Esther 7:2

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

The king said again to Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, What is your petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted you: and what is your request? even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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בַּקָּשָׁתֵ֛ךְ

baqqâshâh

H1246

“request · your”

Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 2nd Person, Feminine, Singular

Appears 8× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Ezra 7:6

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H1245

TWOT: 276a

request, entreaty, petition

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 →

20: words
17: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is בַּקָּשָׁתֵ֛ךְ request H1246 — appearing just 8 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

בַּקָּשָׁתֵ֛ךְ request H1246 occurs in 8 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
11 nouns
1 adjective
2 prepositions
3 particles

Verb forms

וַיֹּאמֶר֩ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וְתִנָּ֣תֵֽן Niphal · Imperfect
וְתֵעָֽשׂ Niphal · Jussive

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

לְאֶסְתֵּ֜ר Esther H635 ×2
מַה what H4100 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 43 words from the Hebrew and 41 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

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.

In the original languages it is 20 Hebrew tokens and 34 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Esther 7:2 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

John 16:24 Until now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be made full.
Esther 5:3 Then said the king to her, What will you, queen Esther? and what is your request? it shall be given you even to the half of the kingdom.
Esther 9:12 The king said to Esther the queen, The Jews have slain and destroyed five hundred men in Shushan the palace, and the ten sons of Haman; what then have they done in the rest of the king's provinces! Now what is your petition? and it shall be granted you: or what is your request further? and it shall be done.
Esther 5:6 The king said to Esther at the banquet of wine, What is your petition? and it shall be granted you: and what is your request? even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed.

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.

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

Hebrew Esther 7:2 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּאמֶר֩ הַמֶּ֨לֶךְ לְאֶסְתֵּ֜ר גַּ֣ם בַּיּ֤וֹם הַשֵּׁנִי֙ בְּמִשְׁתֵּ֣ה הַיַּ֔יִן מַה שְּׁאֵלָתֵ֛ךְ אֶסְתֵּ֥ר הַמַּלְכָּ֖ה וְתִנָּ֣תֵֽן לָ֑ךְ וּמַה בַּקָּשָׁתֵ֛ךְ עַד חֲצִ֥י הַמַּלְכ֖וּת וְתֵעָֽשׂ

The king said again to Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, What is your petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted you: and what is your request? even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Esther 7:2 Septuagint · lemma form

εἶπον δέ ὁ βασιλεύς εσθηρ ὁ δεύτερος ἡμέρα ἐν ὁ πότος τίς εἰμί εσθηρ βασίλισσα καί τίς ὁ αἴτημα σύ καί τίς ὁ ἀξίωμα σύ καί εἰμί σύ ἕως ὁ ἥμισυς ὁ βασιλεία ἐγώ

And the king said to Esther at the banquet on the second day, What is it, queen Esther? and what is your request, and what is your petition? and it shall be done for you, to the half of my kingdom.

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 7:2 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 7:2 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.

Ver. 2. And the king said again unto Esther] He was very desirous to know what her suit was; and with thought thereof, as it may seem, could not rest the night before. He pursueth his desires, not a little edged by her delays; neither was he of those lusks, who

Remque aliquam exoptant, intahescuntque relieta.

His love to Esther made him ask again, What is thy petition, and what is thy request? &c. He presseth her to speak out; so doth God his suppliants: "Hitherto ye have asked nothing: ask, that your joy may be full." Pray, that ye may joy; ye are not straitened in me, but in your own bowels; as if no water come by the conduit, it is not because there is none in the spring, but because the pipes are broken. {See Trapp on "Est 5:6"}

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.

Joseph Benson's Commentary

Est 7:2. The king said again to Esther, What is thy petition, Queen Esther? &c. — If the king had now forgot that Esther had an errand to him, and had not again asked what it was, she could scarce have known how to renew it herself; but he was mindful of it, and now was bound with the three-fold cord of a promise, thrice made, to favour her.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Read Esther 5:6.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 2. At the banquet of wine] Postquam vino incaluerat, after he had been heated with wine, says the Vulgate. In such a state the king was more likely to come into the measures of the queen.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

VII.

(2) What is thy petition?—The king takes for granted that Esther’s invitations to her banquets do not constitute her real request, but merely prepare the way for it.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

2. gave it unto Mordecai] See on Est_3:10.

set Mordecai over] entrusted him with the administration of Haman’s property. Haman is represented as possessed of great wealth (Est_5:11).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And the king said again to Esther on the second day, at the banquet of wine,.... This was the third time he put the following question to her, being very desirous of knowing what she had to ask of him; and it was of God that this was kept upon his mind, and he was moved to solicit her petition, or otherwise it would not have been so easy for her to have introduced it:

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 my kingdom; see Est 5:3.

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

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

The banquet of wine; so it is called, to note that it was not designed for a feast to fill their bellies, but rather for a banquet to delight and please their palates with wine and other delicacies: See Poole "Est 5:8".

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

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

HAMAN CONVICTED AND HANGED, Est_7:1-10.

2. The king said again — Compare Est_5:6, note.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

And the king said again. Esther had promised to let her real request be known at this banquet. (Est_5:8) The king therefore once more gives her the opportunity. On the second day. On the second occasion of being entertained by Esther.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 20 words (17 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is baqqâshâh (“request”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “request” (baqqâshâh) shape what this verse is saying?
Ezra 7:6 shares the word «request» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“Esther” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
The verb «וַיֹּאמֶר֩» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Joseph Benson's Commentary read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 20 Hebrew ↔ 34 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 10 words in this verse.
“Esther” occurs 2× in this single verse.
17 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 20 words in this verse.