Casting lots to choose a day

How did ancient peoples use lots, and could a festival take its name from one?

What the relationship labels mean

Possible historical contact: The cultures were in contact, so one tradition could have known the other.
Shared literary world: The stories appear to share older roots or a common cultural setting.
Similar human experience: Different peoples responding to similar realities, such as river floods.
Resemblance only: A real similarity worth noticing; no historical connection has been established.
Modern speculative theory: A modern interpretation, not an ancient source. Not supported by authenticated evidence.

Assyrian · Mesopotamia

The die of Yahali

Shared literary world

Composed: c. 9th c. BC
Earliest surviving copy: Clay cube (Yale Babylonian Collection)

Inscribed as the pūru (lot) of Yahali, cast to choose the official who would name the year.

Similar

The word pūru
A lot to fix a date

Different

Administrative, not hostile

Israelite · Levant

Urim and Thummim; lots for land and duty

Resemblance only

Composed: Various
Earliest surviving copy: Biblical texts

Lots divide the land (Joshua 18), choose the scapegoat (Leviticus 16) and assign priestly courses (1 Chronicles 24).

Similar

Lots as a way of leaving the choice to God

Different

Used by Israel, not against it

Back to the story

Haman, the Lot and the Death Decree →The king promotes Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite above all the princes. Everyone at the king's gate bows to him except Mordecai, who has told them he is a Jew. Haman decides to destroy all Mordecai's people. In Nisan of the twelfth year the lot (pur) is cast before him and falls on Adar. He offers the king 10,000 talents of silver; the king gives him his signet ring. On 13 Nisan letters go out in every language: on 13 Adar, kill all the Jews, young and old, women and children, and plunder their goods. "The king and Haman sat down to drink; but the city Shushan was perplexed."
Violence, Numbers and Purim →On 13 Adar the day is reversed: the Jews gather against those who sought their hurt, and officials help them for fear of Mordecai. In Susa they kill 500 men and Haman's ten sons, but lay no hand on the plunder. At Esther's request a second day is granted in Susa: 300 more men; the ten sons are hanged. Elsewhere the Jews kill 75,000 (in the library's Greek, 15,000), and take no plunder. They rest and feast on the 14th, in Susa on the 15th. Mordecai and Esther write letters establishing Purim: feasting, gifts to one another and gifts to the poor, every year.
Purim and Jewish Memory →Purim takes its name from pur, the lot Haman cast. The Hebrew book ends by establishing the festival on 14 and 15 Adar, with feasting, food gifts and gifts to the poor. Outside Esther, Purim is first mentioned as "Mordecai's day" in 2 Maccabees. Some scholars propose that Purim adapted an older Babylonian or Persian festival; there is no evidence that settles its origin.