The Book of Esther is the only book in the Hebrew Bible in which God is never named. Because of the absence of the divine name, Jewish sages spent centuries debating whether the book even belonged in the Bible. To them, a holy text without a single mention of God felt out of place in a sacred collection. The irony, however, is that while God’s name is missing, his hand guides every unlikely twist and turn of the narrative. The writer shows that even a dramatic series of “coincidences” can be divinely orchestrated.
Two thousand years later, it is impossible to ignore God’s hand once again in the fall of an evil Persian regime. The surprise air strikes by U.S. and Israeli forces that succeeded in killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei happened on the eve of Purim—the holiday celebrating Esther and Mordecai’s success in rescuing the Jewish people from a genocidal plot. The headlines acknowledging the death of the primary leaders in the Islamic Republic may not have mentioned God, but the timing has divine fingerprints all over it.
Every year on the Sabbath before Purim, Jews read Parshat Zachor, the “Portion of Remembrance,” from Deuteronomy 25. This text commands the people to “remember what Amalek did to you” and to “blot out the memory” of their ancient enemy:
Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt, how he met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear, when you were weary and worn out; and he did not fear God. Therefore, it shall be, when the Lord your God has given you rest from your enemies all around, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, that you will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget. (Deut. 25:17–19 NKJV)
Because Haman was a descendant of the Amalekite king, the reading is meant to prepare celebrants for the story of Esther spiritually. On Saturday, February 28, 2026, as synagogues recited these exact words, the modern-day “Amalek” in Tehran was dismantled. The fall of the evil regime, after forty years of sponsoring terror all over the Middle East, represents the closing of a 2,500-year-old circle.
God’s anger toward Amalek is rooted in the fact that they struck when Israel was at its most vulnerable, doing so because “they did not fear God.” This is the same spirit that drove Hamas on October 7. They targeted the vulnerable and sought to break the Jewish spirit. Yet, after enduring the most difficult two years in its history—fighting a grueling seven-front war—Israel has changed the entire geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. The world is undeniably safer, and the Jewish state stands stronger than ever.
Astonishingly, the execution of Khamenei is not the first time a “Haman-like” figure fell on the eve of Purim. There is a well-documented pattern of “Purim Miracles” in which threats of annihilation to the Jewish people vanish overnight. In 1953, Joseph Stalin was in the middle of preparing a massive deportation of Soviet Jews when he suffered a fatal stroke on the night of Purim. Decades later, in 1991, the Gulf War ended with a ceasefire on Purim, abruptly stopping the rain of Scud missiles on Israel. These are not just historical footnotes. Just as the Bible invites us to see God’s hand in ancient Israel, we are lucky enough to watch his direct intervention in our own time.
Look at the sheer carelessness of the Iranian leadership last weekend. It mirrors Haman’s blind arrogance perfectly. It was a massive failure in judgment for the regime’s top brass to gather in one spot on a morning when U.S. and Israeli forces were already primed and waiting. With carrier strike groups and precision missile systems blanketed across the Middle East, the “gallows” were already built. For a leadership that spent years playing shadow games, this one meeting ensured they were all wiped out in a single stroke.
It was a scene straight out of the Megillah. Remember that Haman walked into the King’s inner court fully expecting to finish off Mordecai. He had no idea the King was already prepared to honor his victim and hang Haman on his own gallows instead. In both cases, the godless were so blinded by their own power that they completely missed the righteous judgment standing right at their doorstep.
The passage in Deuteronomy that commands Israel to remember Amalek also promises that the Lord would one day give Israel “rest from all your enemies around you.” Over these two years, we have witnessed the collapse of every hostile state and every terrorist group surrounding the Jewish state. We hope and pray that Israel is finally entering that promised rest. After two years of nonstop war, may it be so. May we be entering the moment God promised—a time when those who seek the destruction of the Jewish people are weakened, erased, and quieted.
