Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Esther 7:3

Clarke's Commentary

Verse 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?

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Haman’s humiliation and defeat (5:1-7:10)

After three days Esther approached the king and invited him and Haman to dinner (5:1-4). She was so pleased with their friendly response that she decided to invite them again the next day, in the hope that they would be even more favourable to her (5-8). Haman thought that the honour given him by the queen showed that she, as well as the king, was pleased with him and agreed with his anti-Jewish policy. He decided to take the opportunity of this royal favour to arrange for a decree from the king to have chief enemy Mordecai executed immediately (9-14).
Early next morning, Haman went to ask the king for Mordecai’s execution. But the king had just spent the night reviewing some official records, where he was reminded that Mordecai had saved his life several years earlier. Knowing nothing of the hatred that Haman and Mordecai had for each other, the king decided that Mordecai must be rewarded (6:1-5).
The king consulted Haman about the matter, but did not tell Haman the name of the person who was to receive the proposed royal honour. Haman, thinking that the honour was for himself, suggested an extravagant public show of the king’s favour (6-9). The king agreed, with the result that Haman, instead of executing Mordecai, had to carry out the king’s command to honour Mordecai before the people (10-11). Haman’s humiliation appeared to his family and friends as a foreshadowing of worse to come (12-13).
When the king and Haman joined Esther for dinner that night, the circumstances were entirely favourable for Esther to put her case to the king (14-7:2). The king showed no anger when he found out that Esther was Jewish, but he burst into fury when told that Haman had planned the destruction of the queen and her people. Haman threw himself down on the couch before Esther to cry for mercy, but the king, in his rage, interpreted Haman’s action as an attempt at rape. He then learnt that Haman had prepared to execute the man who had saved the king’s life. The king had heard enough; he condemned Haman to immediate death (3-10).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

ESTHER'S PETITION FOR HER LIFE

"So the king and Haman came to the banquet with Esther the queen. And the king said again to Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed. 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: 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 peace, although the adversary could not have compensated for the king's damage."

What an incredible shock that request must have been to Haman! At this point, no doubt, he began to understand that Esther was pleading for the life of all the Jews whom Haman had determined to destroy, and that she herself was among the number. This request was most skillfully presented.

(1)    Esther protested that if the Jews had merely been sold as slaves, she would have held her peace.

(2)    She protested that Haman had lied about being able to compensate the king for the damage done.

(3)    She displayed perfect knowledge of Haman's immense bribe, noting that she and her people had been "sold."

(4)    She placed all the blame on Haman, ignoring the king's own responsibility for that evil decree.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 7

So Haman came in, but he was really troubled by this whole experience. And so, Esther prepared another beautiful banquet for the king, and again, the king in his generous mood said, "Esther, what do you want? Half of the kingdom, whatever it is. Your petition, your request."

And so Esther said, All I want is my life and my people [the life of my people]: For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold as slaves, I wouldn't have said anything. [I would have kept quiet]. Then king Ahasuerus answered and said to Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that dares to presume in his heart to do so? And Esther said, The adversary, the enemy is this wicked Haman. Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen. And the king arising from the banquet of wine in his anger went to the palace garden: and then Haman stood up to make a request for his life to Esther the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king. And then the king returned out of the palace garden and into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman had fallen upon the bed where Esther was. And the king said, Are you going to rape my wife before me in my own house? As the words went out of the king's mouth, they took and covered his head with a cloth, [which signified, of course, his impending death]. And Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold, there are seventy-five feet gallows, that Haman has made for Mordecai, who spoke the good for the king, and they're there in his back yard. And the king said, Hang him thereon. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king's wrath pacified ( Esther 7:3-10 )).

God turning the tables. And it so often happens. You remember when Joseph was sold by his brothers to slavery, to the traders going to Egypt. And he was weeping; he was crying. He said, "No, don't do this!" And as the traders were taking him off towards Egypt, he was just a teenage boy crying, begging his brothers, but they had steeled their hearts against him. Years later, when they had to come down to Egypt to buy provisions in order to survive, and they didn't recognize Joseph, the man who was in charge of the provisions of Egypt. But Joseph recognized them and began to give them a bad time, speaking roughly to them through an interpreter. And they turned to each other talking in their own language (which, of course, Joseph could understand) and they said, "You know, this sin has happened to us because of what we did to our brother Joseph. Don't you remember his tears and all, and we didn't pay any attention? Now it's coming back on us."

But then later, when Joseph did reveal himself they were even more frightened, and they began to beg Joseph for mercy and so forth, and he said, "Look, I know that you meant it for evil, but God intended it for good." God is so often able to take those things that were intended for evil and turn them around for good. It happens over and over and over again. That is why the Bible says concerning you as God's child: "No weapon that is formed against you will prosper" ( Isaiah 54:17 ). This is the heritage of the children of the Lord!

God won't allow any weapon formed against you to prosper. God is going to take care of you. God is going to watch over you. God is going to turn the tables on your enemies. And He is so clever. And I love the book of Esther, because it has all of this interesting intrigue, and table-turning, and the whole bit. "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Esther’s plea 7:1-6

This banquet probably took place in the afternoon, since Haman had already led Mordecai around Susa on a horse that day, and since Haman died later that day.

Esther was in a very dangerous position. Not only did she now identify herself with a minority group that Haman had represented to the king as subversive, but she also accused one of his closest confidential advisers of committing an error in judgment. Nevertheless she appealed to the king to do what was in his best interests (Esther 7:4). Ahasuerus saw at once that his enemy, whoever he was, was going to rob him of his queen and his wealth. When Esther finally named the culprit, Ahasuerus had already decided to punish him severely.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

3. Haman’s fall ch. 7

The plot of the story reaches a climax in this chapter "in which Haman comes to the end of his rope." [Note: Wiersbe, p. 737.] . The fate of Haman reversed when Esther identified him as the person responsible for the plan to destroy her and her people.

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

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.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 So the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen.   2 And the king said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, 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.   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.   5 Then the king Ahasuerus answered and said unto Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?   6 And Esther said, The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman. Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen.

      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, Esther 7:2; Esther 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 herself and her countrymen from death and destruction, Esther 7:3; Esther 7:4.

      1. Even a stranger, a criminal, shall be permitted to petition for his life; but that a friend, a wife, should have occasion to present such a petition was very affecting: Let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request. Two things bespeak lives to be very precious, and fit to be saved, if innocent, at any expense:-- (1.) Majesty. If it be a crowned head that is struck at, it is time to stir. Esther's was such: "Let my life be given me. If thou hast any affection for the wife of thy bosom, now is the time to show it; for that is the life that lies at stake." (2.) Multitude. If they be many lives, very many, and those no way forfeited, that are aimed at, no time should be lost nor pains spared to prevent the mischief. "It is not a friend or two, but my people, a whole nation, and a nation dear to me, for the saving of which I now intercede."

      2. To move the king the more she suggests, (1.) That she and her people were bought and sold. They had not sold themselves by any offence against the government, but were sold to gratify the pride and revenge of one man. (2.) That it was not their liberty only, but their lives that were sold. "Had we been sold" (she says) "into slavery, I would not have complained; for in time we might have recovered our liberty, thought eh king would have made but a bad bargain of it, and not have increased his wealth by our price. Whatever had been paid for us, the loss of so many industrious hands out of his kingdom would have been more damage to the treasury than the price would countervail." To persecute good people is as impolitic as it is impious, and a manifest wrong to the interests of princes and states; they are weakened and impoverished by it. But this was not the case. We are sold (says she) to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish; and then it is time to speak. She refers to the words of the decree (Esther 3:13; Esther 3:13), which aimed at nothing short of their destruction; this would touch in a tender part if there were any such in the king's heart, and would bring him to relent.

      III. The king stands amazed at the remonstrance, and asks (Esther 7:5; Esther 7:5) "Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so? What! contrive the murder of the queen and all her friends? Is there such a man, such a monster rather, in nature? Who is he, and where is he, whose heart has filled him to do so?" Or, Who hath filled his heart. He wonders, 1. That any one should be so bad as to think such a thing; Satan certainly filled his heart. 2. That any one should be so bold as to do such a thing, should have his heart so fully set in him to do wickedly, should be so very daring. Note, (1.) It is hard to imagine that there should be such horrid wickedness committed in the world as really there is. Who, where is he, that dares, presumes, to question the being of God and his providence, to banter his oracles, profane his name, persecute his people, and yet bid defiance to his wrath? Such there are, to think of whom is enough to make horror take hold of us,Psalms 119:53. (2.) We sometimes startle at the mention of that evil which yet we ourselves are chargeable with. Ahasuerus is amazed at that wickedness which he himself is guilty of; for he consented to that bloody edict against the Jews. Thou art the man, might Esther too truly have said.

      IV. Esther plainly charged Haman with it before his face: "Here he is, let him speak for himself, for therefore he is invited: The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman (Esther 7:6; Esther 7:6); it is he that has designed our murder, and, which is worse, has basely drawn the king in to be particeps criminis--a partaker of his crime, ignorantly agreeing to it."

      V. Haman is soon apprehensive of his danger: He was afraid before the king and queen; and it was time for him to fear when the queen was his prosecutor, the king his judge, and his own conscience a witness against him; and the surprising operations of Providence against him that same morning could not but increase his fear. Now he has little joy of his being invited to the banquet of wine, but finds himself in straits when he thought himself in the fulness of his sufficiency. He is cast into a net by his own feet.