Ester 2:2

2:2 The king’s servants who attended him said, “Let a search be conducted in the king’s behalf for attractive young women. ¹ 

Ester 3:9

3:9 If the king is so inclined, ²  let an edict be issued ³  to destroy them. I will pay ten thousand talents of silver ⁴  to be conveyed to the king’s treasuries for the officials who carry out this business.”

Ester 5:7

5:7 Esther responded, ⁵  “My request and my petition is this:

Ester 8:6

8:6 For how can I watch the calamity that will befall my people, and how can I watch the destruction of my relatives?” ⁶ 

Ester 7:3

7:3 Queen Esther replied, “If I have met with your approval, ⁷  O king, and if the king is so inclined, grant me my life as my request, and my people as my petition.

Ester 5:8

5:8 If I have found favor in the king’s sight and if the king is inclined ⁸  to grant my request and perform my petition, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet that I will prepare for them. At that time ⁹  I will do as the king wishes. ¹⁰ 

Ester 7:4

7:4 For we have been sold ¹¹  – 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.”

Ester 5:4

5:4 Esther replied, “If the king is so inclined, ¹²  let the king and Haman come today to the banquet that I have prepared for him.”

Ester 8:5

8:5 She said, “If the king is so inclined and if I have met with his approval and if the matter is agreeable to the king and if I am attractive to him, let an edict be written rescinding those recorded intentions of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, ¹³  which he wrote in order to destroy the Jews who are throughout all the king’s provinces.

Ester 6:5

6:5 The king’s attendants said to him, “It is Haman who is standing in the courtyard.” The king said, “Let him enter.”

Ester 3:3

3:3 Then the servants of the king who were at the king’s gate asked Mordecai, “Why are you violating the king’s commandment?”

Ester 6:3

6:3 The king asked, “What great honor ¹⁴  was bestowed on Mordecai because of this?” The king’s attendants who served him responded, “Not a thing was done for him.”

Ester 4:17

4:17 So Mordecai set out to do everything that Esther had instructed him.

Ester 5:2

5:2 When the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, she met with his approval. ¹⁵  The king extended to Esther the gold scepter that was in his hand, and Esther approached and touched the end of the scepter.

Ester 2:18

2:18 Then the king prepared a large banquet for all his officials and his servants – it was actually Esther’s banquet. He also set aside a holiday for the provinces, and he provided for offerings at the king’s expense. ¹⁶ 

Ester 3:2

3:2 As a result, ¹⁷  all the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate were bowing and paying homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded. However, Mordecai did not bow, ¹⁸  nor did he pay him homage.

Ester 5:14

5:14 Haman’s ¹⁹  wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Have a gallows seventy-five feet ²⁰  high built, and in the morning tell the king that Mordecai should be hanged on it. Then go with the king to the banquet contented.” ²¹ 

It seemed like a good idea to Haman, so he had the gallows built.

Ester 4:11

4:11 “All the servants of the king and the people of the king’s provinces know that there is only one law applicable ²²  to any man or woman who comes uninvited to the king in the inner court – that person will be put to death, unless the king extends to him the gold scepter, permitting him to be spared. ²³  Now I have not been invited to come to the king for some thirty days!”

[2:2]  ¹ tn Heb “young women, virgins, good of form.” The same phrase also occurs in v. 3.

[3:9]  ² tn Heb “If upon the king it is good”; KJV “If it please the king.”

[3:9]  ³ tn Heb “let it be written” (so KJV, ASV); NASB “let it be decreed.”

[3:9]  ⁴ sn The enormity of the monetary sum referred to here can be grasped by comparing this amount (10,000 talents of silver) to the annual income of the empire, which according to Herodotus (Histories 3.95) was 14,500 Euboic talents. In other words Haman is offering the king a bribe equal to two-thirds of the royal income. Doubtless this huge sum of money was to come (in large measure) from the anticipated confiscation of Jewish property and assets once the Jews had been destroyed. That such a large sum of money is mentioned may indicate something of the economic standing of the Jewish population in the empire of King Ahasuerus.

[5:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “answered and said.” This is somewhat redundant in contemporary English and has been simplified in the translation.

[8:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “my kindred” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NAB “my race”; NIV “my family”; NLT “my people and my family.”

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

[5:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “if upon the king it is good.” Cf. the similar expression in v. 4, which also occurs in 7:3; 8:5; 9:13.

[5:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “and tomorrow” (so NASB); NAB, NRSV “and then.”

[5:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I will do according to the word of the king,” i.e., answer the question that he has posed. Cf. NCV “Then I will answer your question about what I want.”

[7:4]  ¹¹ 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.

[5:4]  ¹² tn Heb “If upon the king it is good”; NASB “If it please the king.”

[8:5]  ¹³ tc The LXX does not include the expression “the Agagite.”

[6:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “honor and greatness.” The expression is a hendiadys (see the note on 5:10 for an explanation of this figure).

[5:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “she obtained grace in his eyes”; NASB “she obtained favor in his sight”; NIV “he was pleased with her”; NLT “he welcomed her.”

[2:18]  ¹⁶ tc The LXX does not include the words “and he provided for offerings at the king’s expense.”

[3:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV). Other modern English versions leave the conjunction untranslated here (NAB, NIV, NCV, NLT).

[3:2]  ¹⁸ sn Mordecai did not bow. The reason for Mordecai’s refusal to bow before Haman is not clearly stated here. Certainly the Jews did not refuse to bow as a matter of principle, as though such an action somehow violated the second command of the Decalogue. Many biblical texts bear witness to their practice of falling prostrate before people of power and influence (e.g., 1 Sam 24:8; 2 Sam 14:4; 1 Kgs 1:16). Perhaps the issue here was that Haman was a descendant of the Amalekites, a people who had attacked Israel in an earlier age (see Exod 17:8-16; 1 Sam 15:17-20; Deut 25:17-19).

[5:14]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Haman) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:14]  ²⁰ tn Heb “fifty cubits.” Assuming a standard length for the cubit of about 18 inches (45 cm), this would be about seventy-five feet (22.5 meters), which is a surprisingly tall height for the gallows. Perhaps the number assumes the gallows was built on a large supporting platform or a natural hill for visual effect, in which case the structure itself may have been considerably smaller. Cf. NCV “a seventy-five foot platform”; CEV “a tower built about seventy-five feet high.”

[5:14]  ²¹ tn Or “joyful”; NRSV “in good spirits”; TEV “happy.”

[4:11]  ²² tn Heb “one is his law”; NASB “he (the king NIV) has but one law”

[4:11]  ²³ tn Heb “and he will live”; KJV, ASV “that he may live”; NIV “and spare his life.”