Charles Ellicott Commentary Esther 6:8

"let royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and on the head of which a crown royal is set:" — Esther 6:8 (ASV)

Let the royal apparel be brought ... — Haman suggests these exceedingly great distinctions, thinking with unaccountable vanity (for nothing is said or implied about any service he rendered to the king) that the king must necessarily have been referring to him, and in a moment he is irretrievably committed.

Whether Haman’s character in its best state had much discretion, or whether he rose to his high position not by the qualities that should commend a statesman to a king but, like many another Eastern Vizier, had by flattery and base arts gained the royal favor, we cannot say.

Here he shows a lack of the most ordinary discretion; his vanity is so inordinate that he cannot see the possibility of anyone’s merits save his own. The request Haman made may be illustrated by the permission Xerxes granted to his uncle Artabanus to put on the royal robes and sleep in the royal bed at Susa (Herod, vii. 15-17).

The horse that the king rideth upon. — Thus Pharaoh, desiring to honor Joseph, made him ride in his own chariot (Genesis 41:43): David, wishing to show that Solomon had really become king in his father’s lifetime, commands that he should ride on the king’s mule (1 Kings 1:33; 1 Kings 1:44).

And the crown royal which is set upon his head. — If we take the Hebrew here quite literally, the meaning must be and on whose (that is, the horse’s) head a royal crown is set. The only objection to this view is that there appears to be no evidence of such a custom among the Persians.

Some render it and that a (or the, as the Hebrew is necessarily ambiguous in such a case) royal crown be set, but this we consider does violence to the Hebrew. It must be noted that both the king in his reply, and the writer in describing what actually took place, make no mention of a crown being worn by Mordecai, nor does Haman in the following verse.