Hanged or impaled?

[rsr]

The TNIV and new NIV translate Esther 5:14 this way:

His wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Have a pole set up, reaching to a height of fifty cubits, and ask the king in the morning to have Mordecai impaled on it. Then go with the king to the banquet and enjoy yourself.” This suggestion delighted Haman, and he had the pole set up.

(Italics added)

The KJV (following the Bishops Bible) translates it as gallows and hanged. The ESV follows suit, as do the NET, NASB, Holman, old NIV and many others.

However, the Geneva rendered tree, hanged and tree, as did the YLT.

Challoner's Douai-Rheims revision renders the words as beam, hanged and gibbet. (The original Douai had gallows at the third instance.) This would appear to be a departure from the Vulgate upon which they both were based; the Vulgate uses crucem in the last instance. (The Vulgate also uses patibulo , from the Latin name for the crossbar of a cross, in Chapter 7; naturally enough, Dante portrays Haman as having been crucified.)

Adam Clarke also believed that impaling, rather than hanging, was what what being described in Esther, though Gill doubts it.

All that being said, did the NIV go to far in insisting that the method of execution was impaling?

 

[Deacon]

Other than in the book of Esther, the first word is translated tree or wood in all other passages, in all other versions.
ESV note with “gallows” reads “stake”.

Gallows reminds me of the old west hangman’s noose.
“Gallows” is just plain wrong; it brings up the wrong image in our minds.

Rob

 

[rsr]

I just wonder whether impaled assumes too much from the text. While the Persians did use impalement as a punishment, they also used a form of crucifixion.

It was reported that Jews in the fourth century crucified an effigy of Haman during the feast of Purim, though it is not certain that they really believed Haman was crucified or it was a not-so-veiled slap at their Christian neighbors' celebration the the crucifixion of Christ.

The governors of the provinces shall prohibit the Jews, in a certain ceremony of their festival Haman in commemoration of some former punishment, from setting fire to and burning a simulated appearance of the holy cross, in contempt of the Christian faith and with sacrilegious mind, lest they associate the sign of Our faith with their places.
The Theodosian Code (Book XVI), 326 From The Theodosian Code, trans. by Clyde Pharr (Princeton, New Jersey: The Princeton University Press, 1952), XVI, 440476.)

 

[franklinmonroe]

I just wonder whether impaled assumes too much from the text. While the Persians did use impalement as a punishment, they also used a form of crucifixion. ...

I think "hanged" is probably accurate but NOT in the way we might tend to envision. Indeed, there may have been piercing of the victim's body, but again, probably not in the manner of our Western conception. I agree that "gallows" envokes entirely too elaborate an idea of construction.

A translation of the German Gesenius' Lexicon by Tregelles states that the Hebrew word talah means "to suspend, to hang up" and furthermore "to hang any one on a stake, to crucify, a kind of punishment used among the Israelites, Deut 21:22; the Egyptians, Gen 40:19; the Persians, Est. 7:10, 5:14."

 

[robycop3]

Whatever it was, it was a forma public execution where the perp's body would be on public display, prolly both as a warning 2 not dupe his actions, and as a forma humiliation & disgrace.