Esther 7:8

7:8 When the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet of wine, Haman was throwing himself down ¹  on the couch where Esther was lying. ²  The king exclaimed, “Will he also attempt to rape the queen while I am still in the building!”

As these words left the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face.

Esther 8:17

8:17 Throughout every province and throughout every city where the king’s edict and his law arrived, the Jews experienced happiness and joy, banquets and holidays. Many of the resident peoples ³  pretended ⁴  to be Jews, because the fear of the Jews had overcome them. ⁵ 

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¹ tn Heb “falling”; NAB, NRSV “had (+ just TEV) thrown himself (+ down TEV).”

² tn Heb “where Esther was” (so KJV, NASB). The term “lying” has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons; cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT “was reclining.”

³ tn Heb “peoples of the land” (so NASB); NIV “people of other nationalities”; NRSV “peoples of the country.”

⁴ tn Heb “were becoming Jews”; NAB “embraced Judaism.” However, the Hitpael stem of the verb is sometimes used of a feigning action rather than a genuine one (see, e.g., 2 Sam 13:5, 6), which is the way the present translation understands the use of the word here (cf. NEB “professed themselves Jews”; NRSV “professed to be Jews”). This is the only occurrence of this verb in the Hebrew Bible, so there are no exact parallels. However, in the context of v. 17 the motivation of their conversion (Heb “the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them”) should not be overlooked. The LXX apparently understood the conversion described here to be genuine, since it adds the words “they were being circumcised and” before “they became Jews.”

⁵ tn Heb “had fallen upon them” (so NRSV); NIV “had seized them.”