Then were the king's scribes called on the thirteenth day of the first month, and there was written according to all that Haman had commanded unto the king's lieutenants, and to the governors that were over every province, and to the rulers of every people of every province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language; in the name of king Ahasuerus was it written, and sealed with the king's ring.
Then were the king's scribes called ... and there was written. The government secretaries were employed in making out the proclamation authorizing a universal massacre of the Jews on one day. It was translated into the dialects of all the people throughout the vast empire, and swift messengers sent to carry it into all the provinces, and, on the day appointed, all Jews were to be put to death, and their property confiscated-doubtless the means by which Haman hoped to pay his stipulated tribute into the exchequer.
Haman had commanded, unto the king's lieutenants, х 'ªchashdarpneey (H323) hamelek (H4428), satraps] - 'the governors or viceroys of the large provinces among the ancient Persians, possessing both civil and military power, and being in the provinces the representative of the sovereign, whose state and splendour they also rivaled. Single parts or subdivisions of these provinces were under procurators or prefects [called pachowt (H6346)]; the satraps governed only whole provinces' (Gesenius). The edict is given at full length in the apocryphal additions to this book. To us it appears unaccountable how any sane monarch could have given his consent to the extirpation of a numerous class of his subjects. But such acts of frenzied barbarity have, alas, been not rarely authorized by careless and voluptuous despots, who have allowed their ears to be engrossed and their policy directed by haughty and selfish minions, who had their own passions to gratify, their own ends to serve.
Verse 15. The king and Haman sat down to drink; but the city Shushan was perplexed. The completeness of the word-painting in this verse is exquisite. The historian by a simple stroke, has drawn a graphic picture of an Oriental despot wallowing with his favourite in sensual enjoyments, while his tyrannical cruelties were rending the hearts and homes of thousands of his subjects.