These ten men were sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews.
They were Amalekites in heart and soul. They shared their father’s passionate hatred for the Jews. By killing them, the Jews proved their allegiance to the Lord (see Exodus 17:14; Deuteronomy 25:17–19; 1 Samuel 15:1–3).
We are told three times (here, in Esther 9:15, and again in Esther 9:16) that the Jews laid no hand on the plunder.
This is significant, especially since the edict written by Mordecai had given the Jews the right to plunder the property of their enemies (Esther 8:11).
How should this conduct of the Jews be explained? One reason for it may be that the Jews wished to clarify their motivation for attacking. They attacked not for the sake of revenge or material gain, but purely for the sake of self-defence.
But the most important reason is probably that, in the eyes of the Jews, the thirteenth of Adar was a day of war between them and the Amalekites. Of course, the attackers were not all Amalekites. Yet the attack had been planned and instigated by Haman the Amalekite, after a Jewish man had refused to bow before him.
Saul had sinned by taking plunder from the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15:3, 1 Samuel 15:9). The Jews would not make this same mistake again. The memory of Amalek was to be blotted out (Exodus 17:16).
10 the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews, but they laid no hand on the plunder.