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.”
7:5 Then King Ahasuerus responded 4 to Queen Esther, “Who is this individual? Where is this person to be found who is presumptuous enough 5 to act in this way?”
1 tn Heb “to drink”; NASB “to drink wine.” The expression is a metaphor for lavish feasting, cf. NRSV “to feast”; KJV “to banquet.”
2 tn Heb “If I have found grace in your eyes” (so also in 8:5); TEV “If it please Your Majesty.”
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.
4 tc The second occurrence of the Hebrew verb וַיּאמֶר (vayyo’mer, “and he said”) in the MT should probably be disregarded. The repetition is unnecessary in the context and may be the result of dittography in the MT.
5 tn Heb “has so filled his heart”; NAB “who has dared to do this.”