Mordecai

Overview

Mordecai was a Jewish exile living in Susa, the Persian capital, who raised his orphaned cousin Hadassah, better known as Esther, as his own daughter. When Esther was taken into the king's harem and eventually chosen as queen, Mordecai instructed her to conceal her Jewish identity, while he continued sitting at the king's gate, where he uncovered and reported a plot to assassinate King Ahasuerus, an act of loyalty initially left unrewarded. When the powerful official Haman rose to prominence and demanded that all bow to him, Mordecai's refusal, rooted in his identity as a Jew, provoked Haman's fury and his subsequent plot to destroy the entire Jewish people throughout the empire. Mordecai's urgent appeal moved Esther to risk her life by approaching the king uninvited, and through a remarkable providential reversal, Mordecai was honored by the very king who had been persuaded to destroy his people, Haman was executed on the gallows he had built for Mordecai, and Mordecai rose to become second only to the king, using his position to secure the Jews' deliverance and establish the ongoing feast of Purim.