Purim is here and Israel is at war with Iran once again

The ancient biblical festival of Purim is here again, this year celebrated from sundown March 2 to sundown March 3. And once again, Israel is at war with Iran. Could it be that history will repeat itself, the evildoers in Iran will be vanquished, and Israel will be delivered from her enemies?

The Book of Esther, recounting events that took place 2,400 years ago, tells the story of the sinister plot of Haman, a highly esteemed Persian official, to wipe out the Jewish people throughout the vast Persian empire. But in a stunning, sovereign reversal of fortune, the Jewish people were allowed to fight back, vanquishing their attackers. Haman, for his part, was humiliated and put to death, while the Jewish man he hated, named Mordechai, was highly exalted.

What will happen today, in 2026? And what will the events that transpire in the coming days mean for the people of Iran, the people of Israel, the people of the region, and the people of the world? And what are the implications of the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei, who often threatened Israel with extermination, killed by an Israeli bomb strike just two days before Purim?

Obviously, that remains to be seen, and it would be foolhardy to make predictions, as there are countless known and unknown factors still at play.

After all, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003 paved the way for the rise of ISIS, leading to horrific suffering for many, not the least the Christians of Iraq, who were threatened with genocide and exile.

That’s why, above all, people of faith should be asking God for His hand to be at work, just as it was at work in the days of Esther and Mordechai. May His kingdom come and His will be done in Iran, Israel and the nations!

Still, it is hard not to recognize the coincidence of the moment, as this is not the first time in Jewish history that Purim signaled a miraculous deliverance for the Jewish people.

To be sure, the Nazis would often subject their Jewish captives to especially cruel treatment on Purim, as if to mock the God of the Jews and the God of Purim. “Where is your God now?”

Yet the Nazis died in infamy while the Jewish people live on.

And the Jewish population of Israel today is almost two million people more than the number of Jews slaughtered by the Nazis.

Who could have imagined this in the midst of the ashes of the Holocaust and the rubble of European Jewry, let alone the situation on the ground at that time in Palestine?

The God of the Book of Esther is still at work on planet earth.

As for other examples of apparent divine intervention in recent Jewish history, in 1953, Purim fell on Feb. 28-March 1.

At that time the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, himself a staunch antisemite, was in the midst of planning out his so-called “Doctors’ Plot.” This was a fabricated conspiracy accusing Jewish physicians of plotting to kill him, which would have given him “justification” to demonize all Jews in the Soviet regime.

But before Stalin could carry out his plot, he suffered a massive stroke, right in the midst of Purim. (According to some accounts, he had his stroke during or right after a meeting where his anti-Jewish plans were discussed.) He lingered for a few days and died on March 5.

This directly halted his orders for the mass arrest, show trials, execution of the Jewish doctors and deportation of hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of Soviet Jews to Siberia (a near-certain death sentence for many). Thousands of Jewish prisoners were also released around that time.

To all appearances, the God of Purim was at work once again.

Then again, in 1991, a seemingly providential event took place in conjunction with Purim, this time falling on Feb. 27-28. This was when President George H.W. Bush declared a ceasefire in the First Gulf War.

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had launched 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the war, threatened chemical attacks and explicitly compared himself to ancient Babylonian kings like Nebuchadnezzar, who had destroyed the Jewish Temple.

Despite the attacks, Israeli casualties were remarkably low (only a handful directly from missiles; many failed to explode or caused minimal damage due to factors like wind, timing and early warnings). The war ended abruptly after a swift coalition ground offensive, with Iraq’s forces defeated and retreating.

Israelis celebrated Purim that year by removing gas masks and sealed-room tape, often calling it a “modern Purim” or “Purim Saddam.”

What is fascinating, though, is that there is not a single explicit reference to God in the Book of Esther, despite His hand being evident throughout the entire book.

Could the same thing happen today, with a divine hand pulling strings beyond human decisions, resulting in the fall of a tyrannical regime in Iran, the liberation of the people of Iran, the destruction of an archenemy of Israel and the end of an exporter of fanatical terrorism?

May the will of the Lord be done, and may His kingdom come! May the God of the Book of Esther arise once again!