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.Jason Hare wrote: ↑Sat May 15, 2021 3:12 pm 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).
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