Bible Strands
Esther 7:3
Queen Esther replied, “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, grant me my life as my petition, and the lives of my people as my request.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Queen Esther addresses King Ahasuerus during a second banquet, directly answering his prior question about her petition and request. She makes her appeal while the king and Haman are drinking wine on that day.
The words — The Hebrew phrase מָצָאתִי חֵן (ma.Tza.ti chen) literally translates to "I have found favor." This conditional clause introduces her specific demands for her own survival and the preservation of her people.
The thread — The explicit petition structure continues in Esther 7:4, where she defines the stakes as destruction, death, and annihilation. The pattern of appealing to royal favor for life parallels the petition recorded in Jeremiah 38:26, while the underlying exchange of life for compliance echoes Job 2:4.
Why it lands — The text requires a direct request to sovereign authority, framing survival as dependent on the king's discretionary pleasure rather than on legal right. It forces the reader to observe how formal petition language operates when institutional protection has failed.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
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:
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 38:26 then tell them, ‘I was presenting to the king my petition that he not return me to the house of Jonathan to die there.’”
- Job 2:4 “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give up all he owns in exchange for his life.
- Esther 7:7 In his fury, the king arose from drinking his wine and went to the palace garden, while Haman stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life, for he realized that the king was planning a terrible fate for him.
- Psalms 122:6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May those who love you prosper.
- 1 Kings 20:31 Then the servants of Ben-hadad said to him, “Look now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful. Let us go out to the king of Israel with sackcloth around our waists and ropes around our heads. Perhaps he will spare your life.”
- 2 Kings 1:13 So the king sent a third captain with his fifty men. And the third captain went up, fell on his knees before Elijah, and begged him, “Man of God, may my life and the lives of these fifty servants of yours please be precious in your sight.
- Esther 4:8 Mordecai also gave Hathach a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for the destruction of the Jews, to show and explain to Esther, urging her to approach the king, implore his favor, and plead before him for her people.
- Esther 5:8 If I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfill my request, may the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet I will prepare for them. Then I will answer the king’s question.”