Esther 7:3

3 Then she answered: If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please thee, give me my life for which I ask, and my people for which I request.

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 Aman went in, to drink with the queen.

2 And the king said to her again the second day, after he was warm with wine: What is thy petition, Esther, that it may be granted thee? and what wilt thou have done: although thou ask the half of my kingdom, thou shalt have it.

3 Then she answered: If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please thee, give me my life for which I ask, and my people for which I request.

4 For we are given up, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. And would God we were sold for bondmen and bondwomen: the evil might be borne with, and I would have mourned in silence: but now we have an enemy, whose cruelty redoundeth upon the king.

5 And king Assuerus answered and said: Who is this, and of what power, that he should do these things?