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Esther 4:14-16
New English Translation
Esther 4:14-16
New English Translation
14 If you keep quiet at this time, liberation and protection for the Jews will appear[a] from another source,[b] while you and your father’s household perish. It may very well be[c] that you have achieved royal status[d] for such a time as this!”
15 Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: 16 “Go, assemble all the Jews who are found in Susa, and fast on my behalf. Don’t eat and don’t drink for three days, night or day. My female attendants and I[e] will also fast in the same way. Afterward I will go to the king, even though it violates the law.[f] If I perish, I perish.”
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Esther 4:14 tn Heb “stand”; KJV, NASB, NIV, NLT “arise.”
- Esther 4:14 tn Heb “place” (so KJV, NIV, NLT); NRSV “from another quarter.” This is probably an oblique reference to help coming from God. D. J. A. Clines disagrees; in his view a contrast between deliverance by Esther and deliverance by God is inappropriate (Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther [NCBC], 302). But Clines’ suggestion that perhaps the reference is to deliverance by Jewish officials or by armed Jewish revolt is less attractive than seeing this veiled reference as part of the literary strategy of the book, which deliberately keeps God’s providential dealings entirely in the background.
- Esther 4:14 tn Heb “And who knows whether” (so NASB). The question is one of hope, but free of presumption. Cf. Jonah 3:9.
- Esther 4:14 tn Heb “have come to the kingdom”; NRSV “to royal dignity”; NIV “to royal position”; NLT “have been elevated to the palace.”
- Esther 4:16 tn Heb “I and my female attendants.” The translation reverses the order for stylistic reasons.
- Esther 4:16 tn Heb “which is not according to the law” (so KJV, NASB); NAB “contrary to the law.”
New English Translation (NET)
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