REMEMBER HARBONA Rabbi Joseph H . Prouser
Harbona is a seemingly minor character , mentioned twice in the Book of Esther . First , he is listed among the seven eunuchs in the service of King Achashverosh , whom the king , in a state of drunkenness , commands to bring Queen Vashti to his royal bacchanal ( Esther 1:10 ).
In Harbona ’ s second , defining appearance ( 7:9 ), he points out to Achashverosh – now enraged at Haman – that the gallows on which that conniving chief minister had intended to hang Mordechai (“ a man whose words saved the king !”) stood ready at Haman ’ s house . Predictably , Achashverosh acts on Harbona ’ s leading observation and orders that Haman be executed thereon .
Rashi embellishes Harbona ’ s suggestive comments to include the assertion that Haman was guilty of the salacious improprieties toward Esther of which the King had suspected him .
The first Targum to Esther ( see MS Esther Paris Hebrew 110 ), expands on Harbona ’ s statements regarding the gallows to include the explicit proposal : “ If it please the king ... let Haman be hanged upon it .”
The dearth of data actually provided by Scripture about Harbona is dramatized by the fact that the only two explicit attestations of his name do not even share a common spelling ( In 1:10 , the name ends with an aleph ; in 7:9 with a hay ).
In their “ Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament ,” Brown , Driver and Briggs note this fact without comment . They do , however , state the derivation of Harbona ’ s name as from the Persian for “ donkey-driver .” This seems to be a
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