Psalms 49:12

49:12 but, despite their wealth, people do not last, ¹ 

they are like animals ²  that perish. ³ 

Esther 5:11-14

5:11 Haman then recounted to them his fabulous wealth, ⁴  his many sons, ⁵  and how the king had magnified him and exalted him over the king’s other officials and servants. 5:12 Haman said, “Furthermore, Queen Esther invited ⁶  only me to accompany the king to the banquet that she prepared! And also tomorrow I am invited ⁷  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 ⁸  wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Have a gallows seventy-five feet ⁹  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.” ¹⁰ 

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

Esther 7:10

7:10 So they hanged Haman on the very gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. The king’s rage then abated.

¹ tn Heb “but mankind in honor does not remain.” The construction vav (ו) + noun at the beginning of the verse can be taken as contrastive in relation to what precedes. The Hebrew term יְקָר (yÿqar, “honor”) probably refers here to the wealth mentioned in the preceding context. The imperfect verbal form draws attention to what is characteristically true. Some scholars emend יָלִין (yalin, “remains”) to יָבִין (yavin, “understands”) but this is an unnecessary accommodation to the wording of v. 20.

² tn Or “cattle.”

³ tn The verb is derived from דָּמָה (damah, “cease; destroy”; BDB 198 s.v.). Another option is to derive the verb from דָּמָה (“be silent”; see HALOT 225 s.v. II דמה, which sees two homonymic roots [דָּמָה, “be silent,” and דָּמָה, “destroy”] rather than a single root) and translate, “they are like dumb beasts.” This makes particularly good sense in v. 20, where the preceding line focuses on mankind’s lack of understanding.

⁴ tn Heb “the glory of his riches” (so KJV, NASB); NRSV “the splendor of his riches.”

⁵ sn According to Esth 9:10 Haman had ten sons.

⁶ tn Heb “caused to come”; KJV “did let no man come in…but myself.”

⁷ tn Heb “called to her”; KJV “invited unto her”; NAB “I am to be her guest.”

⁸ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Haman) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁹ 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.”

¹⁰ tn Or “joyful”; NRSV “in good spirits”; TEV “happy.”