Haman

In the canonical narrative of the Book of Esther Haman is presented as a senior official under King Ahasuerus (the Persian royal court at Susa) who, offended by Mordecai's refusal to bow, persuades the king to issue a decree to exterminate the Jews. Rabbinic and midrashic expansions rework his biography and motives: they portray Haman as formerly impoverished and sold into servitude (allegedly to Mordecai), later a barber for many years, an idolatrous courtier who embroidered an image on his garments to induce bowing, and an astrologer/diviner who cast lots (pur) to choose a propitious day and month—finally fixing on the month of Adar because of its zodiacal sign. These later traditions frame his rise and fall as moral exempla and as part of divine retribution, culminating in his being hanged on the fifty-cubit gallows he had prepared. (Canonical elements: Book of Esther; rabbinic/midrashic details: Midrash/Targumic summaries cited in modern reference summaries.)

The biblical text gives no detailed physical portrait. Rabbinic sources and later summaries record a notable clothing detail: Haman's garments were said to bear an embroidered idolatrous image so that subjects ordered to bow to Haman would in effect bow to the image (a motif preserved in midrashic comments and Targumic material noted in secondary summaries). No canonical physical descriptions (height, hair, facial features) are attested in the provided sources.

Haman's 'powers' are political and social rather than supernatural: he is depicted as a principal minister with authority in the king's court, able to require obeisance (demanding that the king's servants bow to him) and to secure a royal edict for the extermination of the Jewish people. Rabbinic tradition adds proficiencies in divination/astrology—casting lots (pur) to select an auspicious day and month for his decree—and presents him as ambitious, proud, vengeful, and inclined to public acts of humiliation (e.g., erecting an extremely high gallows intended for Mordecai).