Esther 6:8

Let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear,.... Not a whole suit of clothes, but a single garment; the purple robe, as both the Targums, such as kings wore; that which Cyrus

Let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head: The royal apparel ... which the king useth to

The royal apparel; his outward garment, which was made of purple, interwoven with gold, as Justin and Curtius relate. The horse that the king rideth upon usually; which was well known, both by his excellency, and especially by his peculiar trappings and ornaments: compare . Upon his head; either, 1. Upon the king’ s head; or, 2. Upon the horse’ s head; which seems best to agree, 1. With that ancient Chaldee interpreter, and other Jews, who take it thus. 2. With the signification and order of the Hebrew words. 3. With the following verses, in which there is no further mention of this crown, but only of the apparel, and of the horse, to which the crown belonged, as one of his ornaments. 4. With the custom of the Persians, which some affirm to have been this, to put the crown upon the head of that horse upon which the king rode.

Esther 6:8 Let the royal apparel be brought which the king [useth] to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head:Ver. 8. Let the royal apparel be brought, &c.] This was very glorious and gorgeous; as is to be seen in Xenophon, Plutarch, Lucian, Dion, Chrysostom, and other good authors. The Persian kings wore on their heads an upright tiara or turban very sumptuous; a diadem also made of white and purple colour. On their bodies a rich purple stole, or robe of state, reaching down to the heels; this Curtius calleth pallam Persicam, a Persian pall, beset with gold and precious stones great store, and the pictures of wild creatures and fowls of the air. Curtius, describing Xerxes’ s royal apparel, saith that golden hawks, encountering one another with their beaks, adorned his robe made of cloth of gold. Besides, they wore a rich cassock (called candy) bound to them with a golden belt, breeches also of scarlet, reaching to their knees; called therefore by the Greeks Pερισκελης, as Jerome testifieth (Ep. ad Fabiol.). And the horse that the king rideth upon] The king of Persia did always ride, either on horseback or in a chariot, and had one special horse proper to himself, as had also David, 1 Kings 1:33, Alexander, Julius Caesar, &c. At this day the better sort in Persia fight, buy, sell, confer, and do all on horseback. The difference between the gentleman and the peasant is, that the peasant never rides, the gentleman never goes on foot. And the crown royal which is set upon his head] This was monstrous ambition; appoint him the kingdom also, might Ahasuerus have said. Lyra noteth here, that Haman aspired to the kingdom, because none but the king could have the crown royal set upon his head; wherefore the king also in answering to the things propounded by him, saith, Take the robe and the horse, as thou hast said, but of the crown he maketh no mention. Some of the Hebrews by head here understand the horse’ s head; Nam apud Persas solebat equus deferre diadema regni, the king’ s horse was wont to carry the royal crown. Vatablus thinks this sense not unlikely, because the crown is not mentioned, Esther 6:11; and this might also peradventure be the custom and fashion of Persia, saith Diodati. Merlin noteth here, that Haman maketh no mention of rewards or gifts to be conferred upon him, because he had wealth enough already, and desired only more honours, instancing the uttermost that could be done to any subject, in seeking whereof he miserably failed.

(8) Let the royal apparel be brought . . .—These exceedingly great distinctions Haman suggests, thinking with unaccountable vanity (for nothing is said or implied as to any service rendered by him to the king) that the king must necessarily have been referring to him, and in a moment he is irretrievably committed. Whether Hainan’s character had at its best estate much discretion, or whether he rose to his high position, not by the qualities that should commend a statesman to a king, but, like many another Eastern Vizier, had by flattery and base arts gained the royal favour, we cannot say; here he shows the lack of the most ordinary discretion, his vanity is so inordinate that he cannot see the possibility of any one’s merits save his own. The request which Haman made may be illustrated by the permission granted by Xerxes to his uncle Artabanus to put on the royal robes and sleep in the royal bed at Susa (Herod, vii. 15-17). The horse that the king rideth upon.—Thus Pharaoh, desiring-to honour Joseph, made him ride in his own chariot (Genesis 41:43): David, wishing to show that Solomon had really become king in his father’s lifetime, commands that he should ride on the king’s mule (1 Kings 1:33; 1 Kings 1:44). And the crown royal which is set upon his head.—If we take the Hebrew here quite literally, the meaning must be and on whose (i.e., the horse’s) head a royal crown is set. The only objection to this view is, that there appears to be no evidence of such a custom among the Persians. Some render, and that a (or the: the Hebrew is necessarily ambiguous in such a case) royal crown be set, but this we consider does violence to the Hebrew. It must be noted that both the king in his reply, and the writer in describing what actually took place, make no mention of a crown as worn by Mordecai, nor does Haman in the following verse.

Verse 8. Let the royal apparel be brought] Pride and folly ever go hand in hand. What he asked would have been in any ordinary case against his own life: but he wished to reach the pinnacle of honour: never reflecting that the higher he rose, the more terrible would be his fall. The royal apparel was never worn but by the king: even when the king had lain them aside, it was death to put them on. The Targum has purple robes. And the horse - and the crown royal] Interpreters are greatly divided whether what is called here the crown royal be not rather an ornament worn on the head of the horse, than what may be called the royal crown. The original may be understood both ways; and our version seems to favour the former opinion; but I think it more likely that the royal crown is meant; for why mention the ordinary trappings of the royal steed?

8. royal apparel] The extent of the honour which Haman sought is illustrated by the story in Plutarch’s Lives (Artaxerxes, 5), where we are told that Tiribazus made a similar request; but in that case, though the king granted him a royal robe, he forbade him to wear it. Other instances of the bestowal of garments upon another in token of favour or amity are to be found in Genesis 41:42; 1 Samuel 18:4; and so with regard to armour in Homer (Il. vi. 230, of Glaucus and Diomede). the horse that the king rideth upon] Cp. David’s direction as to Solomon in 1 Kings 1:33. and on the head of which a crown royal is set] Assyrian monuments represent the king’s horse as wearing a kind of head ornament resembling a crown. We can easily understand therefore that the same custom may have existed at the Persian court. Josephus (Ant. xi. 6. 10) adds—the thought being perhaps suggested by the story of Joseph (see above)—that a chain was to be placed about the favoured person’s neck. The rendering of the A.V. ‘and the crown royal which is set upon his head,’ though retained in the marg. of the R.V., is impossible.

The honors here proposed by Haman were such as Persian monarchs rarely allowed to subjects. Each act would have been a capital offence if done without permission.

8. Royal apparel… horse… the crown royal — This was a rare honour to be bestowed on any subject, even on a royal benefactor. Haman would hardly have proposed it had he not thought that he himself would be the favoured one.