So the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews.
The king's signet ring changes hands here, and with it the power to turn one man's hatred into law. Scripture pauses to give the man who receives it a title: the enemy of the Jews. Behind that title lies a feud far older than the Persian court.
What the ring meant
A ring in that court was not jewellery. It was a working tool of government, and the king hands it to Haman.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThen the king gave him his ring. It was a ring to seal a document. Every ring had a seal. Handing over the king's ring with its seal handed over royal authority and power to the man who received it. So Haman now held royal authority. The haughtiness of the king appears now. Not only does he turn over his signet ring, but he also makes Haman a present of the enormous sum he had offered to the king. In cold blood Xerxes gives over this unknown people into the hands of this wicked enemy.
"The Agagite"
The verse names Haman's family, and that name carries a history. Agag was the royal line of Amalek, a nation under a standing sentence from God.
Morrish Bible DictionaryHaman was the son of Hammedatha the Agagite. Josephus explains his foreign name by calling him an Amalekite by race, and Jewish tradition says the same. So Haman was an Amalekite. This explains why Mordecai refused to bow down before Haman. He belonged to the race the Lord had sworn to fight for ever, and which He told Saul to destroy completely. Ex. 17:16; Deut. 25:19; 1 Sam. 15:3.
The enemy behind the enemy
One writer sees a long campaign behind Amalek. It runs from the desert years to Haman, and on to Bethlehem, with the same hidden aim throughout.
H. L. RossierWithout Moses' prayer on the mountain and without Joshua, he would have destroyed the people. David defeated him at last, yet even then he did not treat the fight as finished. Now the people are captive. Their unfaithfulness has brought them to the lowest point of humiliation. So Satan stirs up Haman the Agagite to wipe out the weak remnant of this people. And let us not forget his hidden purpose: to take Israel away from Christ, the king God had planned and promised. Could there be a more deceitful plan, a more satanic one, than that? This book teaches us that Satan is frustrated in his efforts, yet he does not consider himself beaten. He attacks Israel's very Leader, Christ. At His birth he tries to kill Him through a new Agag, in the massacre at Bethlehem.
A king who never asked
The king hands over the ring without one question about the people he is condemning. He also misses what his adviser stood to gain.
Leslie M. GrantThe king ought to have realised that Haman had a personal axe to grind. Haman was ready to pay this huge sum out of his own pocket to have this people destroyed. But the king placed great confidence in this scheming Amalekite. Haman cared far more for his own reputation than for the Persian kingdom. The king therefore agreed, and gave Haman liberty to do just as he desired (vv. 10-11). It seems strange that the king consulted his princes about what to do with Queen Vashti (ch. 1:13-15). Yet in this far more serious case he acted like a dictator!
Why this people
Why did this hatred settle on this people? One writer names the reason underneath it, and the way such plots end.
William KellyHaman's plea to the king sounded plausible. God's people, just because they are His, are always an offence to the rest of mankind, and most of all to the proud and boastful. This stays true even when their own unfaithfulness has cost them His open favour, as it had here… At first, that ending looked the least likely of all; in the end Satan, as always, defeated himself.
A decree that did not stand
The title given to Haman here follows him through the rest of the book. But the decree he seals with this ring does not get the last word.
Michael HardtHaman accuses the Jewish people before the king, and this verse names him "the enemy of the Jews" (v. 10; cf. 8:1; 9:10, 24). All of it matters for what we learn about Satan and his agents (cf. Rev. 12:4, 10). A royal decree then makes his plan law: every Jew must die (v. 12-15)… How good to know that the king later passes a second decree which overturns the first. That second decree turns a sentence of death into life and peace.
Summary
- The ring — the signet stamped documents and made them law. Giving it away gave away royal authority, and Haman now acts with the king's own power.
- The hand that takes it — Haman is an Agagite, from Amalek's royal line. God had sworn lasting war on that nation, and the old feud is why Mordecai would not bow.
- The hand that gives it — a king who asked nothing and checked nothing, and made a gift of the silver too. He took advice about his queen, but not about the life of a whole nation.
- The hatred underneath — God's people offend the proud just because they are His. That stays true even when their unfaithfulness has cost them His open favour.
- The reversal — the king later issues a second decree that overturns the first. The sentence of death becomes life and peace.