Esther 7:3

3 Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request.

Esther 7:3 in Other Translations

3 Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request:

3 Then Queen Esther answered, "If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be granted me for my wish, and my people for my request.

3 Queen Esther replied, “If I have found favor with the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my request, I ask that my life and the lives of my people will be spared.

3 Queen Esther answered, "If I have found favor in your eyes, O King, and if it please the king, give me my life, and give my people their lives.

3 Queen Esther answered, "If I have obtained your approval, my king, and if the king is pleased, spare my life-[this is] my request; and [spare] my people-[this is] my desire.

Esther 7:3 Meaning and Commentary

Esther 7:3

Then Esther the queen answered and said
Not rolling herself at the king's knees, as Severus ^F6 writes; but rather, as the former Targum, lifting up her eyes to heaven, and perhaps putting up a secret ejaculation for direction and success:

if I have found favour in thy sight, O king;
as she certainly had heretofore, and even now:

and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition;
not riches, nor honour, nor any place or post at court, or in any of the king's dominions for any friend of her's, was her petition; but for her own life, that that might not be taken away, which was included in the grant the king had made to Haman, though ignorantly, to slay all the Jews, she being one of them:

and my people at my request;
that is, the lives of her people also, that was her request; her own life and her people's were all she had to ask.

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FOOTNOTES:

F6 Hist. Sacr. l. 2.

Esther 7:3 In-Context

1 So the king and Haman went to Queen Esther’s banquet,

2 and as they were drinking wine on the second day, the king again asked, “Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.”

3 Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request.

4 For I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed and annihilated. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king. ”

5 King Xerxes asked Queen Esther, “Who is he? Where is he—the man who has dared to do such a thing?”

Cross References

• 1. S Esther 2:15