Esther 8 · a question people ask
Why didn't the king just cancel Haman's letters?
The chapter gives the king's own answer. Esther asked, "let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman" (8:5). The king said, "Write also to the Jews as it pleases you, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s ring; for the writing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring, may not be reversed by any man" (8:8) (tap reverse). Haman's letters had been written and sealed that way: "It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus, and it was sealed with the king’s ring" (3:12). The book said something like it of Vashti's sentence, to be written "so that it cannot be altered" (1:19). The chapter never says the first letters were taken back. The second letters name the same day as Haman's letters (3:13), "the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar" (8:12), and give the Jews leave "to gather themselves together and to defend their lives" (8:11). The chapter explains the king's law no further than his words in 8:8, and this study doesn't either.
The verses
“She said, “If it pleases the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seems right to the king, and I am pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote to destroy the Jews who are in all the king’s provinces.”
“Write also to the Jews as it pleases you, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s ring; for the writing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring, may not be reversed by any man.””
““If it pleases the king, let a royal commandment go from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, so that it cannot be altered, that Vashti may never again come before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal estate to another who is better than she.”
“In those letters, the king granted the Jews who were in every city to gather themselves together and to defend their lives—to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish all the power of the people and province that would assault them, their little ones and women, and to plunder their possessions, on one day in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar.”