Esther 7:3

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.

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 On this second occasion, while they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, “Tell me what you want, Queen Esther. What is your request? I will give it to you, even if it is half the kingdom!”

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.

4 For my people and I have been sold to those who would kill, slaughter, and annihilate us. If we had merely been sold as slaves, I could remain quiet, for that would be too trivial a matter to warrant disturbing the king.”

5 “Who would do such a thing?” King Xerxes demanded. “Who would be so presumptuous as to touch you?”