Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently (March 21, 2019) asserted that Donald Trump’s support for Israeli annexation of the Golan-Heights has anti-Iranian biblical antecedents. The annexation would strengthen Israel’s position vis-à-vis pro-Iranian forces in Syria. Calling it a “Purim Miracle,” Netanyahu cited the Book of Esther where purportedly Jews killed Persians in what is today Iran rather than the other way around as the Persian viceroy Haman planned. This came to pass thanks to Esther’s finding favor with the Persian King named Ahasuerus, the ruler considered today by scholars to be Xerxes, the grandson of King Cyrus the Great; in need of a new queen Xerxes selected the Jewish orphan Esther as the most beautiful of all the young women in his empire. High ranking government officials like Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo rally to the idea that Trump was created by God to save the Jewish people. Indeed, BaptistNews.com reports that, when asked about it in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Secretary of State Pompeo said it is possible that God raised up President Trump, just as He had Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the menace of Iran, as Persia is known today. Pompeo added “I am confident that the Lord is at work here.”

However, the account in the Book of Esther is contested by scholars since there are there are no historical records to back up the biblical story; and the Cinderella elements in the narrative should require outside verification.  Moreover, the Book of Esther itself is not considered canonical by many (Martin Luther among them) and parts of it are excluded from the Protestant Bible. These are details though – the key point is that the Feast of Purim is an important event, celebrating as it does the special relationship between God and His Chosen People; bringing Donald Trump into this is simply blasphemy.

For its part, the reign of Xerxes is well documented – he was the Persian invader of Greece whose forces prevailed at Thermopylae but were then defeated at the Battle of Salamis. According to Herodotus, Xerxes watched battles perched on a great throne and, at Thermopylae he “thrice leaped from the throne on which he sat in terror for his army.”

Moreover, there is well-documented history where the Persians came to the aid of the Jews. Some background: the First Temple in Jerusalem was built during the reign of King Solomon (970-931 BC); the Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 598 BC and a large portion of the population was exiled to Babylon. With the conquest of Babylon in 539 BC by the Persian King Cyrus the Great, the Babylonian Captivity came to an end, Jews returned to Jerusalem and began the construction of the Second Temple (515 BC). It was also Cyrus himself who urged the rebuilding of the Temple and, for his efforts on behalf of the Jews, Cyrus is the only non-Jew considered a Messiah in the Hebrew Bible (Isaiah 45:1). So here we have a reason for Israelis and Iranians to celebrate history they share.