Esther 7:2-10

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?”

6 Esther replied, “This wicked Haman is our adversary and our enemy.” Haman grew pale with fright before the king and queen.

7 Then the king jumped to his feet in a rage and went out into the palace garden. Haman, however, stayed behind to plead for his life with Queen Esther, for he knew that the king intended to kill him.

8 In despair he fell on the couch where Queen Esther was reclining, just as the king was returning from the palace garden. The king exclaimed, “Will he even assault the queen right here in the palace, before my very eyes?” And as soon as the king spoke, his attendants covered Haman’s face, signaling his doom.

9 Then Harbona, one of the king’s eunuchs, said, “Haman has set up a sharpened pole that stands seventy-five feet tall in his own courtyard. He intended to use it to impale Mordecai, the man who saved the king from assassination.” “Then impale Haman on it!” the king ordered.

10 So they impaled Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai, and the king’s anger subsided.

Esther 7:2-10 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO ESTHER 7

Esther, being solicited by the king to tell him her petition, asks for her life and the lives of her people, who were sold to be destroyed, Es 7:1-4, the king, amazed at her request, inquires who was the person that dared to do so vile a thing; and was told by her it was Haman there present, Es 7:5,6 on which the king went out into the garden in wrath, and, returning, found Haman on Esther's bed, which still more incensed him; and being told that Haman had prepared a gallows for Mordecai, the king ordered that he himself should be hanged upon it, which was done accordingly, Es 7:7-10.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew 50 cubits [23 meters].