Ester 3:9

3:9 If the king is so inclined, ¹  let an edict be issued ²  to destroy them. I will pay ten thousand talents of silver ³  to be conveyed to the king’s treasuries for the officials who carry out this business.”

Ester 4:8

4:8 He also gave him a written copy of the law that had been disseminated ⁴  in Susa for their destruction so that he could show it to Esther and talk to her about it. He also gave instructions that she should go to the king to implore him and petition him on behalf of her people.

Ester 5:14

5:14 Haman’s ⁵  wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Have a gallows seventy-five feet ⁶  high built, and in the morning tell the king that Mordecai should be hanged on it. Then go with the king to the banquet contented.” ⁷ 

It seemed like a good idea to Haman, so he had the gallows built.

Ester 8:9

8:9 The king’s scribes were quickly ⁸  summoned – in the third month (that is, the month of Sivan), on the twenty-third day. ⁹  They wrote out ¹⁰  everything that Mordecai instructed to the Jews and to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces all the way from India to Ethiopia ¹¹  – a hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all – to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language, and to the Jews according to their own script and their own language.

Ester 9:24

9:24 For Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had devised plans against the Jews to destroy them. He had cast pur (that is, the lot) in order to afflict and destroy them.

Ester 9:32

9:32 Esther’s command established these matters of Purim, and the matter was officially recorded. ¹² 

[3:9]  ¹ tn Heb “If upon the king it is good”; KJV “If it please the king.”

[3:9]  ² tn Heb “let it be written” (so KJV, ASV); NASB “let it be decreed.”

[3:9]  ³ sn The enormity of the monetary sum referred to here can be grasped by comparing this amount (10,000 talents of silver) to the annual income of the empire, which according to Herodotus (Histories 3.95) was 14,500 Euboic talents. In other words Haman is offering the king a bribe equal to two-thirds of the royal income. Doubtless this huge sum of money was to come (in large measure) from the anticipated confiscation of Jewish property and assets once the Jews had been destroyed. That such a large sum of money is mentioned may indicate something of the economic standing of the Jewish population in the empire of King Ahasuerus.

[4:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “given” (so KJV); NASB, NRSV, TEV, NLT “issued”; NIV “published”; NAB “promulgated.”

[5:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Haman) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “fifty cubits.” Assuming a standard length for the cubit of about 18 inches (45 cm), this would be about seventy-five feet (22.5 meters), which is a surprisingly tall height for the gallows. Perhaps the number assumes the gallows was built on a large supporting platform or a natural hill for visual effect, in which case the structure itself may have been considerably smaller. Cf. NCV “a seventy-five foot platform”; CEV “a tower built about seventy-five feet high.”

[5:14]  ⁷ tn Or “joyful”; NRSV “in good spirits”; TEV “happy.”

[8:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “in that time”; NIV “At once.”

[8:9]  ⁹ sn Cf. 3:12. Two months and ten days have passed since Haman’s edict to wipe out the Jews.

[8:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “it was written”; this passive construction has been converted to an active one in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.

[8:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Cush” (so NIV), referring to the region of the upper Nile in Africa. Cf. KJV and most other English versions “Ethiopia.”

[9:32]  ¹² tn Heb “written in the book” (so NASB); NIV, NLT “written down in the records”; NRSV “recorded in writing.”