Esther 9:10

[See comments on Es 9:7].

And in Shushan the palace the Jews slew and destroyed five hundred men. No JFB commentary on these verses.

Either because they were desirous it should come into the king’ s treasury; or because they would leave it to their children, that it might appear that what they did that day was not done out of malice to their persons and families, or covetousness of their estates, but out of mere necessity, and by that great and approved law of self-preservation, and that they were ready to mix mercy with judgment and would not deal with their enemies so ill as it was apparent that their enemies intended to do against them.

Esther 9:10 The ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews, slew they; but on the spoil laid they not their hand.Ver. 10. The ten sons of Haman] Of whom he had so boasted, Esther 5:12, and bore himself bold, as believing that being so full of children, he should leave the rest of his substance to his babes, Psalms 17:14. These ten likely were ringleaders to those Hamanists in Shushan, that durst appear in so bad a cause, being evil eggs of an evil bird. Non enim fieri ullo mode potest, ut ex me et Agrippina vir bonus nascatur, said Domitius, the father of Nero; It cannot be that of myself and Agrippina should come any good man. Kακουκορακοςκακυνωον (Dio. in Ner.). Haman brought up his sons to bring down his house; and was a parricide to them rather than a parent. His darling Vajezatha he corrected not, but cockered; no wonder, therefore, that he proved to be of a gastrill-kind (disquieting his own nest), of a viperous brood; and, therefore, though not hanged together with his father, and the whole family (as the Apocryphal additions of Esther, Esther 16:18, tell us, but not truly), yet slain in this insurrection at Shushan, together with the rest of his brethren; the good people crying out, as once they did at Rome, when the son of Maximinus, the emperor, was put to death, Ex pessimo genere ne catulum quidem habendum, Let not one whelp be left of so evil a litter. But on the spoil laid they not their hand] Lest the king should be damnified, or themselves justly taxed of covetousness and cruelty. "Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God," 1 Corinthians 10:32. Non semper omnia quae licent sunt facienda Not everything which is permitted should be done. (Lavat.). This is oft repeated in this chapter, to their great commendation; that although, by the king’ s grant, they might have taken the spoil, Esther 8:11, yet they did it not: 1. To show that they were God’ s executioners, not thieves and robbers. 2. To gratify the king for his courtesy towards them, by leaving the spoil wholly to his treasury. 3. It is not unlikely, saith an interpreter (Fevard), that Mordecai and Esther had admonished them how ill Saul had sped with his spoils of the Amalekites, and Achan with his wedge of gold, which served but to cleave his body and soul asunder, and his Babylonish garment, which proved to be his burial sheet.

(10) On the spoil laid they not their hand.—This they might have done, according to the edict (Esther 8:11).

Verse 10. The ten sons of Haman] Their names are given above. And it is remarked here, and in Es 9:16, where the account is given of the number slain in the provinces, that the Jews laid no hands on the spoil. They stood for their lives, and gave full proof that they sought their own personal safety, and not the property of their enemies, though the decree in their favour gave them authority to take the property of all those who were their adversaries, Es 8:11.

10. on the spoil they laid not their hand] although according to the terms of the edict (Esther 8:11) they had a legal right to do this. Their desire was deliverance and also vengeance, but not material gain. Cp. the case of Abraham, when he refused to make himself liable to the imputation that he had been enriched by his overthrow of the king of Sodom’s enemies (Genesis 14:23).

10. On the spoil laid they not their hand — The king’s decree granted them, as it had done their enemies, the right to the spoils, (Esther 3:13; Esther 8:11,) but they showed that they had no desire