5:4 Esther replied, “If the king is so inclined, 5 let the king and Haman come today to the banquet that I have prepared for him.”
He then sent for his friends to join him, 6 along with his wife Zeresh.
6:14 While they were still speaking with him, the king’s eunuchs arrived. They quickly brought Haman to the banquet that Esther had prepared.
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 tn Heb “young women, virgins, good of form.” The same phrase also occurs in v. 3.
5 tn Heb “If upon the king it is good”; NASB “If it please the king.”
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).