Esther 9:7
Parshandatha stands in biblical history as the eldest of the ten sons of Haman the Agagite, the bitter adversary of the Jewish people during the Persian exile under King Ahasuerus. While his name is recorded only once in the sacred text, his identity and ultimate fate carry profound theological weight regarding the fulfillment of divine judgment.
As the firstborn son of Haman, Parshandatha occupied a position of high status and privilege within the Persian Empire. However, he inherited not just his father’s nobility, but also a generational enmity against the covenant people of God. Haman was a descendant of Agag, the king of the Amalekites—a nation that had set itself against Israel since the days of the Exodus. The Lord had declared that He would “utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven” (Exodus 17:14).
When Haman devised his genocidal plot to destroy, kill, and cause to perish all Jews throughout the empire, his sons stood aligned with his household’s wicked counsel. Following the dramatic reversal where Haman was hanged on the very gallows he had prepared for Mordecai, the decree of the king allowed the Jews to stand for their lives against those who sought to destroy them.
On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the conflict came to a head in Shushan the palace. Parshandatha, alongside his nine brothers, was slain by the sword as the Jews defended themselves.
“And Parshandatha, and Dalphon, and Aspatha… The ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews, slew they; but on the spoil laid they not their hand.” (Esther 9:7, 10)