Chapter 8

The King gives Esther Haman's house!  Mordecai is summoned also after Esther tells the King he is her cousin. 

Esther approaches the King again and a second time he holds out the golden scepter.  This time she asks that the genocide decreed for her people be stopped.  The king gives this answer:

8 But you may write as you please with regard to the Jews, in the name of the king, and seal it with the king's ring, for an edict written in the name of the king and sealed with the king's ring cannot be revoked." [Est 8:8 ESV]

But previously, there is this verse about Haman's implementation of his plan:

12 Then the king's scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and an edict, according to all that Haman commanded, was written to the king's satraps and to the governors over all the provinces and to the officials of all the peoples, to every province in its own script and every people in its own language. It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king's signet ring. [Est 3:12 ESV]

So....Apparently such things can be revoked, so long as you have that ring...

MSB says the original order could not be revoked, but that the rules of Persia did allow for a "counter-order".  So...it really isn't "carved in granite" at all...

The counter order allowed the Jews to defend themselves, against any and all comers, and to plunder the goods of such people.  They could do this on the 13th day of the 12th month.  This is the same day the previous edict had said all the Jews were to be killed.  There is joy and happiness all over the kingdom at this turn of events - at this national salvation.  Many non-Jews claim to be Jews because they are afraid they will end up on the wrong side of what is now coming.  Seems that anyone who still attacks the Jews on this day must know about Haman's fate, and must know that the King is a friend of the Jews.  Surely they would hold back.  And the edict to the Jews only says they can defend themselves.  And only on that one day...