“They covered Haman's face”
As soon as the words had left the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face. (Esther 7:8 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A strange, unexplained detail about covering his face.
The cultural key
The gesture is baffling until read as a death-sentence custom. In the Persian world and beyond, the face of a man condemned to die, or who had fatally lost the king's favor and would never look on him again, was covered. The instant the king storms back in and misreads Haman's frantic begging as an assault on the queen, the attendants cover Haman's face: it is the visual verdict that he is finished, already a dead man. It mirrors 6:12, where Haman had earlier slunk home 'with his head covered in grief' after being forced to honor Mordecai; there the covering was his own shame, here it is the court's death-mark laid on him. Harbonah's mention of the gallows and the king's curt 'Hang him' merely execute what the covered face has already pronounced.
Recovered meaning
Covering Haman's face is the court signaling a death sentence, not an odd detail. A man condemned or fallen beyond the king's favor had his face covered as one already doomed; the gallows simply carries out the verdict the gesture declares.