A Decree That Cannot Be Revoked
1 On that day, King Ahasuerus gave the house of Haman, the Jews’ enemy, to Esther the queen. Mordecai came before the king; for Esther had told what he was to her. 2 The king took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai. Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman. 3 Esther spoke yet again before the king, and fell down at his feet and begged him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman the Agagite, and his plan that he had planned against the Jews. 4 Then the king held out to Esther the golden scepter. So Esther arose, and stood before the king. 5 She said, “If it pleases the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seems right to the king, and I am pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote to destroy the Jews who are in all the king’s provinces. 6 For how can I endure to see the evil that would come to my people? How can I endure to see the destruction of my relatives?” 7 Then King Ahasuerus said to Esther the queen and to Mordecai the Jew, “See, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows because he laid his hand on the Jews. 8 Write also to the Jews as it pleases 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 not be reversed by any man.”
Haman is dead and the decree is not, and the law the empire was proud of turns out to be the thing nobody can undo.
The transfers are swift. Haman's house to Esther, the ring to Mordecai, and Esther setting Mordecai over the estate Esther 8:2. The signet that sealed the death decree is now on the hand of the man it was meant to kill.
But verse 3 shows why none of that is enough. Esther fell down at his feet and begged him with tears — she has been queen, has been received, has been offered half a kingdom, and she is on the floor again. The enemy is dead and the order still stands.
Her request in verse 5 is carefully worded and it asks for the impossible: let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman.
Verse 6 is the only place in the book where Esther speaks about her own feelings, and it is two questions: how can I endure to see the evil that would come to my people? How can I endure to see the destruction of my relatives?
The king's reply in verses 7 and 8 grants everything he can and states the limit plainly. Write what you please, in my name, sealed with my ring — for the writing which is written in the king's name, and sealed with the king's ring, may not be reversed by any man.
That is the trap the book set in its first chapter, when a domestic quarrel produced a law that cannot be altered Esther 1:19. An empire that boasted of irreversible decrees cannot rescind one even when its king wants to.
So the solution cannot be cancellation. It has to be a second decree written beside the first, and the next paragraph is what that looks like.
settled What this mark means