Esther 8
Haman’s Estate Given to Esther; Mordecai Elevated 1–2
Esther Pleads for Her People 3–8
The Counter-Decree Is Written 9–14
Mordecai Honored; Joy in Shushan 15–17
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for Esther 8
Verse 1
the house of Haman the Jews’ enemy — Haman’s estate passes to Esther, as ‘the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just’ (Prov 13:22). ‘Enemy’ is tsarar, as in 3:10. Mordecai comes before the king because Esther ‘had told what he was unto her’. She had hidden her kindred (2:10), and it was Mordecai who ‘took’ her ‘for his own daughter’ (2:7).
Verse 2
the king took off his ring — The signet (tabba’at) given to Haman in 3:10 now passes to Mordecai, and Esther sets him ‘over the house of Haman’. Pharaoh gave Joseph his ring in the same way (Gen 41:42), and the king made Daniel ‘ruler over the whole province of Babylon’ (Dan 2:48). The ring seals the new decree (vv.8, 10).
Verse 3
fell down at his feet — Esther ‘spake yet again’, though Haman is dead. She ‘besought him with tears’ (chanan, the verb of the ‘supplication’ Mordecai asked of her in 4:8) to put away the ‘mischief’ (ra, evil) of Haman and his ‘device’. The decree of 3:13 stands, and the king has not yet said that it can be undone.
Verse 5
let it be written to reverse — Shub, to turn back, the verb of ‘may no man reverse’ in v.8. Esther gives four conditions in the king’s favour: ‘If it please the king’, ‘if I have found favour’, ‘the thing seem right’ (kasher, a word found in Esther only here and in Eccl 10:10; 11:6), and ‘I be pleasing in his eyes’. The letters are Haman’s, ‘devised’ by him.
Verse 6
how can I endure to see — Esther speaks of the ‘evil’ (ra) that ‘shall come unto my people’, the ‘mischief’ of v.3, and of the ‘destruction’ (obdan, a word found only here) of her ‘kindred’ (moledeth). ‘My people’ and ‘my kindred’ are the two things she had kept back in 2:10 at Mordecai’s charge; the word moledeth is also the ‘kindred’ of Gen 12:1.
Verse 8
may no man reverse — A writing sealed with the king’s ring (chatham, to seal) could not be undone. So the king does not cancel the first decree: he tells Mordecai to ‘Write ye also for the Jews, as it liketh you’. The Persian rule that a law ‘be not altered’ is stated in 1:19, and Dan 6:8 gives it as ‘the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not’.
Verse 9
in the third month, that is, the month Sivan — The scribes are called on the twenty-third day, two months and ten days after the first set was called on the thirteenth of the first month (3:12). The letters go ‘from India unto Ethiopia, an hundred twenty and seven provinces’ (as 1:1), ‘unto every people after their language’, and to the Jews in their own writing. Sivan occurs only here.
Verse 11
to stand for their life — The king grants the Jews in every city ‘to gather themselves together’ (qahal) and ‘to stand for their life’. The three verbs of 3:13 are now turned on ‘the power of the people and province that would assault them’, so the grant covers only attackers. ‘The spoil’ is also granted, yet the Jews ‘laid not their hands on the prey’ (9:16).
Verse 15
the city of Shushan rejoiced — Tsahal, to cry out with joy. The same city ‘was perplexed’ when Haman’s decree was posted (3:15). Mordecai goes out in ‘royal apparel of blue and white’, techeleth, the blue used for the loops of the sanctuary curtains (Ex 26:4), with ‘a great crown of gold’ (’atarah, a different word from the ‘crown royal’, kether, of 6:8) and ‘fine linen and purple’.
Verse 17
became Jews — Yahad, to become a Jew, a verb found only here. ‘The fear of the Jews fell upon them’, and the officers helped ‘because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them’ (9:2–3). The joy, ‘a feast and a good day’, returns at 9:19 and 22 as the ‘good day’ of Purim.