Agagite

Who is Agagite?

The term Agagite is used in the Book of Esther as a description of Haman. The term is understood to be an ethnonym although nothing is known with certainty about the people designated by the name. As the events of the Book of Esther occur in Persia, it is considered likely that the term refers to people from the Persian town of Agag.

A well known Midrashic explanation of the term relates it to King Agag of the Amalekites whereby it is viewed as meaning either a literal descendant of Agag or an antisemite, the Amalekites having come to be symbolic of the antithesis of Judaism.