Esther 5:12

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Haman said moreover, Yes, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king to the banquet that she had prepared but myself; and tomorrow also am I invited by her together with the king.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

Septuagint runs shorter here — compare

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הַמַּלְכָּ֧ה

malkâh

H4436

“the · queen”

Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 35× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at 1 Kings 10:1

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H4428

TWOT: 1199b

queen

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

23: words
20: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הַמַּלְכָּ֧ה queen H4436 occurs in 34 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 verbs
7 nouns
1 pronoun
4 prepositions
2 conjunctions
5 particles

Verb forms

וַיֹּאמֶר֮ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
הֵבִיאָה֩ Hiphil · Perfect
עָשָׂ֖תָה Qal · Perfect
קָֽרוּא Qal · Participle Passive

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

הַמֶּ֛לֶךְ king H4428 ×2
עִם with H5973 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 37 words from the Hebrew and 22 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably shorter here. See the side-by-side →

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Esther 5:12 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Proverbs 27:1 Don't boast about tomorrow; For you don't know what a day may bring forth.
Psalms 37:35–36 I have seen the wicked in great power, Spreading himself like a green tree in its native soil.
Job 8:12–13 While it is yet in its greenness, not cut down, It withers before any other reed.
Job 20:5–8 That the triumphing of the wicked is short, The joy of the godless but for a moment?
Proverbs 7:22–23 He followed her immediately, As an ox goes to the slaughter, As a fool stepping into a noose.
Luke 21:34–35 "So be careful, or your hearts will be loaded down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day will come on you suddenly.
1 Thessalonians 5:3 For when they are saying, "Peace and safety," then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman; and they will in no way escape.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

Here the Septuagint runs noticeably shorter than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 22 words vs World English Bible 37. A rough length comparison of the two English translations, not a word-level alignment — read both below.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Esther 5:12 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּאמֶר֮ הָמָן֒ אַ֣ף לֹא הֵבִיאָה֩ אֶסְתֵּ֨ר הַמַּלְכָּ֧ה עִם הַמֶּ֛לֶךְ אֶל הַמִּשְׁתֶּ֥ה אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂ֖תָה כִּ֣י אִם אוֹתִ֑י וְגַם לְמָחָ֛ר אֲנִ֥י קָֽרוּא לָ֖הּ עִם הַמֶּֽלֶךְ

Haman said moreover, Yes, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king to the banquet that she had prepared but myself; and tomorrow also am I invited by her together with the king.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Esther 5:12 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἶπον πρός αὐτός ζωσαρα ὁ γυνή αὐτός καί ὁ φίλος κόπτω σύ ξύλον πῆχυς πεντήκοντα ὄρθρος δέ εἶπον ὁ βασιλεύς καί κρεμάζω μαρδοχαῖος ἐπί ὁ ξύλον σύ δέ εἰςἔρχομαι εἰς ὁ δοχή σύν ὁ βασιλεύς καί εὐφραίνω καί ἀρέσκω ὁ ῥῆμα ὁ αμαν καί ἑτοιμάζω ὁ ξύλον

And Aman said, The queen has called no one to the feast with the king but me, and I am invited to-morrow.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Commentary

Notes on Esther 5:12 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Est 5:12 Haman said moreover, Yea, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared but myself; and to morrow am I invited unto her also with the king.

Ver. 12. Haman said moreover] He makes no end of vaunting and vapouring; and all to aggravate the indignity done him by Mordecai, in not stooping to so great a personage.

Yea, Esther the queen did let no man come in … but myself] This he mistaketh for a special favour, when as Esther’s banquet proved no better to him than Semiramis’s tomb did to them that rifled it; they expected to find treasure, but met with a deadly poison.

And tomorrow am I invited, &c.] Where thou shalt (as hypocrites do at the Lord’s table) eat thy bane, and drink thy poison; yet art thou over joyed as if highly favoured. A temporary may receive both the word audible and the word visible (the sacrament) with much seeming joy; which yet is but only as the commotion of the affections in a dream: it fareth with such in the end as with one that, sleeping on the top of a steep rock, dreameth of great matters befallen him, but, starting suddenly through joy thereof, tumbleth headlong into the sea, and breaketh his neck at the bottom.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

Yet all this availeth me nothing,.... Is not equal or sufficient for me; it gives me no satisfaction and contentment:

so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate: not rising up to bow unto him; this single circumstance spoiled all his joy and pleasure.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

But me. It was thought very singular, when Artaxerxes invited his own brothers. (Plutarch) --- But when he also admitted a foreigner, the nobility became jealous, as that honour was reserved for the king’s relations. (Atheneus i.) --- Dine, or feast. Only one meal was taken, (Herodotus vii. 120.) and that in the evening. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

Thus he makes that matter of glorying which was designed for and the occasion of his utter ruin. So ignorant are the wisest men, and subject to fatal mistakes; rejoicing when they have most cause of fear and grief, and sorrowing for those things which tend to joy and comfort.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

Am I - Thus he makes that matter of glorying which was the occasion of his utter ruin. So ignorant are the wisest men, and subject to fatal mistakes, rejoicing when they have most cause of fear, and sorrowing for those things which tend to joy and comfort.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

no one else but me

This can be expressed positively. AT: "only me"

is worth nothing to me

"does not make me happy" or "does not satisfy me"

translationWords

feast

Jew

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Esther, in the Historical, opens this verse with 23 words (20 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is malkâh (“queen”). The Greek Septuagint runs shorter here. A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “queen” (malkâh) shape what this verse is saying?
How does 1 Kings 10:1, which shares the word «queen», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “king” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
The Septuagint runs shorter here than the Hebrew. What might account for the difference?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וַיֹּאמֶר֮» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

These translations choose different wording for 19 words in this verse.
“king” occurs 2× in this single verse.
20 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 23 words in this verse.