Esther 7:8 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Haman was fallen upon the bed whereon Esther was— It was a custom among the Persians, as well as other nations, to sit, or rather lie, upon beds when they ate or drank; and therefore, when Haman fell down as a suppliant at the feet of Esther, and, as the manner was among the Greeks and Romans, and not improbably among the Persians, embraced her knees, the king might pretend that he was offering violence to the queen's chastity; not that he believed that this was his intention; but in his furious passion he turned every thing to the worst sense, and made use of it to aggravate his crime. The king's design was evident enough from his words; and therefore they immediately covered Haman's face. As the dignity of a prince made the being arrayed in his clothes a mighty honour, so it should seem it did not allow of a malefactor's setting eyes upon him. The majesty, at least, of the kings of Persia did not allow of this, as appears in the case of Haman, whose face was covered as soon as the courtiers perceived Ahasuerus looked upon him in that light. Some curious correspondent examples have been produced from antiquity, and may be met with in Poole's Synopsis; but, perhaps, it may be amusing to find that this custom still continues; as well as useful to ascertain more clearly the meaning of covering the face, which has been differently understood by learned men. I shall therefore set down, from Bishop Pococke's Travels, the account that he gives of an artifice by which an Egyptian bey was taken off. It was this: a man, being brought before him like a malefactor just taken, with his hands behind as if tied, and a napkin put over his head, as malefactors commonly have, when he was brought before the bey, suddenly shot him dead. The covering of Haman's face, then, was the placing him before Ahasuerus as a malefactor to hear his doom, who had just before been considered as the king's confident. See Observations, p. 282 and Explication des Textes Difficiles, p. 261.