3:3 Then the servants of the king who were at the king’s gate asked Mordecai, “Why are you violating the king’s commandment?”
He then sent for his friends to join him, 6 along with his wife Zeresh.
6:12 Then Mordecai again sat at the king’s gate, while Haman hurried away to his home, mournful and with a veil over his head.
7:5 Then King Ahasuerus responded 7 to Queen Esther, “Who is this individual? Where is this person to be found who is presumptuous enough 8 to act in this way?”
7:6 Esther replied, “The oppressor and enemy is this evil Haman!”
Then Haman became terrified in the presence of the king and queen.
1 sn Refusal to obey the king was risky even for a queen in the ancient world. It is not clear why Vashti behaved so rashly and put herself in such danger. Apparently she anticipated humiliation of some kind and was unwilling to subject herself to it, in spite of the obvious dangers. There is no justification in the biblical text for an ancient Jewish targumic tradition that the king told her to appear before his guests dressed in nothing but her royal high turban, that is, essentially naked.
2 tn Heb “at the word of the king”; NASB “at the king’s command.”
3 tn Heb “burned in him” (so KJV).
4 tc The Greek
5 tc The Syriac Peshitta reads “fourth” here.
6 tn Heb “sent and brought.” The expression is probably a hendiadys (a figure of speech in which a single idea is expressed through two words or phrases), in which case the two verbs could be translated simply as “summoned” (so NAB) or “sent for” (NASB).
7 tc The second occurrence of the Hebrew verb וַיּאמֶר (vayyo’mer, “and he said”) in the MT should probably be disregarded. The repetition is unnecessary in the context and may be the result of dittography in the MT.
8 tn Heb “has so filled his heart”; NAB “who has dared to do this.”