Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Esther 7:1 - 7:6
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Esther Pleads for her People
v. 1. So the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther, the queen, the drinking after the feast being regarded as the most important part of the entertainment.
v. 2. And the king, being more anxious even than on the day before to find out Esther's request, said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, repeating his promise in practically the same words, What is thy petition, Queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee; and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the half of the kingdom. She had but to name her desire, and the king would place all his resources at her command.
v. 3. Then Esther, the queen, all her pent-up emotions breaking forth with a sudden rush of words, answered and said, If I have found favor 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; she pleaded with the king that her own life and that of her race might be spared, saved from the impending calamity;
v. 4. for we are sold, I and my people, a very fitting expression, since Haman had paid a large sum of money into the royal treasury to bring about the extermination of the Jews, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish, the heaping of the words showing the depth of her own emotions, and being intended to awaken similar feelings in the heart of the king. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, if the scheme had implied only slavery for herself and her people, I had held my tongue, unwilling to bother the king on that score alone, although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage, that is, in the circumstances the punishment of the enemy must be considered less important than the averting of the damage which the king would suffer. Esther thus stated that all other considerations were secondary with her to the one great need of preserving the interests of the king, since all the gold which the enemy might pay would not compensate for the loss of the services which her people rendered to the empire.
v. 5. Then the King Ahasuerus, filled with the greatest agitation on account of the condition revealed by Esther's words, answered and said unto Esther, the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so? literally, "Who has filled his heart to do so?" For it must have been a heart of extraordinary wickedness which could have thought out such a devilish scheme.
v. 6. And Esther, now fully sure of her ground, said, The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman. It was a moment of most dramatic intensity when Esther thus denounced the man who was filled with such enmity toward the Jews. Then Haman was afraid, he trembled for fear, before the king and the queen, for he had some premonition of what his fate would be. Thus Esther placed her position and her very life in jeopardy for the sake of her people. In the same way all believers who occupy positions of honor and, power have the duty to use their influence in the interest of their fellow-believers.