Esther 6:3

6:3 The king asked, “What great honor ¹  was bestowed on Mordecai because of this?” The king’s attendants who served him responded, “Not a thing was done for him.”

Esther 5:13

5:13 Yet all of this fails to satisfy me so long as I have to see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.”

Esther 2:15

2:15 When it became the turn of Esther daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai (who had raised her as if she were his own daughter ² ) to go to the king, she did not request anything except what Hegai the king’s eunuch, who was overseer of the women, had recommended. Yet Esther met with the approval of all who saw her.

Esther 6:10

6:10 The king then said to Haman, “Go quickly! Take the clothing and the horse, just as you have described, and do as you just indicated to Mordecai the Jew who sits at the king’s gate. Don’t neglect ³  a single thing of all that you have said.”

Esther 2:20

2:20 Esther was still not divulging her lineage or her people, ⁴  just as Mordecai had instructed her. ⁵  Esther continued to do whatever Mordecai said, just as she had done when he was raising her.

Esther 4:14

4:14 “Don’t imagine that because you are part of the king’s household you will be the one Jew ⁶  who will escape. If you keep quiet at this time, liberation and protection for the Jews will appear ⁷  from another source, ⁸  while you and your father’s household perish. It may very well be ⁹  that you have achieved royal status ¹⁰  for such a time as this!”

Esther 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.”

[6:3]  ¹ tn Heb “honor and greatness.” The expression is a hendiadys (see the note on 5:10 for an explanation of this figure).

[2:15]  ² tn Heb “who had taken her to him as a daughter”; NRSV “who had adopted her as his own daughter.”

[6:10]  ³ tn Heb “do not let fall”; NASB “do not fall short.”

[2:20]  ⁴ sn That Esther was able so effectively to conceal her Jewish heritage suggests that she was not consistently observing Jewish dietary and religious requirements. As C. A. Moore observes, “In order for Esther to have concealed her ethnic and religious identity…in the harem, she must have eaten…, dressed, and lived like a Persian rather than an observant Jewess” (Esther [AB], 28.) In this regard her public behavior stands in contrast to that of Daniel, for example.

[2:20]  ⁵ tc The LXX adds the words “to fear God.”

[4:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “from all the Jews”; KJV “more than all the Jews”; NIV “you alone of all the Jews.”

[4:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “stand”; KJV, NASB, NIV, NLT “arise.”

[4:14]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ tn Heb “And who knows whether” (so NASB). The question is one of hope, but free of presumption. Cf. Jonah 3:9.

[4:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “have come to the kingdom”; NRSV “to royal dignity”; NIV “to royal position”; NLT “have been elevated to the palace.”

[7:4]  ⁶ 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.