3:10 So the king removed his signet ring 1 from his hand and gave it to Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, who was hostile toward the Jews.
9:20 Mordecai wrote these matters down and sent letters to all the Jews who were throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far,
1 sn Possessing the king’s signet ring would enable Haman to act with full royal authority. The king’s ring would be used to impress the royal seal on edicts, making them as binding as if the king himself had enacted them.
2 tn Heb “Mordecai.” The pronoun (“he”) was used in the translation for stylistic reasons. A repetition of the proper name here is redundant in terms of contemporary English style.
3 tn Heb “this” (so NASB); most English versions read “that” here for stylistic reasons.
4 tc The present translation is based on the Niphal form וַיּשָּׁלַח (vayyishalakh, “were sent”; so also NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT) rather than the reading of the MT וַיּשְׁלַח (vayyishlakh, Qal, “and he sent”). The subject of the MT verb would have to be Mordecai (cf. NAB, NIV, NCV), but this is problematic in light of v. 29, where both Esther and Mordecai are responsible for the letters.
5 tn Heb “peace and truth.” The expression is probably a hendiadys (see the note on 5:10 for an explanation of this figure).