Estherchapter 8
17 verses · KJVEsther book hub →
Key verse
Write ye also for the Jews, as it liketh you, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s ring: for the writing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring, may no man reverse.
It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 8.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Esther is given the house of Haman, and Mordecai the ring taken from him. Then she falls at the king's feet weeping for the reversal of Haman's device. But writing sealed with the king's ring may no man reverse, so a counter-decree is written instead: the Jews in every city may gather themselves together and stand for their life against any who assault them, on that same thirteenth of Adar. Posts ride out on swift steeds. Mordecai goes forth in royal apparel of blue and white, a great crown of gold, and a robe of fine linen and purple; 'the city of Shushan shouted and was glad.' The Jews had light and gladness and joy and honor, and many of the peoples became Jews.
Context
History · Mordecai · Esther overview
Where the chapter sits
Esther 8 falls in The deliverance and Purim (chapters 8–10). The counter-edict; the Jews defend themselves; Purim instituted to remember; Mordecai honoured in the king's chronicles.
Before it: The reversal, chapters 5–7.
The whole shape of Esther→The world behind this chapter
Esther 8The history
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.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
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.
What it meant to them
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.
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.
Sources cited
- Herodotus, The Histories
- Edwin M. Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews & Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
A. The ring given to Mordecai: write for the Jews as you please
1. (vv. 1-2)
a.the house of Haman the Jews’ enemy: The chapter opens where the reversal thread the book has been building since 6:1 completes on the property line: the house of the Jews' enemy passes to Esther, and the ring Ahasuerus once gave Haman at 3:10 passes to Mordecai. The last clause of v1, for Esther had told what he was unto her, finally discloses the secret Mordecai charged her to keep at 2:10 and 2:20, safe to tell now that Haman is dead. Property and rank change hands in two verses, but nothing yet has been said about the decree that still stands against every Jew in the empire.
Esther 8:1, 4 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
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
“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
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
“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
Esther 8:2, 2 voices
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.”
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
2. (vv. 3-6)
a.fell down at his feet, and besought him with tears: Esther returns to the king a second time in this chapter and her posture has changed: not the composed approach of 5:1-2 but falling at his feet and pleading with tears, because Haman's death removed the man but left his device standing. Her petition names it as Haman's device against the Jews and asks that the letters devised by him be reversed, showing that the gallows of 7:10 answered the plotter without touching the plot. The two questions of v6, how can I endure to see the evil, how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred, restate the resolve of 4:16 in the language of grief rather than risk.
Esther 8:3, 1 voice
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.”
Esther 8:4, 3 voices
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
“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.”
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 8:5, 3 voices
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.”
Esther 8:5
“Now it was that she mingled her tears with her words, that she wept and made supplication; we read of no tears when she begged for her own life, but, now that she was sure of that, she wept for her people. Tears of pity and tenderness are the most Christ-like.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
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
Esther 8:6, 2 voices
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.”
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
3. (v. 7)
a.because he laid his hand upon the Jews: The king's answer to Esther and Mordecai together recounts what has already been done, the house given, the man hanged, because he laid his hand upon the Jews, before he turns to what remains undone. Ahasuerus speaks of the matter as though it were settled, even though the decree of 3:12-13 has not been touched, a king content with his own resolution while the empire's Jews still live under a dated sentence. The gap between the king's sense of resolution and the law's continuing force sets up the legal problem the next verse names outright.
4. (v. 8)
a.may no man reverse: The king states the rule of Persian law plainly: a writing sealed with the king's ring may no man reverse, so Esther's plea to reverse the letters at v5 cannot be granted as asked. Ahasuerus instead authorizes a second decree in his own name and seal, and several of the older writers, Matthew Henry among them, read what follows as gospel-shaped: a sentence already passed is not repealed but overmatched, answered rather than erased by a mightier decree issued in the king's own authority. That reading is named as their tradition, not the text's own claim; what the text itself gives is a petition denied on its own terms and answered by a different instrument entirely.
Esther 8:8, 2 voices
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
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
B. Letters in every province's own writing, carried by swift beasts
1. (vv. 9-10)
a.in the third month, that is, the month Sivan: The counter-decree is drawn up in the third month, Sivan, on its twenty-third day, roughly seventy days after Haman's decree went out in the first month at 3:12, leaving the Jews some eight months' warning before the thirteenth of Adar arrives. The scribes write to the same hundred twenty and seven provinces in the same many languages Haman's decree used, and the letters travel the same royal courier system, posts on horseback and riders on mules, camels, and young dromedaries, a detail of the Persian relay system the commentators note as fact rather than ornament. The machinery Haman built for destruction now carries the opposite message over the identical roads.
Esther 8:9, 2 voices
Esther 8:9
“The month of Sivan, which comes third after Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, is the same one the Greeks call Thessaroi and the Romans Junius. On the twenty-third day of that month new letters were dictated by Mordecai in order to refute the earlier letters …”
Rabanus Maurus· written before 856· Commentary on Estherpatristic
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.”
Esther 8:10, 1 voice
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
2. (vv. 11-14)
a.granted the Jews which were in every city to gather themselves together: The decree's terms are given in the same destroying vocabulary Haman used at 3:13, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, but the target and the agent are reversed: the Jews are granted the right to stand for their life against any power that would assault them. The permission to take the spoil of them for a prey is granted here in the decree's own words, which makes the refusal of that very spoil, repeated three times in chapter 9, a chosen restraint rather than an oversight. The day fixed is the day Haman's own lot had already set, the thirteenth of the twelfth month, the month Adar, so the counter-decree meets the old date rather than picking a new one.
Esther 8:11, 1 voice
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.”
Esther 8:12, 1 voice
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.”
Esther 8:13, 1 voice
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
Esther 8:14, 1 voice
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.”
C. Light and gladness, and many of the people become Jews
1. (v. 15)
a.royal apparel of blue and white: Mordecai leaves the king's presence in royal apparel of blue and white, a great crown of gold, and fine linen and purple, at the same gate where he once stood in sackcloth and was refused entry because none might come within the king's gate clothed with sackcloth at 4:2. The city of Shushan itself rejoiced and was glad, a direct reversal of 3:15, where the city Shushan was perplexed at the very decree now overturned. The reversal thread that has run through rings, houses, and gallows now dresses itself in cloth and color.
Esther 8:15, 5 voices
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.”
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
“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
“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 8:15
“It was but lately that we had Esther and Mordecai in tears and in fears, but fasting and praying; now let us see how to them there arose light in darkness. Haman was hanged as a traitor, therefore his estate was forfeited to the crown, and the king gave it all to Esther, in recompence for the fright that wicked man had put her into and the vexation he had created her,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 16-17)
a.light, and gladness, and joy, and honour: The Jews had light, and gladness, and joy, and honour, a sentence the Targum and later Jewish tradition read as four gifts named for four things, Torah, feast, circumcision, and the phylacteries, a reading named here as the tradition it is rather than the verse's plain sense. Verse 17 widens the same joy outward into every province the decree reached, and closes on the book's widest-open clause, many of the people of the land became Jews, for the fear of the Jews fell upon them. The readings on that clause are named without a verdict: some hold it describes genuine converts entering the covenant, others read it as prudence in a fearful hour, and the text itself states only the fact and the reason given.
Esther 8:16, 2 voices
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.”
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
Esther 8:17, 1 voice
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
Threads running through this chapter
- Turned to the contraryPattern, v. 2
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Esther 8. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 10 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826); 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 (1871); John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765); Keil, The Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther; Matthew Henry; Rabanus Maurus, Commentary on Esther and W. F. Adeney, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther (Expositor's Bible).
Keep studying
On this page