"And [Haman's] wise men and his wife Zeresh said to him, 'If this Mordechai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish descent, you will not prevail over him, for you will certainly fall before him.'" She said to him: This nation is compared to the stars, and to the sand [cf. Genesis 13:16 and 15:5). When they fall, they fall all the way to the sand. And when they rise, they rise all the way to the sky and the stars.