If we pass over the scene between Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar, related in Gen. xxxvii, 12–26, where the patriarch leaves his signet (not necessarily a signet _ring_) his bracelets and his staff, as pledges for a promised gift, the earliest Hebrew notice of a ring is in Genesis xlii, 42, where we read that in return for the interpretation of his dream and for the valuable counsel as to laying up a stock of grain in Egypt to forestall a coming famine, the Pharaoh of the time “took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand.” This might refer to a period about 1600 B.C., or possibly somewhat earlier, always providing the tradition be accepted as in a certain sense exact. Centuries later, in the Desert, when the Lord commanded offerings for the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, and for the ephod and breastplate, among the gifts proffered are enumerated “bracelets, earrings, and rings” (Exodus, xxxv, 22). The Book of Daniel, written not earlier than the sixth century before Christ, and more probably, in its present form, a work of the second century B.C., relating the imprisonment of Daniel in the lions’ den, states that when at the reluctant command of King Darius he was shut up therein, “a stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords” (Dan. vi, 17). Still, these might have been of the well-known Babylonian type of “rolling seals” and not rings. The Book of Esther, however, of later date than Daniel, makes definite mention of the signet ring of the Persian monarch called Ahasuerus (Artaxerxes) in the Biblical text, and while the recital can scarcely be accepted as historical in any sense, the details of custom and adornment are probably quite trustworthy. On investing Haman with a great authority, Ahasuerus “took his ring from his hand and gave it unto Haman,” whereupon the latter summoned the king’s scribes and had them write letters to the provincial governors--instructing the latter to kill all the Jews in the kingdom on the thirteenth day of the month Adar; each of these letters was “sealed with the king’s ring.” Before this dire disaster could be consummated, the royal favor was gently swayed in an opposite direction by the grace and charm of Esther, the Hebrew favorite of the sovereign, and the wicked Haman was hanged on the tall gallows he had set up for Mordecai, Esther’s guardian, on whom the ring stript from Haman’s hand was bestowed. In spite of the somewhat confused recital, one point is always strongly brought out, that the impression of the royal signet imparted to letters or documents the quality of royal ordinances.