Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Esther 7:3

Then Esther the queen 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:

Verse 3. Let my life be given me] This was very artfully, as well as very honestly, managed; and was highly calculated to work on the feelings of the king. What! is the life of the queen, whom I most tenderly love, in any kind of danger?

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

It is my humble and only request, that thou wouldst not give me up to the malice of that man that designs to take away my life, and will certainly do it, if thou dost not prevent it.

And my people; and the lives (which is easily supplied out of the foregoing branch) of my people the Jews, of whom I am descended.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

Then Esther the queen answered and said,…. Not rolling herself at the king’s knees, as Severus f 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.

f Hist. Sacr. l. 2.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

3. My life my people Esther has had time to carefully prepare her words, and her earnest language rises to the emotionality of poetic parallelisms. We may throw her address into the following form:

If I have found favour in thine eyes,

O king, And if to the king it seem good,

Let my life be given me at my petition,

And my people at my request.

For we are sold

I and my people

To be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish.

If, now, for slaves and for bondwomen we were sold I had been silent,

For the enemy is not to be compared with the injury of the king.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

(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: (4) For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the king’s damage.

Is not this petition of Esther, spiritually considered, very suitable for the petition of every poor sinner before a gracious God, in Christ? Are we not sold? have we not indeed sold ourselves by sin, by iniquity, and transgression? And had our slavery been for God’s glory, how could we have stood up for deliverance from it. But when it is for the triumph of Satan; oh! surely Jesus will rescue us from the wrath to come, and take us from the power of the enemy.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Est 7:3 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:

Ver. 3. Then Esther the queen, &c. ] See Est 5:7-8 . As Abigail her family, and the woman of Abel the city, so doth Esther by her wisdom and humility deliver herself and her people, ducem sequens lucem fidei, a leader leading the light of faith, as one saith of her.

Let my life be given me at my petition ] Heb. my soul. See how discreetly she marshalleth her words; setting these two great requests in the head of her petition, which is simplex et non fucata, plain and downright. Truth is like our first parents, most beautiful when naked. Our words in prayer must be neque lecta, neque neglecta, neither curious nor careless; but as the words of petitioners, plain and full and direct to the point. Esther reckoneth herself here among the rest of her poor countrymen, free among the dead, free of that company, and begs for her life and theirs together; because hers was even bound up in theirs. Mortis habet vices quae trahitur vita genuitibus; to live after their death would be a lifeless life; and hence her importunity for both together, since they were in her heart, ad commoriendum et convivendum, if they died she could not live. Good blood will not belie itself. Esther had not showed her kindred and people till now that she must appear for them. See the like in Moses, Heb 11:25 ; in Nicodemus, that night-bird; Joh 7:51 , he speaks boldly, and silences the whole company; Joh 19:39 , he boldly beggeth the body of Jesus; neither could he any longer conceal himself. Surely, as Solomon by trial found out the true harlot mother, so doth God by hard times discover the affections of his people. Then, as Joseph could not refrain tears, so nor they the exercise of their faith and charity.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

my life = my soul. Hebrew. nephesh. App-13. Life put before petition, and her People put before her request.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

let my life: Est 7:7, 1Ki 20:31, 2Ki 1:13, Job 2:4, Jer 38:26

my people: Est 4:8, Psa 122:6-9

Reciprocal: Ezr 4:22 – why should Neh 2:5 – If it please Est 8:5 – if I Pro 11:5 – direct Pro 31:26 – openeth

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Est 7:3. Then Esther the queen answered and said, &c. Esther, at length, surprises the king with a petition, not for wealth, or honour, or the preferment of some of her friends to some high post, which the king expected, but for the preservation of herself and her countrymen from death and destruction. O king, let my life be given me at my petition It is my humble and only request, that thou wouldst not give me up to the malice of that man that designs to take away my life, and will certainly do it, if thou do not prevent it. And my people That is, the lives of my people, of the Jews, of whom I am descended. Even a stranger, a criminal, shall be permitted to petition for his life. But that a friend, a wife, a queen, should have occasion to make such a request, was very affecting!

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments