Then answered Esther, and said, My petition and my request is;
Then answered Esther, and said, My petition and my request is:
And Esther answereth and saith, `My petition and my request is :
And Esther answered and said, My petition and my request is,
Esther — A Jewish orphan becomes queen of Persia; Haman plots genocide; Mordecai and Esther intervene; deliverance comes by providence — and God's name never once appears in the book.
Voices3
Then answered Esther and said, my petition and my request is. What she should for the present make; the principal one she had to ask, for wise reasons, she still deferred.
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)reformed
This postponement of the petition is not due to a fault of laziness but must be attributed to the virtue of patience, clearly indicating that the reward of the righteous and the punishment of the sinners are reserved for the future. "Tomorrow," in fact, must …
Rabanus Maurus· EXPLANATION ON THE BOOK OF ESTHER 8, 856patristic
Perhaps her heart failed her now when she was going to make her request, and she desired to take some further time for prayer, that God would give her a mouth and wisdom. The putting of it off thus, it is likely, she knew would be well taken as an expression of the great reverence she had for the king, and her unwillingness to be too pressing upon him.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710puritan
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread — the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
