Ester 4:14

4:14 “Don’t imagine that because you are part of the king’s household you will be the one Jew ¹  who will escape. If you keep quiet at this time, liberation and protection for the Jews will appear ²  from another source, ³  while you and your father’s household perish. It may very well be ⁴  that you have achieved royal status ⁵  for such a time as this!”

Ester 6:13

6:13 Haman then related to his wife Zeresh and to all his friends everything that had happened to him. These wise men, ⁶  along with his wife Zeresh, said to him, “If indeed this Mordecai before whom you have begun to fall is Jewish, ⁷  you will not prevail against him. No, you will surely fall before him!”

Ester 9:24

9:24 For Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had devised plans against the Jews to destroy them. He had cast pur (that is, the lot) in order to afflict and destroy them.

Ester 9:29

9:29 So Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew wrote with full authority to confirm this second ⁸  letter about Purim.

[4:14]  ¹ tn Heb “from all the Jews”; KJV “more than all the Jews”; NIV “you alone of all the Jews.”

[4:14]  ² tn Heb “stand”; KJV, NASB, NIV, NLT “arise.”

[4:14]  ³ tn Heb “place” (so KJV, NIV, NLT); NRSV “from another quarter.” This is probably an oblique reference to help coming from God. D. J. A. Clines disagrees; in his view a contrast between deliverance by Esther and deliverance by God is inappropriate (Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther [NCBC], 302). But Clines’ suggestion that perhaps the reference is to deliverance by Jewish officials or by armed Jewish revolt is less attractive than seeing this veiled reference as part of the literary strategy of the book, which deliberately keeps God’s providential dealings entirely in the background.

[4:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “And who knows whether” (so NASB). The question is one of hope, but free of presumption. Cf. Jonah 3:9.

[4:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “have come to the kingdom”; NRSV “to royal dignity”; NIV “to royal position”; NLT “have been elevated to the palace.”

[6:13]  ⁶ tc Part of the Greek tradition and the Syriac Peshitta understand this word as “friends,” probably reading the Hebrew term רֲכָמָיו (rakhamayv, “his friends”) rather than the reading of the MT חֲכָמָיו (hakhamayv, “his wise men”). Cf. NLT “all his friends”; the two readings appear to be conflated by TEV as “those wise friends of his.”

[6:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “from the seed of the Jews”; KJV, ASV similar.

[9:29]  ⁸ tc The LXX and the Syriac Peshitta omit the word “second.”