If it please the king, let it be written, that they may be destroyed,.... That is, a law made, signed and sealed, for their destruction, and letters written and sent everywhere, ordering it to be put in execution:
and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of those who have the charge of the business, to bring it into the king's treasury; this he proposed, to prevent any objection that might be made from the loss of tribute paid by this people to the king; and this was a very large sum for him to pay out of his own estate, it being near four millions of our money; it is computed by Brerewood x at 3,750,000 pounds; for as to what is suggested by some, that he intended to repay himself out of the spoil of the Jews, it may be observed, that, according to the king's letter, they that were employed in destroying the Jews were to have the spoil for a prey or booty to themselves, Esther 3:13. Now this sum of money he proposed not to put into the hands of them that should slay the Jews, but into the hands of the king's receivers of the dues, that they might lay it up in the king's treasury or exchequer.
x De Pret. & Ponder. Vet. Num. c. 5.