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. Kακου κορακος κακυν ωον (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.