(Sorry this is so late! Crazy full fun week with family 🙂 And Ali in the ER getting 4 stitches on her cheek 🙁 But she’s doing great and doesn’t even notice them)

Every good story has to have a villain. Where would we be w/o the protagonist moving things along? Good stories have good villains but great stories have unforgettable villains. Esther has a great villain. Cold, calculated, smart, and completely unable to see what’s right in front of his eyes at just the right moments.
Now, at the end of chap 2 we see King “headache” having his life saved by Mordecai “the Jew.” This Mordecai also happens to secretly be related to the new queen Esther (who has been told by Mordecai to tell no one of her lineage). Normally at this point you would expect the text to mention some sort of reward being given to Mordecai. If you know you have enemies you want to be especially kind to your friends. However, our dear king is either forgetful, lazy, or too self-absorbed and doesn’t reward Mordecai.
Instead, chap 3 begins by telling us that a man named Haman an Agagite was honored above all over officials by the king. Enter the villain!
Who is Haman? Well, to understand that we need to go back to 1 Samuel 15. There Saul, the 1st king of Israel, was told by God to completely wipe out the people known as the Amalekites….
(To understand that you need to read Gen-Deut – the Bible is ONE story and is suppose to be read front to back like any good story, not a chunk here and a verse there. Each author expects that you know what has come before but anyway, enough of my soapbox) … 
Saul refuses and actually leaves the king, among others alive. And the king’s name is Agag. Samuel the prophet comes, declares Saul’s sin, and tells him he is going to lose his kingship and then kills Agag himself.
Haman, the Bible tells us, is an Agagite, in other words in the line of Agag. The Rabbis explain this by saying Agag was left alive long enough to go sleep with his wife, get her pregnant, and then gets killed by Samuel. Interesting, but however it occurred, not every Amalekite was killed bc Agag’s descendants are still alive during this time. Haman is not suppose to be there. If Saul had fully obeyed God, Agag and all his people would have been killed right away so there would be no one left.
Haman is around bc Saul sinned so don’t expect good things from Haman…
Next – Esther: The Problem