Esther 2:23

And when inquisition … on a tree The LXX. have more briefly, -And the king examined the two eunuchs and hung them." The word -examined" probably means by torture.

hanged on a tree crucified or impaled. Such was the form of capital punishment inflicted upon political offenders in Persia (Herod. iii. 159, iv. 43).

the book of the chronicles Herodotus (viii. 90) tells us that historiographers were attached to Xerxes" court, and moved with it from place to place. Thus these chronicles recorded facts and events of State importance. Doubtless they were written on materials more perishable than the burnt clay tablets, which have been found in the vicinity of Babylon and elsewhere, and which have fortunately transmitted to us public occurrences of their time. Ctesias (see on Esther 1:2) pretended that records set down by Persian chroniclers were the sources from which he drew his information. We may compare the acta diurnaof the Roman Empire, referred to in Tacitus (Ann.xiii. 31). The -chronicles" mentioned in the text here are referred to again in Esther 6:1; Esther 10:2. Cp. Ezra 4:15.

before the king under his supervision, if not actually in his presence.