Hanged or impaled?

The TNIV and new NIV translate Esther 5:14 this way:

(Italics added)

The KJV (following the Bishops Bible) translates it as gallows and hanged. The ESV follows suit, as do the NET, NASB, Holman, old NIV and many others.

However, the Geneva rendered tree, hanged and tree, as did the YLT.

Challoner's Douai-Rheims revision renders the words as beam, hanged and gibbet. (The original Douai had gallows at the third instance.) This would appear to be a departure from the Vulgate upon which they both were based; the Vulgate uses crucem in the last instance. (The Vulgate also uses patibulo , from the Latin name for the crossbar of a cross, in Chapter 7; naturally enough, Dante portrays Haman as having been crucified.)

Adam Clarke also believed that impaling, rather than hanging, was what what being described in Esther, though Gill doubts it.

All that being said, did the NIV go to far in insisting that the method of execution was impaling?

 

I just wonder whether impaled assumes too much from the text. While the Persians did use impalement as a punishment, they also used a form of crucifixion.

It was reported that Jews in the fourth century crucified an effigy of Haman during the feast of Purim, though it is not certain that they really believed Haman was crucified or it was a not-so-veiled slap at their Christian neighbors' celebration the the crucifixion of Christ.