Estherchapter 8
17 verses · unknown · 5th century BC · History
Now you may write in the king’s name as you please regarding the Jews, and seal it with the royal signet ring. For a decree that is written in the name of the king and sealed with the royal signet ring cannot be revoked.”
Introduction
unknown, History, Esther Overview.
This chapter was written for Jews spread across a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, who would one day hear a royal letter read in their own language. It takes up the problem left standing when Haman fell. The enemy is dead, his law still stands, and the chapter shows how an empire answers a law it cannot cancel. Listen for the words that echo the chapter that set the danger in motion. Notice what is done with the king's ring and with Haman's house. The chapter ends in a city full of light and gladness, with the appointed day still months away.
Context
- Who
- Jews across 127 provinces who would receive this letter in their own language
- What
- Esther pleads for her people, and Mordecai, holding the king's ring, writes a second decree that gives the Jews the right to defend themselves.
- Where
- The throne room and the scribes' offices at Susa, and the roads of the royal post to every province.
- When
- The twenty-third day of the third month, Sivan, in the twelfth year of Ahasuerus, about 474 BC.
- Why
- To show the danger answered through the same royal authority that had set it in motion.
Historical context
The problem the chapter solves is a legal one. A decree sealed with the king's ring could not be cancelled, so nobody tries. Instead a second decree is written that grants the Jews the right to assemble and defend themselves on the same day, leaving both laws standing and letting the empire choose which one to help.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
Transferring Haman's estate and his signet ring to Mordecai follows Persian practice: the property of a traitor reverted to the crown, and the crown could grant it on. The ring is the working part. Whoever held it could stamp documents that carried the king's authority, and the impression in clay or wax was the signature.
Then the empire's most famous piece of infrastructure goes to work. Persia ran a relay post, riders stationed a day's ride apart along the royal roads, each carrying the packet to the next station without stopping for weather or dark. Herodotus said nothing in the world travelled faster, and his description of those couriers is the line American post offices later borrowed. The book adds that these riders were mounted on horses from the royal stables, the fastest animals the crown owned.
The chapter ends with people in the provinces professing to be Jews out of fear. That is not conversion in the modern sense; it describes non-Jews publicly attaching themselves to a community whose fortunes had visibly turned. In an empire that read royal favour like weather, this is what a shift in the wind looked like.
Significance
For scattered Jews the picture in this chapter was almost unimaginable and therefore precious: the imperial machine that had scheduled their deaths now running flat out in their defence, the same roads, the same riders, the same seal.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
And the relief is honest about its limits. Nothing is cancelled. The thirteenth of Adar is still coming. What has changed is that the Jews will not face it defenceless, which is the difference between a massacre and a battle.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
This chapter is heard inside the whole scroll at Purim. The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts records that the scroll is read twice, in the evening and again the next morning, from a handwritten roll. The congregation is expected to hear every word of it. The table names Babylonian Talmud Megillah 18a as a source for that rule. The corpus sets a locator on the same page, Megillah 18a:24, under the tenth verse of this chapter, where the new letters are sent out.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. The edition prints its own numbered notes inside his words, and a note is named here as the edition's. The problem of the chapter is a law that cannot be undone, and Rashi reads the king's answer as the way round it. From now on everyone sees that the king favours Esther. Whatever she writes will be believed to come from him, so she need not revoke the first letters and may write others as she pleases (Rashi on Esther 8:7:1). The first decree stands because it is not fitting to cancel the king's writ (Rashi on Esther 8:8:1).
The letters are glossed word by word. Each province received them in its own script and in its own spoken language (Rashi on Esther 8:9:1 and 8:9:2). The couriers were horsemen the king ordered to hurry (Rashi on Esther 8:10:1). They rushed because they had to overtake the first couriers (Rashi on Esther 8:14:1). The purpose of the plea itself was that Haman's plan not be carried out (Rashi on Esther 8:3:1).
One note reads the restraint of the Jews as a witness. The letters allowed them to take spoil, as the first letters had allowed their enemies. Rashi says they did not lay their hands on it, "for they showed everyone that this was not done for the sake of money" (Rashi on Esther 8:11:1). Mordechai's linen cloak is a shawl to wrap oneself in (Rashi on Esther 8:15:1). The chapter's last note is three words long: converting to Judaism (Rashi on Esther 8:17:1). The next chapter returns to the converts, and its card reports Rashi there.
The corpus carries twelve further notes on this chapter without an English text, each marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. Five stand cited and unquoted at Ibn Ezra on Esther 8:1:1, 8:2:1, 8:5:1, 8:8:1 and 8:16:1. Seven stand at Malbim on Esther 8:2:1, 8:3:1, 8:4:1, 8:5:1, 8:6:1, 8:7:1 and 8:12:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. Thirty-two are Midrash and eight are Talmud. On the first verse it holds Bereshit Rabbah 99:3, Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayechi 32, Esther Rabbah 10:9 and Kohelet Rabbah 2:26:1. On the second it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 10:2, Bereshit Rabbah 87:6, Esther Rabbah 7:7 and Megillah 10b:28.
The new decree draws the next run. On the seventh verse the corpus holds Esther Rabbah, Petichta 3, Kohelet Rabbah 5:7:1 and Sifrei Bamidbar 84:4. On the eighth it holds Bereshit Rabbah 51:2, Kohelet Rabbah 4:9:1, Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 19:24:3 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vayera 19:1. On the ninth it holds Bereshit Rabbah 100:6, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 2:15, Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 2:16 and Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 2:4:8. On the tenth it holds Jerusalem Talmud Kilayim 8:4:1 and 8:4:2, Megillah 18a:24 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 31:18:2. On the eleventh it holds Esther Rabbah 10:10 and Pesikta Rabbati 2:1, on the twelfth Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 800:1, and on the thirteenth Esther Rabbah 7:24 with Tractate Soferim 7:4.
The close of the chapter carries the rest. On the fifteenth verse the corpus holds Bamidbar Rabbah 14:8, Bereshit Rabbah 39:11, and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Megillah 1:12 and 1:38. On the sixteenth it holds Devarim Rabbah 2:22, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Megillah 1:40, Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 1:1:10 and Megillah 12b:16-17. On the seventeenth it holds Aggadat Bereshit 15:1, Ein Yaakov, Sukkah 4:13 and Esther Rabbah 1:3. One more, Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 265:5, stands under an anchor the corpus prints as Esther 8:28. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Esther 8:1:1 to 8:17:1, The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001, reported CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Esther 8:1:1, 8:2:1, 8:5:1, 8:8:1 and 8:16:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on Esther 8:2:1, 8:3:1, 8:4:1, 8:5:1, 8:6:1, 8:7:1 and 8:12:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/esther/8.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, the FESTIVAL_READINGS entry for esther at Purim citing Mishnah Megillah 2, Babylonian Talmud Megillah 18a and the Rema's gloss to Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 690:17, and no portion or Haftarah for this book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
The ring given to Mordecai: write for the Jews as you please
Esther 8:1-2
That same day King Xerxes awarded: The estate of "Haman, the enemy of the Jews," passes to Esther, and the ring the king gave Haman at 3:10 passes to Mordecai. Mordecai enters the king's presence "because Esther had revealed his relation to her," the secret he charged her to keep at 2:10 and 2:20.
Esther 8:1
“On that day did the king Ahasuerus give the house of Haman . . . unto Esther--His property was confiscated, and everything belonging to him, as some compensation for the peril to which she had been exposed. Mordecai came before the king--that is, was introduced at court and appointed one of the seven counsellors.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
3 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Esther 8:1
“Came - Was by the queen's desire admitted into the king's presence, and family, and, as it seems, made one of the seven princes. Had told - How nearly he was related to her: which 'till this time she had wisely concealed.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Esther 8:1
“The king - give the house of Haman - As Haman was found guilty of treasonable practices against the peace and prosperity of the king and his empire, his life was forfeited and his goods confiscated. And as Mordecai had been the means of preserving the king’s life, and was the principal object of Haman’s malice, it was but just to confer his property upon him, as well as his dignity and office, as Mordecai was found deserving of the former, and fit to discharge the duties of the latter.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Esther 8:1
“His houses and lands, good sand chattels, and all the money he had heaped up which he was prime-minister of state (which, we may suppose, was no little), are given to Esther; they are all her own, added to the allowance she already had. Thus is the wealth of the sinner laid up for the just, and the innocent divides the silver, Prov. xiii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The king removed the signet ring: The signet ring sealed the empire's decrees, so Mordecai now holds the power Haman once used to seal the order against the Jews. Albert Barnes reads Haman's estate as his whole household, the train of servants attached to a Persian noble's house. Esther makes Mordecai its steward.
Esther 8:2
“And the king took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it unto Mordecai,.... which, with the Persians, was a token of the strongest affection and strictest friendship (z); the Targum calls it his signatory ring, that with which he signed laws, edicts, letters, patents, &c. and so hereby made him keeper of the seals: and Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman; appointed him her steward of the estate of Haman, the king had given her. (z) Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 1. c. 26. & l. 2. c. 19.”
1 more voice on this verse
Esther 8:2
“Ring - That ring which he had formerly given to Haman he now gives to Mordecai, and with it that power whereof this ring was a sign, making him, as Haman had been, the keeper of his signet.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Esther 8:3-6
And once again, Esther addressed: At 5:1-2 Esther stood composed before the king. Now "She fell at his feet weeping," because Haman's death removed the man and left his scheme standing. She asks the king "to revoke the letters" Haman wrote, since the gallows of 7:10 answered the plotter and left the plot in force.
Esther 8:3
“Though Haman was dead, his work was not yet undone. The royal decree had gone forth, and, according to Persian notions, could not be directly recalled or reversed Est 8:8. Mordecai did not dare, without express permission from the king, to take any steps even to stay execution. And Esther, being in favor, once more took the initiative.”
The king extended the gold scepter: The scepter is extended to Esther a second time, as it was when she first came unbidden in chapter 5. Gill reads it as pardon for coming without leave. Esther arose from the king's feet and stood to plead for the Jews.
Esther 8:4
“Then the king held out the golden sceptre towards Esther,.... As a token that she had not incurred his displeasure by coming into his presence without leave, and that she was admitted to speak and make her request; see Est 5:3 so Esther arose and stood before the king; she rose from the ground on which she lay prostrate, and stood upon her feet, in an humble manner, to make her speech, and present her petition to the king.”
2 more voices on this verse
Esther 8:4
“The supreme king holds out his golden scepter toward the queen as she pleads with him, because he is lavishing on her the mercy of his righteousness.”
Rabanus Maurus · written before 856 · Commentary on Estherpatristic
Esther 8:4
“Her petition is that the king, having put away Haman, would put away the mischief of Haman and his device against the Jews, that that might not take place now that he was taken off. Many a man's mischief survives him, and the wickedness he devised operates when he is gone.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Esther opens with four courtesies before she makes her request. Gill counts them a heap of phrases with one meaning, set down to move the king and show her submission. Henry adds that a king who regretted the decree could do no less than revoke the letters Haman wrote.
Esther 8:5
“And said, if it please the king, and if I have found favour in his sight, and the thing seem right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes,.... This heap of phrases, which signify much the same thing, are used to work upon the king's affections, and to show how submissive she was to his will: let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, which he wrote to destroy the Jews which are in all the king's provinces.”
1 more voice on this verse
Esther 8:5
“If the king were indeed, as he seemed to be, troubled that such a decree was made, he could not do less than revoke it; for what is repentance, but undoing, to the utmost of our power, what we have done amiss?”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
For how could I bear: Esther's own life is safe now, and so is Mordecai's. Adam Clarke notes that the decree still stood against every other Jew, so she pleads for her kindred. Matthew Henry observes that the text records her tears here, for her people, and none when she asked for her own life.
Esther 8:6
“For how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people?.... I cannot bear it; it will break my heart; I shall die to see all my people massacred throughout the realm; the thought of it is shocking and shuddering; to see it, intolerable: or "how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?" the same thing in different words, and somewhat more express and explanative.”
1 more voice on this verse
Esther 8:6
“To see the destruction of my kindred? - She had now informed the king that she was cousin to Mordecai, and consequently a Jewess; and though her own life and that of Mordecai were no longer in danger, Haman being dead, yet the decree that had gone forth was in full force against the Jews; and if not repealed, their destruction would be inevitable.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
So King Xerxes said to Esther: The king's answer recounts: "I have given Haman’s estate to Esther, and he was hanged on the gallows because he attacked the Jews". He speaks as though the matter were settled, while the decree of 3:12-13 still stands against every Jew in the empire.
write in the king’s name: The king states: "a decree that is written in the name of the king and sealed with the royal signet ring cannot be revoked". Esther asked at verse 5 that Haman's letters be revoked, and the law forbids it. The king allows a second decree in his name and seal.
Esther 8:8
“May no man reverse - Whatever had passed the royal signet could never be revoked; no succeeding edict could destroy or repeal a preceding one: but one of a similar nature to the Jews against the Persians, as that to the Persians was against the Jews, might be enacted, and thus the Jews be enabled legitimately to defend themselves; and, consequently, placed on an equal footing with their enemies.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Esther 8:8
“Reverse - For this reason he could not recall the former letters, because they were irrevocable by the law of the Medes and Persians. How much more prudent is our constitution, that no law whatever can be established as to be unrepealable? It is God's prerogative, not to repent, and to say what can never be altered.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Letters in every province's own writing, carried by swift beasts
Esther 8:9-10
the royal scribes were summoned: The counter-decree is written "on the twenty-third day of the third month," about seventy days after Haman's decree of 3:12. It goes to the same "127 provinces from India to Cush," in each script and language. Mounted couriers carry it over the roads that carried Haman's decree.
Esther 8:9
“Then were the king's scribes called at that time,.... As they were to write the former letter, Est 3:12, in the third month, that is the month Sivan, on the three and twentieth day thereof; which answers to part of May, and part of June.”
Mordecai wrote in the name: The Hebrew words for the royal couriers' mounts are rare. Clarke takes rechesh as a swift horse and the second word as Persian. Barnes proposed horses bred in the king's own stud, and the Berean follows that sense.
Esther 8:10
“On mules, camels, and young dromedaries - What these beasts were is difficult to say. The word רכש rechesh, which we translate mules, signifies a swift chariot horse. The strange word אחשתרנים achashteranim is probably a Persian word, but perhaps incurably corrupted. The most likely derivation is that of Bochart, from the Persian akhash, huge, large, rough, and aster, a mule; large mules.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Esther 8:11-14
By these letters the king permitted: The decree uses the words of Haman's decree at 3:13, "to destroy, kill, and annihilate," with the target reversed. The Jews may "assemble and defend themselves". It grants them leave "to plunder their possessions," so the refusal of plunder three times in chapter 9 is a chosen restraint.
Esther 8:11
“This fresh decree allowed the Jews to stand on their defense, and to kill all who attacked them. It has been pronounced incredible that any king would thus have sanctioned civil war in all the great cities of his empire; but some even of the more skeptical critics allow that “Xerxes” might not improbably have done so.”
The single day appointed throughout: Both decrees now name one and the same day. On the thirteenth of Adar one royal order licensed the attack on the Jews and the other licensed their defense. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown explain the design: whoever attacked under the first decree could be resisted and slain under the second.
Esther 8:12
“Upon one day, in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, namely, upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar. The day appointed and fixed in the former letters for the destruction of the Jews, Est 3:13.”
A copy of the text of the edict: The edict was published to every people, enemies included. Gill reads that publicity as serving two ends, time for the Jews to prepare their defense and fear among those who meant to attack them.
Esther 8:13
“No better could come of men's pretending to be wise above what is given them. Great expedition was used in dispersing this decree, the king himself being in pain lest it should come too late and any mischief should be done to the Jews by virtue of the former decree before the notice of this arrived.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The couriers rode out in haste: The couriers had more than eight months in hand, yet they rode in haste. Barnes explains the speed as a guard against any misunderstanding, and Henry as the king's fear that the first decree would be acted on early. Susa received it as it had received Haman's decree.
Esther 8:14
“So the posts that rode upon mules and camels went out,.... Or on the mules, which in the Persian language were called "ahashteranim"; See Gill on Est 8:10, being hastened and pressed on by the king's commandment; who gave them a special order to make what haste they could, that the Jews might have time to prepare for their defence, and their enemies be the more intimidated: and the decree was given at Shushan the palace; the king's counsellors agreeing to it, and perhaps signing it, as they did the former; see Est 3:15.”
Light and gladness, and many of the people become Jews
royal garments of blue and white: Mordecai goes out "in royal garments of blue and white, with a large gold crown and a purple robe of fine linen." "And the city of Susa shouted and rejoiced," reversing 3:15. The reversal that has run through rings, houses and gallows now shows in cloth and color.
Esther 8:15
“See the Est 1:6 note. The “crown” was not a crown like the king’s, but a mere golden band or coronet. A garment - Or, “an inner robe.” The tunic or inner robe of the king was of purple, striped with white.”
3 more voices on this verse
Esther 8:15
“Great crown - Which the chief of the Persian princes were permitted to wear but with sufficient distinction from the king's crown. The city - Not only Jews, but the greatest number of the citizens, who by the law of nature abhorred bloody counsels, and had a complacency in acts of mercy.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Esther 8:15
“Mordecai went out . . . in royal apparel--He was invested with the khelaat of official honor. A dress of blue and white was held in great estimation among the Persians; so that Mordecai, whom the king delighted to honor, was in fact arrayed in the royal dress and insignia.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Esther 8:15
“Haman was hanged; and, when the wicked perish, there is shouting, Prov. xi. Mordecai was preferred; and, when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Esther 8:16-17
a time of light and gladness: For the Jews it was "a time of light and gladness, of joy and honor". Verse 17 ends, "many of the people of the land themselves became Jews, because the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them". Some readers hold these were true converts, and others see prudence.
Esther 8:16
“And the Jews had light,.... Prosperity, as opposed to the darkness of adversity in which they had been, see Isa 8:22, or lightsomeness and cheerfulness of spirit, as explained by the two next words: and gladness and joy; at the good news of their deliverance, so unexpected by them; thus light is explained by gladness, Psa 97:11 and honour: among men; from their neighbours, who before were held in contempt, as a people doomed to destruction.”
1 more voice on this verse
Esther 8:16
“They were like those that dream; then was their mouth filled with laughter, Ps. cxxvi. One good effect of this deliverance was that many of the people of the land, that were considerate, sober, and well inclined, became Jews, were proselyted to the Jewish religion, renounced idolatry, and worshipped the true God only.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
In every province and every city: Henry and Barnes read the many who became Jews as proselytes who joined the Jewish people. Clarke doubted that converts made by fear would bring honor to the faith. The text records the fact and the fear, Clarke adds.
Esther 8:17
“Many - became Jews; for - fear - These were a species of converts not likely to bring much honor to true religion: but the sacred historian states the simple fact. They did profess Judaism for fear of the Jews, whether they continued steady in that faith or not. It is only the Gospel which will not admit of coercion for the propagation and establishment of its doctrines. It is a spiritual system, and can be propagated only by spiritual influence.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The context
Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and W. F. Adeney, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther (Expositor's Bible).
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and W. F. Adeney, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther (Expositor's Bible).