Discovery BoxEsther 8:8-10 
Context8:8 Now you write in the king’s name whatever in your opinion is appropriate concerning the Jews and seal it with the king’s signet ring. Any decree that is written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s signet ring cannot be rescinded.
8:9 The king’s scribes were quickly 1 summoned – in the third month (that is, the month of Sivan), on the twenty-third day. 2 They wrote out 3 everything that Mordecai instructed to the Jews and to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces all the way from India to Ethiopia 4 – a hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all – to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language, and to the Jews according to their own script and their own language. 8:10 Mordecai 5 wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed it with the king’s signet ring. He then sent letters by couriers on horses, who rode royal horses that were very swift.
1 tn Heb “in that time”; NIV “At once.”
2 sn Cf. 3:12. Two months and ten days have passed since Haman’s edict to wipe out the Jews.
3 tn Heb “it was written”; this passive construction has been converted to an active one in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.
4 tn Heb “Cush” (so NIV), referring to the region of the upper Nile in Africa. Cf. KJV and most other English versions “Ethiopia.”
5 tn Heb “He”; the referent (Mordecai) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
