Ester 4:14

4:14 “Don’t imagine that because you are part of the king’s household you will be the one Jew ¹  who will escape. If you keep quiet at this time, liberation and protection for the Jews will appear ²  from another source, ³  while you and your father’s household perish. It may very well be ⁴  that you have achieved royal status ⁵  for such a time as this!”

Ester 7:4

7:4 For we have been sold ⁶  – both I and my people – to destruction and to slaughter and to annihilation! If we had simply been sold as male and female slaves, I would have remained silent, for such distress would not have been sufficient for troubling the king.”

Ester 7:7

7:7 In rage the king arose from the banquet of wine and withdrew to the palace garden. Meanwhile, Haman stood to beg Queen Esther for his life, ⁷  for he realized that the king had now determined a catastrophic end for him. ⁸ 

[4:14]  ¹ tn Heb “from all the Jews”; KJV “more than all the Jews”; NIV “you alone of all the Jews.”

[4:14]  ² tn Heb “stand”; KJV, NASB, NIV, NLT “arise.”

[4:14]  ³ tn Heb “place” (so KJV, NIV, NLT); NRSV “from another quarter.” This is probably an oblique reference to help coming from God. D. J. A. Clines disagrees; in his view a contrast between deliverance by Esther and deliverance by God is inappropriate (Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther [NCBC], 302). But Clines’ suggestion that perhaps the reference is to deliverance by Jewish officials or by armed Jewish revolt is less attractive than seeing this veiled reference as part of the literary strategy of the book, which deliberately keeps God’s providential dealings entirely in the background.

[4:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “And who knows whether” (so NASB). The question is one of hope, but free of presumption. Cf. Jonah 3:9.

[4:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “have come to the kingdom”; NRSV “to royal dignity”; NIV “to royal position”; NLT “have been elevated to the palace.”

[7:4]  ⁶ sn The passive verb (“have been sold”) is noncommittal and nonaccusatory with regard to the king’s role in the decision to annihilate the Jews.

[7:7]  ⁷ sn There is great irony here in that the man who set out to destroy all the Jews now finds himself begging for his own life from a Jew.

[7:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “for he saw that calamity was determined for him from the king”; NAB “the king had decided on his doom”; NRSV “the king had determined to destroy him.”