Esther 5:8

5:8 If I have found favor in the king’s sight and if the king is inclined ¹  to grant my request and perform my petition, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet that I will prepare for them. At that time ²  I will do as the king wishes. ³ 

Esther 5:12-14

5:12 Haman said, “Furthermore, Queen Esther invited ⁴  only me to accompany the king to the banquet that she prepared! And also tomorrow I am invited ⁵  along with the king. 5:13 Yet all of this fails to satisfy me so long as I have to see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.”

5:14 Haman’s ⁶  wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Have a gallows seventy-five feet ⁷  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.” ⁸ 

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

¹ tn Heb “if upon the king it is good.” Cf. the similar expression in v. 4, which also occurs in 7:3; 8:5; 9:13.

² tn Heb “and tomorrow” (so NASB); NAB, NRSV “and then.”

³ tn Heb “I will do according to the word of the king,” i.e., answer the question that he has posed. Cf. NCV “Then I will answer your question about what I want.”

⁴ tn Heb “caused to come”; KJV “did let no man come in…but myself.”

⁵ tn Heb “called to her”; KJV “invited unto her”; NAB “I am to be her guest.”

⁷ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Haman) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁸ 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.”

⁹ tn Or “joyful”; NRSV “in good spirits”; TEV “happy.”