“The Pur (that is, the lot)”
the Pur (that is, the lot) was cast before Haman to determine a day and month. And the lot fell on the twelfth month, the month of Adar. (Esther 3:7 BSB)
What it sounds like today
An incidental note about picking a date by chance.
The cultural key
The narrator pauses to gloss a foreign word: 'the Pur (that is, the lot).' Pur is not Hebrew but a loanword (Akkadian puru), the term for a small stone or die cast to settle a decision by chance, here to choose the day for the massacre. Haman casts lots to fix the most favorable date to destroy the Jews, and it lands almost a year out, the very delay that gives Esther and Mordecai time to act. The detail matters because the annual festival that celebrates the deliverance, Purim, is named after this pagan lottery (Purim is simply the plural, 'lots'). The feast's name is a standing joke at Haman's expense: the lot he cast to doom the Jews became the name of their yearly celebration.
Recovered meaning
'Pur' is a foreign word for the lot Haman cast to schedule the genocide, and the festival Purim ('lots') is named after it. The rescue is memorialized by the very device meant to destroy them.