Hebrew Purim, plural of pur, "lot" — named after the lots Haman cast to determine the date on which the Jews were to be annihilated (Esther 3:7). A two-day Jewish feast commemorating the deliverance recorded in the book of Esther, falling on the 14th and 15th of Adar (February-March). The festival is not among the three pilgrim feasts commanded in the Mosaic Law (Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot); it was instituted by Mordecai and Esther (Esther 9:20-32) as a memorial of God's providential rescue of the Jews from Haman's genocide plot in the Persian court of Xerxes.
Purim is the Bible's most unusual feast and the one that dramatizes providence most sharply. Four observations. (1) God's name does not appear in the book of Esther. Not once. Yet every page is about His sovereign, concealed hand delivering His people from extinction. Purim celebrates providence where no miracle happens, no prophet speaks, no angel appears — and yet God wins the chess game move by move. This kind of deliverance is the common experience of most Christians in most generations. (2) Reversal is the theme. "For the Jews it had been a day of sorrow and mourning that had been turned for them into gladness and a day of celebration" (Esther 9:22). Haman is hanged on the gallows he built for Mordecai; the gallows intended for the deliverer becomes the fate of the oppressor. This pattern — the reversal of intended evil into divine good — is stamped into the cross itself. (3) Joy and feasting. Purim is a raucously joyful festival by design — reading of the scroll, gift-giving to the poor (mishloach manot), feasting, even costumes and drinking (traditionally until one cannot tell the difference between "Blessed be Mordecai" and "Cursed be Haman"). Joy is a biblical duty when God has rescued. (4) Anti-Semitism's pattern. Haman is the Bible's archetype of the anti-Semite, and every Haman in history (Pharaoh, Antiochus Epiphanes, Hadrian, Hitler) has shared his fate. The Jewish people's continued existence after three millennia of annihilation attempts is a standing Purim — a monument to God's covenant faithfulness and the futility of opposing Him.