On the Origins of Purim and Its Assyrian Name

In the book of Esther, the name for the holiday Purim derives from Haman’s pūr (פּוּר, “lot”) to determine what day to attack the Jews. The name Purim predates the story of Haman’s lot, and may originate in a forgotten Assyrian calendrical celebration, when the new year was named with a pūru.

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"On the Origins of Purim and Its Assyrian Name" (2018, February 23). TheTorah.com. https://www.thetorah.com/article/on-the-origins-of-purim-and-its-assyrian-name

Dr. Amitai Baruchi-Unna
On the Origins of Purim and Its Assyrian Name

מגילת אסתר / Esther Scroll Genève, Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. heb. 4.  By  famous engraver Shalom Italia, Amsterdam, c 1641.

Published: February 23, 2018

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Last Updated: September 7, 2026

  1. This problem has been noted by many commentators. See for example, Adele Berlin,Esther (JPS Bible Commentary; Philadelphia: JPS, 2001), xxxviii; Lewis B. Paton, The Book of Esther (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1908), 74.

  2. Even the names of the main characters, Mordechai and Esther, suggest this. The former resembles the name Marduk, patron deity of Babylonia and the Babylonian state and Empire, and the latter resembles Ishtar, the main Mesopotamian female deity. Cf. Shmuel Aḥituv, “Purim,” Encyclopedia Biblica, vol. 6, pp. 448-451 [Hebrew].

  3. For more on this, see Lawrence Wills, “Rejoicing on Purim with a Jewish Novel,” TheTorah.com (2015).

  4. Chapter 9 and the remainder of the book were then edited to fit more smoothly together. The clearest example of this is how the Megillah is framed as the battle of the Benjaminite Mordechai against Haman the Agagite, with the war in chapter 9 replaying the war of King Saul against King Agag of Amalek. For a discussion of this, see Marc Zvi Brettler, “Megillat Esther: Reversing the Legacy of King Saul,” TheTorah.com (2017).

  5. The book of Ezra (4:6) contains a reference to an accusation against Judea and Jerusalem during the reign of Ahasuerus (=Xerxes). However, this is not about diaspora Jews “spread throughout the empire,” to quote Haman, but rather about citizens of a specific Persian province. A possible exception would be the destruction of the Jewish temple at Elephantine (Yeb) during the reign of Darius II (409 B.C.E.), but this was a particularly local, Egyptian affair. See discussion in, Jan Assmann and Zev Farber, “Sacrificing a Lamb in Egypt,” TheTorah.com (2016), and the section on Darius II in, Zev Farber, “The 220-Year History of the Achaemenid Persian Empire,” TheTorah.com (2017).

  6. The intervening verses may be an early supplement, considering the Wiederaufnahmehere and the fact that the material seems superfluous. For more on this method of scribal insertion, see Zev Farber, “The Resumptive Repetition (Wiederaufnahme),” TheTorah.com (2013).

  7. See, e.g., Lekah Tov and ibn Ezra, ad loc.

  8. Cf. Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD), P pp. 526-9 s.v. pūru A and pūru B. The connection between Purim and pūru is an old suggestion, although scholars have attempted to find alternatives. That the name is specifically Assyrian Akkadian (and not Babylonian Akkadian), and thus must connect somehow to the Assyrian practice of throwing the pūru, was already already noted by William Hallo, though he does not suggest how the Jewish holiday of Purim, whose origin is in the Persian-ruled Jewish diaspora, got such a name. See William W. Hallo, “The First Purim,” Biblical Archaeologist 46.1 (1983): 19-27 [21-22].

  9. Arthur Ungnad, ‘Datenlisten,’ Reallexikon Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie, Vol. 2 (1938), pp. 131-194.

  10. Ibid., pp. 178-179, lines 109, 114.

  11. See further: A. Kirk Grayson, A.K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (Locust Valley, NY: Augustin, 1975; reprint Eisenbrauns, 2000), p. 193; Malcolm J.A. Horsnell, The Year-Names of the First Dynasty of Babylon (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: McMaster University Press, 1999).

  12. Unlike the Babylonians, the Assyrians did not switch to a regnal year system. This is likely because their method did not suffer from the same problem as the Babylonian system.

  13. Allan R. Millard, The Eponyms of the Assyrian Empire 910-612 BC (State Archives of Assyria – Studies 1; Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1994), pp. 48, 51.

  14. Even so, this did happen at least on occasion, as the eponym chosen for 786 B.C.E. seems to have been dead before assuming office, as suggested by the note balāṭu, “life,” attached to this year in one of the manuscripts of the canonical eponym list. Millard, Eponyms, p. 47. Cf. Forrer, ‘Zur Chronologie der neuassyrischen Zeit,’ Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft 20 (1915), p. 3.

  15. That is the year after 652, i.e., 651 B.C.E. Gezer 3, reverse 5′-6′; Wayne Horowitz and Takayoshi Oshima, Cuneiform in Canaan: Cuneiform Sources from the Land of Israel in Ancient Time (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2006), pp. 55-8.

  16. Millard, Eponyms, p. 68

  17. Millard, Eponyms, pp. 7-9

  18. A.0.102.14 ll. 174-5; A. Kirk Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC, Part II: 858-745 BC (Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia – Assyrian Periods 3; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), p. 70. Note that it was probably his thirty-second regnal year. See: Sh. Yamada, The Construction of the Assyrian Empire: A Historical Study of the Inscriptions of Shalmanesar III (859-824 B.C.) Relating to his Campaigns to the West(Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 3; Leiden 2000), p. 66.

  19. A.0.102.2003; Grayson, Assyrian Rulers, p. 179; Mordechai Cogan, The Raging Torrent: Historical Inscriptions from Assyria and Babylonia Relating to Ancient Israel (2nd ed. Jerusalem: Carta, 2015), p. 198.

  20. Yaḫalu was līmu twice more (824 and 821 B.C.E.), when he was turtānu (commander-in-chief) of the Assyrian army.

  21. Cf. Millard, Eponyms, p. 8.

  22. See further: Mark E. Cohen, The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East (Bethesda, Mariland: CDL Press, 1993), pp. 340-342. A reference to a celebration called qarratim on the 17th and 18th of Addaru is found in a list of wine that the magnates gave to the Ashur temple. Laura Kataja and Robert M. Whiting, Grants, Decrees and Gifts of the Neo-Assyrian Period (State Archives of Assyria 12; Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1995), #80 reverse line 9.

  23. Hayim Tadmor, “Pur,” Encyclopedia Biblica, vol. 6 (1972), pp. 446-8 [Hebrew]; Cf. Sindey Smith, Early History of Assyria to 1000 B.C., London: Chatto and Windus, 1928, p. 116.

  24. Another example of an Assyrian cultural vestige surviving among the Jews in a former province is the worship of the Assyrian Queen of Heaven which they take with them to Egypt when escaping from the Babylonians (see Jer 44).

  25. Stephanie Dalley, “The Transition from Neo-Assyrains to Neo-Babylonians: Break or Continuity?,” Eretz-Israel 27 (2003; FS H. and M. Tadmor), pp. 25*-28*.

    שלום רב

  26. Editor’s note: If the latter is correct, this dual origin may shed light on the strange confusion about Purim’s date in the Megillah, and the Megillah’s forced explanation for the two dates, namely that the war took an extra day in Susa. Perhaps the two celebrations were originally unconnected and fell on consecutive days. If so, when they merged the name of the Assyrian holiday took hold for both days. ZIF

  27. For beautiful, learned, and highly speculative effort to solve this riddle, see: Stephanie Dalley, Esther’s Revenge at Susa: From Sennacherib to Ahasuerus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). For other suggestions connecting Purim to some sort of Akkadian new year festival with lots, see, Theodor Gaster, Purim and Hanukkah in Custom and Tradition: Feast of Lots – Feast of Lights (New York: Schuman, 1950), 17; Christoph Levin, The Old Testament: A Brief Introduction (trans. Margaret Kohl; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 163.

Dr. Amitai Baruchi-Unna is lecturer in Bible at the David Yellin College of Education. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and served as editor and editorial coordinator for a collection of articles on Biblical… Read More
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