Matthew Henry on Esther 7:1-6
The king in humour, and Haman out of humour, meet at Esther's table. Now,
I. The king urged Esther, a third time, to tell him what her request was, for he longed to know, and repeated his promise that it should be granted, Est 7:2. If the king had now forgotten that Esther had an errand to him, and had not again asked what it was, she could scarcely have known how to renew it herself; but he was mindful of it, and now was bound with the threefold cord of a promise thrice made to favour her.
II. 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 hersel…
Read the whole note in the consoleAdam Clarke on Esther 7:3
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?
John Gill on Esther 7:3
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…
Read the whole note in the consoleKeil & Delitzsch on Esther 7:1-6
The king and Haman came to drink (לשׁתּות), i.e., to partake of the משׁתּה, in the queen's apartment.
Est 7:2-4
At this banquet of wine the king asked again on the second day, as he had done on the first (Est 5:6): What is thy petition, Queen Esther, etc.? Esther then took courage to express her petition. After the usual introductory phrases (Est 7:3 like Est 5:8), she replied: "Let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request." For, she adds as a justification and reason for such a petition, "we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. And if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had been silent, for the enemy is not worth the king's…
