Esther 5:14

5:14 Haman’s 1  wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Have a gallows seventy-five feet 2  high built, and in the morning tell the king that Mordecai should be hanged on it. Then go with the king to the banquet contented.” 3 

It seemed like a good idea to Haman, so he had the gallows built.

Esther 6:13

6:13 Haman then related to his wife Zeresh and to all his friends everything that had happened to him. These wise men, 4  along with his wife Zeresh, said to him, “If indeed this Mordecai before whom you have begun to fall is Jewish, 5  you will not prevail against him. No, you will surely fall before him!”

1 tn Heb “his”; the referent (Haman) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

2 tn Heb “fifty cubits.” Assuming a standard length for the cubit of about 18 inches (45 cm), this would be about seventy-five feet (22.5 meters), which is a surprisingly tall height for the gallows. Perhaps the number assumes the gallows was built on a large supporting platform or a natural hill for visual effect, in which case the structure itself may have been considerably smaller. Cf. NCV “a seventy-five foot platform”; CEV “a tower built about seventy-five feet high.”

3 tn Or “joyful”; NRSV “in good spirits”; TEV “happy.”

4 tc Part of the Greek tradition and the Syriac Peshitta understand this word as “friends,” probably reading the Hebrew term רֲכָמָיו (rakhamayv, “his friends”) rather than the reading of the MT חֲכָמָיו (hakhamayv, “his wise men”). Cf. NLT “all his friends”; the two readings appear to be conflated by TEV as “those wise friends of his.”

5 tn Heb “from the seed of the Jews”; KJV, ASV similar.