So the king and Haman went to dine with Queen Esther, as they were drinking wine on that second day, the king 2 and again asked, “Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.”
3Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor with you, O king, and if it pleases your majesty, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request. 4 For I and my people have been sold for destruction and slaughter and annihilation. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king.”
5 King Xerxes asked Queen Esther, “Who is he? Where is the man who has dared to do such a thing?”
6 Esther said, “The adversary and enemy is this vile Haman.”
Then Haman was terrified before the king and queen. 7 The king got up in a rage, left his wine and went out into the palace garden. But Haman, realizing that the king had already decided his fate, stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life.
As the banquet began, Esther probably did not yet know about the exaltation of Mordecai. She may still have dreaded the great power of Haman, but she was emboldened when the king repeated his lavish promise. Using the same cleverness shown by Haman, Esther did not tip her hand by naming her people. She based her appeal on the king’s feelings for her. Even at this point the king apparently did not realize that she was talking about the Jews, whose condemnation Haman had achieved.
It may strike us as strange that Esther said it would not even have been worth it to bother the king if the Jews were merely being sold into slavery. Esther may simply have been using the language of extreme deference to royalty here; but a different translation of this difficult verse is also possible. According to the alternate translation offered in the NIV footnote, Esther said that she would not have complained just for the sake of the Jews, but that her first concern was for the king. The loss of service the king would suffer if the Jews were destroyed would be greater than the gain of money that Haman had promised him. If we follow this understanding, then Esther presented her case as if her main concern were to safeguard the best interests of the king. Regardless of which interpretation of the verse is followed, Esther’s approach to the king was a masterpiece of diplomacy.
Once again the whole situation is most ironic. We have seen Xerxes, the great world ruler, first condemn and then reprieve the Jews without ever really realizing what was going on either time!