For how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?
Parallel translations
- WEB For how can I endure to see the evil that would come to my people? How can I endure to see the destruction of my relatives?”
- BSB For how could I bear to see the disaster that would befall my people? How could I bear to see the destruction of my kindred?”
- NKJV For how can I endure to see the evil that will come to my people? Or how can I endure to see the destruction of my countrymen?”
- NASB For how can I endure to see the disaster which will happen to my people, and how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?”
- NLT For how can I endure to see my people and my family slaughtered and destroyed?”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Esther asks how she could bear to watch the destruction of her people and kindred. Her plea flows from deep love and solidarity with them.
Overview
Esther's heartfelt words reveal that her concern is not personal safety but the survival of her people. Her identification with their suffering gives her appeal its moral force. This selfless intercession, refusing to look on while her people perish, reflects the compassion of the true Deliverer for those He came to save.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Esth 7:4For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the king’s damage.
- Rom 10:1Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.
- Rom 9:2–3That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
- Esth 9:1Now in the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king’s commandment and his decree drew near to be put in execution, in the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them, (though it was turned to the contrary, that the Jews had rule over them that hated them;)
- Jer 4:19My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
- Luke 19:41–42And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,
- Gen 44:34For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father.
- Jer 9:1Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
- Neh 2:3And said unto the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Though God is never named, his hidden hand preserves the people from whom the Messiah will come — a deliverance 'for such a time as this' that anticipates the open deliverance of Christ.
How Esther 8:6 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.