Esther 9:26
Wherefore they called these days Purim after the name of Pur. Therefore for all the words of this letter, and of that which they had seen concerning this matter, and which had come unto them, Wherefore they called these days Purim after the name of Pur. Therefore for all the words of this letter, and of that which they had seen concerning this matter, and which had come unto them,
The days were called Purim after the name of Pur, and in this naming the origin of the feast and its observance is given. The name and its keeping rest upon all the words of the letter and upon what had been seen, witnessed, and experienced in the events of the deliverance. Pur means lot or lots, referring to the casting of lots. It was the lot that Haman cast in his plan to destroy the Jews.
The setting is Haman's plot under King Ahasuerus to destroy all God's people, the Jews scattered through the Persian kingdom of Medo-Persia. Haman, a descendant of Agag and counselor to the king, in hatred of the Jews used his influence to obtain the king's decree to destroy them. God frustrated that attempt and saved His people through His overruling providence by a counter decree, bringing about the overthrow of their enemies. In this He preserved the godly line and the people through whom the promised Man Child would come.
The days commemorate the Jews' escape and deliverance from Haman's plot and were set apart as a continuing memorial. They mark the triumphant vindication of God's people and the utter and absolute defeat of wicked Haman as the devil's agent. Purim fell on the fourteenth and fifteenth of Adar, about a month before Passover. It was observed by reading Esther in the synagogues with feasting, rejoicing, sharing food, and giving gifts to the poor, and if Purim fell on a Sabbath its observance was deferred. In modern Jewish practice it is observed on Adar 14 as a carnival. The account belongs to God's delivering His people from a decree that threatened their lives, teaching deliverance when people are pressured to follow human commands in worship.