CNN posted a report by Israel correspondent Tal Shalev saying the comparisons had been widely shared in Israel.

Shalev also wrote of the significance of the attacks on the Iranian leaders’ compound falling on Shabbat Zachor, the “Sabbath of Remembrance” that precedes Purim on the Hebrew calendar. The day takes its name from a special Torah reading (Deuteronomy 25:17-19) commanding Jews never to forget how Amalek — said to be the ancestral nation of Haman — attacked the vulnerable Israelites after they left Egypt. The Israelites are given a somewhat contradictory command: “Blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!” ….

[End of quotes]

 

But ancient Persia was nowhere near modern Iran

 

Though I grew up with the firm view that Media and Persia were ancient lands well to the east, in and around modern Iran, a bombshell (2022) article by Royce Erickson has turned that all around for me.

I refer to his groundbreaking (to say the least):

 

PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY

 

(12) A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY

 

I wrote about this, and other geographical shocks that I had begun to experience. in my article:

 

More geographical ‘tsunamis’: lands of Elam and Chaldea

 

(12) More geographical ‘tsunamis’: lands of Elam and Chaldea

 

Persia, and related countries, Media, Elam, were actually in Anatolia (Cilicia).

 

As already alluded to above, we could have known this much earlier, from the geographical information provided by the Book of Tobit.

 

See on this:

 

Search for the Median empire

 

(3) Search for the Median empire

 

Ecbatana and Rages in Media

 

(12) Ecbatana and Rages in Media

 

 

Righteous priest Simeon a witness to when Child Jesus brought to Temple

 

 

by

 Damien F. Mackey

  

“For now in my old age, people—including the evangelist St. Luke—describe me

as “righteous and devout” (v. 25)—a man who lived a life that was oriented to God and in accordance with the will of God, committed, in other words, to hearing 

and obeying the word of the Lord”.

 

 

https://emmausinstitute.net/now-dismiss-nunc-dimittis-your-servant-in-peace-o-lord/

Adapted from “Biblical Meditations for a Blessed Advent: The Nativity Hymns in Luke’s Gospel”

 

Presented by The Emmaus Institute for Biblical Studies Faculty
December 7, 2019

~~~

Candlemas, 2021

 

Now Dismiss [Nunc dimittis] Your Servant in Peace, O LORD

 

Greetings, Good Friends. Please allow me to introduce myself.

 

My name is Šimʿôn. You probably know me as Simeon, and you can read the story I am about to tell you in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, verses 22-35.

 

Like my namesake, Simeon in the Old Testament, my name derives from šāmaʿ, meaning “to hear.” His parents, Jacob and Leah, named him that because the LORD heard his mother’s affliction and rewarded her with the gift of a son (Gen 29:33). In my case, I have always wondered if my parents might have named me Šimʿôn in hopes that I would grow up to be a man who hears the voice of the Lord. If so, their hopes and aspirations for me were realized.

 

For now in my old age, people—including the evangelist St. Luke—describe me as “righteous and devout” (v. 25)—a man who lived a life that was oriented to God and in accordance with the will of God, committed, in other words, to hearing and obeying the word of the Lord. In fact, because I listened so closely to what God had said through his prophet Isaiah, I was among the faithful who were “looking for the consolation of Israel” (v. 25; cf. Isa 40:1; 49:13; 51:3; 61:1; 66:13)—waiting and longing for the coming of the Messiah to bring salvation and peace to my people and to the world. That was my consuming focus in life; everything else was secondary.

 

There’s one more thing you should know about me personally, and then I will stop talking about myself and get on with my story.

 

I do not say this presumptuously or boastfully, but I was a man deeply attuned to God’s presence—“the Holy Spirit was upon [me]” (v. 25), as he was earlier upon Mary (1:35). The Holy Spirit illumined my thoughts, guided my actions, and inspired my words. And like Mary before, I heard when the Spirit spoke, and I obeyed his voice.

 

And this is where my story begins to get interesting. For you see, “it had been revealed to [me] by the Holy Spirit that I should not see death before I had seen the Lord’s Christ” (v. 26), the promised Messiah, for whose coming I had longed and waited. Mind you, the Spirit did not say simply that I would not die before the Messiah had come, but that I would not “see death” before I had actually seen the Messiah! In case you missed it, that’s a lot of emphasis on seeing. You’ve probably heard it said that “seeing is believing.” For me, it was precisely the other way around: I had long believed in the Lord and in his Holy Word; and it was my believing that led to my seeing—in a more profound way than you might imagine. Let me explain.

 

As I was introducing myself a few moments ago, I failed to mention that I lived in Jerusalem, not far from the Temple. As you know, that was the place where God was especially present. One day the Holy Spirit directed me to go into the Temple. And so I did. Call it coincidence or call it Providence—I prefer the latter—it just so happened to be the very day when Jesus’ “parents” brought their infant to the Temple “to present him to the Lord . . . according to the custom of the law” (vv. 22, 27). Let me fill in a little of the background.

 

When Jesus was born to Mary, and Joseph her husband became his foster father, he was born to parents who not only complied with the law of the Lord concerning the rite of a mother’s purification after childbirth, but who actually exceeded its strict requirements. After all, the circumstances of Mary’s conception and Jesus’ birth had not rendered her ritually unclean, as it did under normal conditions of pregnancy and birth. Yet, she and her husband followed the legal regulations just the same, voluntarily, as a model of humility and to avoid scandalizing others. And so they brought to the Temple that day “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,” as permitted by the law in the case of the poor (v. 24; cf. Lev 12).

 

(It’s important to note, parenthetically, that he who would one day minister to the poor “came by it naturally,” as we might say. He was born into poverty.)

 

There was a second reason for Joseph and Mary’s coming to the Temple that day—not only for purification, unnecessary as it was, but also for presentation—to hand over their newborn Son to the Lord, to offer him up completely in the service of God, his Father (v. 22). This too not only accorded with the law of the Lord, but exceeded what was stipulated there (cf. Exod 13). For rather than “redeeming” or “buying back” their Son, so to speak, by paying a small monetary offering to support the Levitical priests in their duties at the Temple—a provision entirely permissible by law—they had brought their Son to the Temple as an act of pure and complete devotion. Although Jesus would return to Nazareth with his parents (v. 39), he would remain wholly and permanently dedicated to God (cf. 1 Sam 2:35; Heb 2:17).

 

You’re probably getting the impression by now that I was not the only one “righteous and devout” and well-versed in God’s word. Jesus’ parents were carefully devoted to living in full accordance with whatever pleased the Lord, even surpassing the strict requirements of the law—all as an expression of their great love for and desire to please God. “Just the bare minimum” was not a category known to them. They loved the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and with everything they had, including their newborn Son.

 

Returning then to my story, so there we were in the Temple—the five of us: Mary, Joseph, the infant Jesus, myself, and the Holy Spirit who was upon me and who had guided me to the Temple that day.

 

And now for the moment to which all of this has been building. It was there, in the Temple, that my eyes first fell on “the Lord’s Christ” (v. 26); and receiving him into my arms, knowing him to be the One for whom I had been longing, I offered my song of blessing to God:

 

“[Nunc dimittis] Now dismiss your servant in peace, O Lord,
      according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation
      which you have prepared in the presence of all the peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and the glory of your people Israel” (vv. 29-32).

 

I uttered these words because I knew that when my eyes fell upon the child Jesus, I had seen the salvation of the Lord—exactly as it had been revealed to me by the Holy Spirit, that I would not see death until I had seen the Lord’s Christ. I knew in that moment that the Child now cradled in my arms was not only a future Savior-Deliverer of my people, but the One who embodied salvation itself. To see him was to see salvation. Salvation, in other words, was not just an event or an experience; it was a Person (cf. Lk 3:4-6). And having seen salvation, nothing else mattered. I was prepared to depart in peace—the very peace about which the angels had sung: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased” (Lk 2:14). Humbly, I knew myself to be such a man.

 

There was more to the words I uttered in blessing to the Lord that day. In fact, every line in my song was pregnant with meaning drawn from the prophecies of Isaiah. My mention of peace, of salvation for all peoples, a light shining on the Gentiles and the glory of Israel—all of these lines and images were drawn from the pages of Isaiah over which I had pored (e.g., Isa 40:3-5; 42:5-6; 46:13; 49:6; 52:9-10; 56:1; 60:1).

 

True to my name, as I previously explained, I had heard the word of the Lord, the Scriptures; and it informed my understanding of the One whose coming I had long anticipated. I had seen the imprint of the Messiah in the words of God’s prophet.

So there we were in the Temple—the Holy Spirit upon me, the Child Jesus in my arms, his parents standing nearby. In that moment, it was clear that heaven had come to earth. What creation longed for was coming to fulfillment. The glorious purposes for which God had called Israel into existence as his covenant people had been realized in their bringing forth the Lord’s Messiah. God had heard the prayerful cries of his people, and light had come to dispel the darkness in which the nations had wandered. In the infant Jesus the glory of the Lord was at long last returning to the Temple in fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy (cf. Ezek 43).

 

It was a moment like no other—little wonder that Jesus’ father and mother “marveled at what was said about him” (v. 33) in the words of my blessing-song to the Lord.

 

This article will conclude with the remainder of Simeon’s wonderful ‘autobiography’.

 

But, now, I want to set the whole incident in a greatly revised historical context.

 

Tracing back the priest Simeon’s

exceptionally long life, and Anna

 

Whereas the Maccabean age - when the pious Jews fought against the Seleucid Greek invader, to protect the Temple in Jerusalem - is customarily dated to about two centuries before the Birth of Jesus Christ, I have collapsed this era, in part, right into the time of the Nativity.

 

The evil Seleucid persecutor, king Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’, now becomes the Census emperor of Luke 2:1, “Caesar Augustus” (actually a Greek, not a Roman), who is also the Grecophile emperor, Hadrian:

 

Time to consider Hadrian, that ‘mirror-image’ of Antiochus Epiphanes, as also the census emperor Augustus

 

(2) Time to consider Hadrian, that 'mirror-image' of Antiochus Epiphanes, as also the census emperor Augustus

 

Now, all of a sudden, with Augustus Hadrian ruling during the Infancy of Jesus Christ, it becomes possible that some of the Maccabeans had actually seen – had certainly heard about – the Advent of the Christ Child.

 

And so I have suggested, for instance, that the widow with seven sons, traditionally known as Hannah (one version, at least), was none other than the aged prophetess, Anna, who had, with the priest Simeon, actually laid eyes on the baby Jesus:

 

Hadrianic patterns of martyrdom

 

(3) Hadrianic patterns of martyrdom

 

“Nameless in 4 Maccabees, the mother is dubbed … Hannah …

in the rabbinic tradition …. The tyrant in the rabbinic versions, however,

is not Antiochus Epiphanes but Hadrian:

“Hadrian came and seized upon a widow …”.”

 

Stephen D. Moore

 

 

If this be the case, then Anna (Hannah) must have been so greatly strengthened by having seen and proclaimed the Messiah, that she was able to face martyrdom, and also to urge her seven sons to do the same (Luke 2:36-38):

 

There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

 

Might not also our priest, Simeon, who was there in the Temple with Anna at the time of the Presentation, re-emerge in the tales of the Maccabees? Let us see.

 

The former High Priest, Jesus (Joshua)

 

Two themes will enable me to condense the long life of our NT priest, Simeon - both of these themes being rather singular.

 

-         The first will be the utterly singular fact of having been in a fire.

-         The second will be his reputation as a Father of the Jews.

 

It is not every day that someone is in the heart of a fire yet emerges therefrom unharmed.

That I believe to have been the situation with the young (i) Azariah of Daniel 3; with (ii) the high priest, Jesus (Joshua), “plucked out of the fire” (Zechariah 3:2); and with (iii) Jesus ben Sirach (Sirach 51).

 

Thus I have merged all three (i-iii) of these as one in my article:

 

High Priest, Jesus (Joshua), brand plucked out of the fire

 

(3) High Priest, Jesus (Joshua), brand plucked out of the fire

 

This means a dramatic shortening of the Chaldean era (Azariah); the Medo-Persian period (Jesus/Joshua); and the Hellenistic period (Jesus ben Sirach).

 

Now, the life of the long-lived Ezra (120 years, according to tradition), priest-scribe, also spanned the Chaldean to Medo-Persian eras, and we find him still publicly proclaiming the Torah even in Maccabean times.

For Ezra (Esdras) was the same as the Maccabean priest, Esdrias, and also Razis, with whom Ezra shares the epithet, “Father of the Jews”:

 

Ezra ‘Father of the Jews’ dying the death of Razis

 

(4) Ezra 'Father of the Jews' dying the death of Razis

 

He, too, as Razis will, like Hannah and her sons, die a most violent death.

Whereas Hannah’s persecutor was the king himself, Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ (Hadrian), the persecutor of Razis was the king’s general, Nicanor.

 

In these articles I have put it all together as follows:

 

Ezra (Azariah) was son of Jehozadak, son of Seraiah.

The high priest, Jesus, was son of Jehozadak, son of Seraiah.

Jesus (author of Sirach), was son of Eleazer, son of Sira[ch].

 

As Azariah, Ezra was in the Burning Fiery Furnace.

As the high priest, Jesus, he was “plucked out of the fire”.

And so, apparently, as Jesus ben Sirach, was he “in the heart of a fire”

(Sirach 51:1, 2, 4):

 

‘I will give thanks to you, Lord and King … for you have been protector and

support to me, and redeemed my body from destruction … from the stifling

heat which hemmed me in, from the heart of a fire which I had not kindled’.

 

From all of this we learn that Ezra had been the High Priest, and, most surprisingly, that he died violently under persecution from the Greeks.

 

Judas Maccabeus would later order the beheading of Nicanor (2 Maccabees 15:30).

 

Ok, so the great Ezra began as young Azariah in Babylonian Captivity, and later, in the Medo-Persian period, returned to officiate as High Priest when the Second Temple was completed.

As a wise and learned sage and scribe, he wrote the wisdom Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), and fought and preached during the Maccabean wars.

 

But what has any of this to do with Luke’s priest, Simeon?

 

Well, chronologically, a connection of Ezra with Simeon has become possible, now, with my folding of the Maccabean era, when Ezra was still alive, with the Infancy period of Jesus Christ.

And, while we do not wish to multiply names – we already have Ezra (Azariah, Esdrias, Razis - good fits) and Jesus (Joshua, Jesus ben Sirach - good fits) – how does the name Simeon become relevant.

 

The name gets mixed into the pure sequence of Jesus ben Sirach’s genealogy, “Jesus, son of Eliezer, son of Sira,” where the name Simeon intrudes as the son of Jesus:

Ben Sira - Wikipedia

"Shimʽon, son of Yeshuaʽ, son of Elʽazar ben Siraʼ" (Hebrew: שמעון בן ישוע בן אלעזר בן סירא) …”.

 

If we combine Simeon here with Jesus, then this enables for our long-lived priest to be also Simeon, and, perhaps, even the Simeon of Luke 2.

 

Would it be pushing matters too far to say that the righteous Simeon of Luke was the famous Simeon (or Simon) the Just?

 

Now, finally, we can let old Simeon finish his story:

 

And so I blessed them as well, with an oracle directed specifically to Mary, his mother—a second stanza to my song. Unlike the first stanza, however, this one sounded its ominous notes in a minor key, casting a shadow over the Child’s future. For at the climax of his life, this baby, come of age, would reenter the Temple, this time for the purpose of passing judgment on it and declaring his own body as the new Temple. And shortly thereafter, on the Cross, he would offer that body to the Father in a final Temple sacrifice.

 

And so, the joy of stanza 1 turned to sorrow in stanza 2, as I warned the infant’s mother of the difficult path that lay ahead for both him and her:

 

Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel,
      and for a sign that is spoken against;
(and a sword will pierce through your own soul also),
      in order that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed (vv. 34-35).

 

Here, too, I drew on what I had read and heard from Isaiah, who prophesied that the Lord would exalt the lowly and bring down the proud (Isa 2:11, 17; cf. Lk 1:52-53), “as a stone of offense, and a rock of stumbling to . . . Israel” (Isa 8:14). Alongside the social upheaval the Messiah would bring, truly his Cross would be a “sign of contradiction”—a sign that works precisely against the mindset and methods of the world, that realizes its objective not through power over, but through power under, and accordingly is opposed, spoken against, contradicted. The Messiah will draw a line in the sand of Israel, causing a division between those who accept him and those who reject him, between those who take the side of God’s mission in the world and those who oppose it, between those who choose and those who refuse the gift of salvation. Such is the scandal of the Cross.

 

And offering a prophecy, with the Holy Spirit upon me, I warned Mary of what she might already have suspected, that suffering lay ahead for her as well—“a sword will pierce through your own soul also.” The Cross of radical contradiction against the Son would be directed against his mother as well, and it would cut to the heart. And like her Son, who came to his own and his own received him not (Jn 1:11), and who agonized over their refusal to be gathered together, united in him (Lk 13:34-35).

 

If it seems like a strange and unlikely way to “bless” Jesus’ parents, it would be precisely by means of the sword of pain and anguish, in which Jesus’ mother participated with her Son, that the inmost thoughts of many hearts would be exposed—some accepting, others rejecting. Jesus must suffer, and with him Our Lady of Sorrows, in order that others might see themselves in the light of infinite love and open their hearts to the salvation that comes by way of the Cross.