but on the spoil laid they not their hands;
though they were allowed by the edict to do it, ( Esther 8:11 ) , but this they did not, that it might appear that they did not take away their lives from a covetous desire of their estates, but purely in self-defence; and they might do this, the more to ingratiate themselves to the king, to whom the goods and estates of those men would be confiscated.