Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/914

 would have been silent, for the enemy is not worthy that I should vex or annoy the king by my accusation.

Verse 5
The king, whose indignation was excited by what he had just heard, asks with an agitation, shown by the repetition of the ויּאמר: “Who is he, and where is he, whose heart hath filled him (whom his heart hath filled) to do so?” Evil thoughts proceed from the heart, and fill the man, and impel him to evil deeds: Isa 44:20; Ecc 8:11; Mat 15:19.

Verse 6
Esther replies: “The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman.” Then was Haman afraid before the king and the queen. נבעת as in 1Ch 21:30; Dan 8:17.

Verse 7
The king in his wrath arose from the banquet of wine, and went into the garden of the house (קם is here a pregnant expression, and is also combined with אל־גּנּת); but Haman remained standing to beg for his life to Queen Esther (על בּקּשׁ as in Est 4:8), “for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king” (כּלה, completed, i.e., determined; comp. 1Sa 20:7, 1Sa 20:9; 1Sa 25:17, and elsewhere); and hence that he had no mercy to expect from him, unless the queen should intercede for him.

Verse 8
The king returned to the house, and found Haman falling (נפל as in Jos 8:10; Deu 21:1, and elsewhere) at or on the couch on which Esther was (sitting), i.e., falling as a suppliant at her feet; and crediting Haman in the heat of his anger with the worst designs, he cried out: “Shall also violence be done to the queen before me in the house?” The infin. לכבּושׁ after the interrogatory particle signifies: Is violence to be done, i.e., shall violence be done? as in 1Ch 15:2 and elsewhere; comp. Ewald, §237, c. כּבשׁ, to tread under foot, to subdue, used here in the more general sense, to offer violence. Without waiting for an explanation, the king, still more infuriated, passes sentence of death upon Haman. This is not given in so many words by the historian, but we are told immediately that: “as the word went out of the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face.” הדּבר is not the speech of the king just reported, but the judicial sentence, the death warrant, i.e., the word to punish Haman with death. This is unmistakeably shown by the