Ester 7:1-4

The King Has Haman Executed

7:1 So the king and Haman came to dine ¹  with Queen Esther. 7:2 On the second day of the banquet of wine the king asked Esther, “What is your request, Queen Esther? It shall be granted to you. And what is your petition? Ask up to half the kingdom, and it shall be done!”

7:3 Queen Esther replied, “If I have met with your approval, ²  O king, and if the king is so inclined, grant me my life as my request, and my people as my petition. 7:4 For we have been sold ³  – both I and my people – to destruction and to slaughter and to annihilation! If we had simply been sold as male and female slaves, I would have remained silent, for such distress would not have been sufficient for troubling the king.”

[7:1]  ¹ tn Heb “to drink”; NASB “to drink wine.” The expression is a metaphor for lavish feasting, cf. NRSV “to feast”; KJV “to banquet.”

[7:3]  ² tn Heb “If I have found grace in your eyes” (so also in 8:5); TEV “If it please Your Majesty.”

[7:4]  ³ sn The passive verb (“have been sold”) is noncommittal and nonaccusatory with regard to the king’s role in the decision to annihilate the Jews.