More On the Connection Between Purim, Passover and 'the Redemption'

Purim is closely linked with Passover and hence with Easter. Indeed Jewish law decrees the laws of Passover over thirty days before the holiday, that is, Purim (b.Pesahim 6a). Purim is a story of deliverance, whose beginning is rooted in Passover, since Haman was hanged in the middle of Passover. According to the Book of Esther, Haman cast the lot on the thirteenth day of the month of Nissan, and the date set aside for the destruction of the Jews was eleven months later, on the thirteenth of Adar. Immediately after the lot was cast, Esther fasted for three days, and on the third day (the fifteenth of Nissan) invited the king to the first banquet. The next day Haman was invited to the second banquet, on which occasion she asked for his head, and the next day he was hanged. The typological motifs of the deliverance in Shushan also recall the redemption involved in the Passover in Egypt. On that fateful night, the night of the fifteenth of Nissan, "the king could not sleep" (Esther 6:1) - a clear echo of "and it came to pass that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt" (Exod 12:29) and "it was a night of watching kept to the Lord" (Exod 12:42). The story of Purim deliverance overlaps in part the ancient topos of the Exodus. Thus the connection between the hanging of Haman and the crucifixion of Jesus is clear ... [Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb]