Esther 3:8–11

The plot of Haman

Then Haman said to King Xerxes, “There is a certain people dispersed and scattered among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom whose customs are different from those of all other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them. 9 If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will put ten thousand talents of silver into the royal treasury for the men who carry out this business.”

10 So the king took his signet ring from his finger and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. 11 “Keep the money,” the king said to Haman, “and do with the people as you please.”

In his approach to the king, Haman showed himself to be a master of deceit. He said nothing about his own injured pride and blind hatred but spoke only of the king’s “best interest.” He broadened one man’s disobedience of a single decree of the king into the generalization that Jews don’t obey the king’s laws. Haman appealed to the king’s prejudice by pointing to the Jews’ separatism and stirred up the king’s greed by promising great financial returns to the royal treasury if his program would be carried out. Haman seemed to be motivated by more than a personal grudge. It appears he hated the Jews as a people because he resented their religious separatism. He shrewdly refrained from naming the people he wanted to destroy, lest the king’s own knowledge of the Jews lead him to question Haman’s half-truths and outright lies. It seems incredible that the king would grant Haman’s request without more thorough investigation. But Xerxes’ action was in keeping with his impetuous character.

Many questions have been raised about the money that Haman promised to the king. Ten thousand talents was a huge amount of money. Some sources claim that it was more than half the annual income of the Persian empire. Such a sum would seem to have been beyond the means of Haman. According to the historian Herodotus, however, this sum was in the same range as the sums that some sub-rulers in Xerxes’ empire were capable of raising for the Greek war. It may well be that Haman planned to raise or regain the sum by seizing Jewish property at the time of the massacre. 

There is some uncertainty about the translation of the king’s statement, “Keep the money.” Literally it says, “The silver is yours.” Some commentators have interpreted this as an ironic remark made by Xerxes when he accepted the money from Haman. It could then be paraphrased: “Well, it’s your money. If you want to spend it that way, I’ll be glad to take it.” Some remarks that appear later in the text imply that the king was going to receive money from Haman, so this interpretation of the text seems preferable to that of the NIV.