Esther 7:4

[Chris Watts]

As much as I like Gesenius, scholarship has moved on from that time. HALOT is better because it is more updated in terms of the scholarship behind it. That's why I quote it. It's worth learning to understand it.

As far as נֶ֫זֶק nḗzeq is concerned, even though it is only used five times in the Bible, it is a very commonly used word in later Hebrew. In fact, there's an entire order of the Talmud called נְזִיקִין nəzîqîn, the plural that is used of the singular נִזְקָא nizqāʾ in Jewish Aramaic. From this is derived the verb Hebrew לְהַזִּיק ləhazzîq "to cause damage" in the rabbinic period.

The word refers to all kinds of injuries or damages incurred as the result of an accident or mistreatment by another. It can certainly refer to financial damages incurred as the result of a bad decision, but it doesn't seem to mean that here. HALOT specifically says that it refers to a burden that you put upon someone, which I think is what we should see it as here. By drawing the king's attention, she is asking him to take up the burden of her request. She says that if her people were simply servants, she wouldn't burden the king; but the fact that their annihilation is being planned, she feels that this is important enough to come to him with her burden (and to make it his burden).

Hallo Jason, with regard to your comment about the Talmud and this particular word you wrote, I wonder though whether the word "Burden" was actually intended by Esther. As I understand things, the beginning of the Talmud was composed at least 600 years later, maybe 400 years? And the subtle change in meaning by that time was not the precise meaning in Esther's use. I therefore try to understand what a word meant at the time that it was spoken.

What is more interesting is that Ezra's use of this word, a little later ,was literally at the exact same time as Esther used it give or take 40 years, and I think Daniel use of this word was just a wee bit earlier, while yet in Babylon.

While I do not deny your reasoning about Esther not wishing to be a burden, I think on further reflection and mind gymnastics that she is being cunning with this rhetoric. I also would enthusiastically throw in the strengeth of emotion and anger she would have seethed with in the days leading up to this confrontation and would have sought, not to appear timid and submissive but clever and calculated. Hence to put myself into her thiking, yes careful agreed, but clever and calculating and manipulating the discourse in a way so as to place emphasis on haman's injury to the King.

Kind Regards
Chris Watts

[kwrandolph]

OK, I’ve been away for a few days, and now look at this thread.

First of all, it’s noticeable that the writer of Esther didn’t know Biblical Hebrew as well as other post-exilic writers such as Nehemiah and Ezra.

The word נזק is used only once in Hebrew, namely here. This could very well be an Aramaic loan word. In this use, is it a participle referring to the action “in damaging”?

The word צר is recognized in the following verses as referring to a person, an enemy.

The word שוה is used also in Esther 3:8 and 5:13 with the idea of being acceptable.

Taking it all together, “for there is no enemy acceptable in damaging the king.” Or to put it in more colloquial English paraphrasing the Hebrew, “for it’s not acceptable for an enemy to damage the king.” (A good example of why translations are not acceptable as evidence on this forum.)

Karl W. Randolph.

[Chris Watts]

OK, I’ve been away for a few days, and now look at this thread.

First of all, it’s noticeable that the writer of Esther didn’t know Biblical Hebrew as well as other post-exilic writers such as Nehemiah and Ezra.

The word נזק is used only once in Hebrew, namely here. This could very well be an Aramaic loan word. In this use, is it a participle referring to the action “in damaging”?

The word צר is recognized in the following verses as referring to a person, an enemy.

The word שוה is used also in Esther 3:8 and 5:13 with the idea of being acceptable.

Taking it all together, “for there is no enemy acceptable in damaging the king.” Or to put it in more colloquial English paraphrasing the Hebrew, “for it’s not acceptable for an enemy to damage the king.” (A good example of why translations are not acceptable as evidence on this forum.)

Karl W. Randolph.

Hallo Karl,

1. Please clarify your first comment above with why you believe that, thankyou.

2. I am not as well versed in hebrew as I would like to be, so I am at a disadvantage and I have to balance very careully what people say with my limited grasp of Hebraic inuendos and subtle grammatical constructions. I therefore take what Jason said and his references to HALOT, and balance it with David's comments, both of whom have been very helpful.

3. You said "..“for it’s not acceptable for an enemy to damage the king.”...". The pivotal point upon which this whole verse turns, for me,, has always been this: ....I would have kept silence/I would not have said anything because....." Now then, when I read a scripture that throws me even after tearing apart the grammar and the dictionaries, I then turn to the one thing I often forget about in dialogue, we see hebrew words we see grammar we see letters, but the human story, the emotion, the reality of the feeling, the tension of the moment over Esther caught in a world where she has no power except the physical attraction of her King, the second meal where she is sitting down in front of the two most powerful men not only of the kingdom, but in her life, she has to be careful, she has to play it right, she is unsure of the King's response to her making an accusation against his most trusted and loyal warrior and diplomat (in his eyes at least), she is a jewish girl sitting on a bomb that could go in either direction. She has to adopt a submissive and concillatory gesture, (later on for the first time ever the King submits himself to her) but for now she has to maintain courtly decorum and submissiveness while filled with nervousness and anger. It is for these reasons that I believe the following:

a. Her comment to be silent if they were being sold as slaves is absolutely not what she would have done, she wold have spoken up because Mordechai would have motivated her and she would have spoken to the King since there would be nothing to lose anyway - the narrative would indeed have been different, but she knew in her heart that this would not be true, she said this as a concillatory statement to lead into the accusation.

b. She knew that the King had given permission to haman, she knew that her King and husband was just as guilty as haman. This presented another motivation for her to be diplomatic, not to offend her husband while giving the King a way out of what he would soon realise was also his doing.

c. The clause in question, the last part of verse 4; ..."I would not have said anything because.. it’s not acceptable for an enemy to damage the king." Karl, this makes absolutely no sense at all. Neither as an emotional nor diplomatic reason. As I said in an earlier post ambiguity is often the correct reading, dissecting the flower often discards the beautiful scent. And so I believe here is a double entendre, Esther is pointing to both the finacial damage that would be done to the King comparing that with hamans ludicrous offer of a few shillings into the Persain Bank, and her attack on haman by insinuating his worthlessness. I can not translate this verse, I can only now feel its rythm without being able to assign a definitive translation.

Now I know this is not correct biblical procedure and that my very low intermediate status in Hebrew is a severe handicap, but language, mainly discourse between people (I am not refrring to laws and proverbs and God's command's of course) is a result of human emotion, not always a grammatical structure formed carefully within our heads.


Furthermore, I don't usually go into so much analysis of a single verse but for the fact that this is the turning point in the whole story, this is the pivotal point where all balances shift. Why did Esther not say anything on the first dinner party? Could she not have had a chinwag with her husband and King in private? The narrative could have taken a number of different directions in this respect. So this verse is fascinating to me given the manner in which it is all played out.

Chris watts

[kwrandolph]

Esther would keep silent, because slavery is a survivable situation, as shown by Jewish history of being slaves in Egypt. But genocide is not survivable.

Go back to verse 2 in this chapter, Esther has maneuvered the king into promising her her request, and done so publicly. Now the king had to choose, would he keep his word to his queen, said also before the attendants serving the meal, or would he keep his loyalty to his trusted right-hand man? Furthermore, this was just hours after he had ordered his right-hand man to honor one of the people sentenced to death, because that man had saved his (the king’s) life. The king was in a quandary, which should he choose? He went out into the garden to consider his options. It appears that even as the king returned to the meal, that he may have not made up his mind, until he saw Haman’s physical nearness to his queen, verse 8. That physical nearness, which was an absolute no-no, may have been the straw that made up the king’s mind.

The king may not have realized the full extent of Haman’s plot up to that moment.

So the damage was not only financial, but also in removing people who had proven to be trusted and loyal subjects.

You need to read the whole context, not just the verse in question.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Chris Watts]

Esther would keep silent, because slavery is a survivable situation, as shown by Jewish history of being slaves in Egypt. But genocide is not survivable.

Go back to verse 2 in this chapter, Esther has maneuvered the king into promising her her request, and done so publicly. Now the king had to choose, would he keep his word to his queen, said also before the attendants serving the meal, or would he keep his loyalty to his trusted right-hand man? Furthermore, this was just hours after he had ordered his right-hand man to honor one of the people sentenced to death, because that man had saved his (the king’s) life. The king was in a quandary, which should he choose? He went out into the garden to consider his options. It appears that even as the king returned to the meal, that he may have not made up his mind, until he saw Haman’s physical nearness to his queen, verse 8. That physical nearness, which was an absolute no-no, may have been the straw that made up the king’s mind.

The king may not have realized the full extent of Haman’s plot up to that moment.

So the damage was not only financial, but also in removing people who had proven to be trusted and loyal subjects.

You need to read the whole context, not just the verse in question.

Karl W. Randolph.

==== Karl, you have missed my point completely. I clearly stated that the narrative and a new story might have been written if a someone, instead of wishing to kill them, had planned selling them into slavery, I do not believe Esther would have kept silent in this new scenario, this is what I am saying. It's about human nature I was talking. And I believe that she said this as an opening remark intended to placate the tension that was about to come and the uncertainty involved by adopting a concillatory posture. This, I believe, is human nature in such circumstances.

===== Karl, I have been reading and re-reading Esther for weeks, and have gone back over many things many times, so a little care in what you assume would be nice here please. What you have just written is without question what I already understand.

===== I was concerned with your translation and why you think that the writer did not know Hebrew that well. I addressed afew points in my previous post that I thought would be interesting, but I want to address this point that you made when you said: QUOTE The king may not have realized the full extent of Haman’s plot up to that moment UNQUOTE. Really? I think he knew full well what haman was about and the King was not deceived by haman in this matter if you read 3:11 carefully, the king willingly gave haman authority, power, and even the wealth and the people - haman was free to have it all for himself, the king even said that haman could keep the silver.

Chris watts

[Isaac Fried]

Esther 7:4
אִלּוּ לַעֲבָדִים וְלִשְׁפָחוֹת נִמְכַּרְנוּ הֶחֱרַשְׁתִּי כִּי אֵין הַצָּר שֹׁוֶה בְּנֵזֶק הַמֶּלֶךְ
NIV: "If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king"
הַצָּר is possibly short for הצער
נזק is a bona fide member of the family of Hebrew roots
נזק, נסק, נשק, נתק
'coming upon, imposing', namely, להציק = להזיק

Isaac Fried, Boston University
www.hebrewetymology.com

[kwrandolph]

==== Karl, you have missed my point completely. I clearly stated that the narrative and a new story might have been written if a someone, instead of wishing to kill them, had planned selling them into slavery,

Here is the difference—I trust that Esther told the truth here, you claim that she lied.

As such, this is not really a Biblical Hebrew language question, rather one where you don’t accept the text based on your psychological presuppositions.

… I want to address this point that you made when you said: QUOTE The king may not have realized the full extent of Haman’s plot up to that moment UNQUOTE. Really? I think he knew full well what haman was about and the King was not deceived by haman in this matter if you read 3:11 carefully, the king willingly gave haman authority, power, and even the wealth and the people

Chris watts

The king didn’t know that that plot included the queen. Nor at the time Haman announced his plot did the king know that it included Mordechai, who had saved the king’s life. And how many other Jews that the king knew as loyal subjects?

I think the king trusted Haman’s word without thinking through the full implications of Haman’s plot.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Chris Watts]

==== Karl, you have missed my point completely. I clearly stated that the narrative and a new story might have been written if a someone, instead of wishing to kill them, had planned selling them into slavery,

Here is the difference—I trust that Esther told the truth here, you claim that she lied.

As such, this is not really a Biblical Hebrew language question, rather one where you don’t accept the text based on your psychological presuppositions.

Karl W. Randolph.

Karl I took a long time to reply to this because I did not want this conversation to go into a direction that was not fruitful. So I mulled over how best to respond.

1. It is not about whether she lied, but her calculated manner of introducing the accusation against Haman. In considering this I often look at what has not been said, what not was done, what other approaches could have been made, why she did not do it this way or that way. And these insightful thoughts contribute a great deal to helping understand what may be underneath the surface.

2. Not a biblical hebrew question? When it comes to dialogue it is not just a biblical hebrew grammatical parsing dictionary discussion, these were real people in emotional situations with human feelings and fears and concerns. Biblical Hebrew is about people, not just language.

3. Psychological presuppositions? No, they are enquiries based on the whole arena of human experience, in an attempt to empathize as best as I can with a drama that only gives me words on paper. It is not a text of hebrew with commands or a song or a proverb or a prophecy, it is a very heightened dramatical moment where the words alone can not convey the intensity of the two days of feasting and drinking wine, Esther's concerns, perhaps a sleepless night, haman's audacious and prideful behaviour not to mention hate, the King' apparent susceptibility to a weakness in his character that makes it easy for others to manipulate, as I believe Esther took advantage of in as kind a way as possible, after all she was married to him..

It is not that she lied, it's that she was confident enough to accuse the second most powerful man in the kingdom and clever enough to deliver it in a way where the words we read on the surface belie a good piece of political manipulation.

chris watts

[kwrandolph]

1. It is not about whether she lied, but her calculated manner of introducing the accusation against Haman.

You de facto claim that the “calculated manner” that she introduced the accusation against Haman was a lie. The accusation was true, but the introduction was a lie.

3. Psychological presuppositions? No, they are enquiries based on the whole arena of human experience, in an attempt to empathize as best as I can with a drama that only gives me words on paper.

In this you presuppose a certain response as being universal. But is it? Do you not recognize that in human interactions that there may be exceptions to what you consider universal? I read the situation that Esther, in order to maximize her effectiveness, had to be completely honest and open, therefore she told the truth, not something manipulative and false.

I read the text as written.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Chris Watts]

1. It is not about whether she lied, but her calculated manner of introducing the accusation against Haman.

You de facto claim that the “calculated manner” that she introduced the accusation against Haman was a lie. The accusation was true, but the introduction was a lie.

3. Psychological presuppositions? No, they are enquiries based on the whole arena of human experience, in an attempt to empathize as best as I can with a drama that only gives me words on paper.

In this you presuppose a certain response as being universal. But is it? Do you not recognize that in human interactions that there may be exceptions to what you consider universal? I read the situation that Esther, in order to maximize her effectiveness, had to be completely honest and open, therefore she told the truth, not something manipulative and false.

I read the text as written.

Karl W. Randolph.

<<<You de facto claim that the “calculated manner” that she introduced the accusation against Haman was a lie. >>>>

No I did not Karl, there is a gross misunderstanding here.

<<< In this you presuppose a certain response as being universal >>>

Goodness knows how you arrive at this Karl? And I certainly did not say that she was being manipulatve and false, if you are reading this in to everything I have tried so hard to explain then I am sorry - you have grossly misunderstood what I am trying to put forward. If you wish to respond I will respectfully read it, but I will not reply as this will go nowhere, however do not take my lack of a reply as being in-polite please. This is all I can say Karl.

Chris watts