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?”
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?”
- KJV 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?
- 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?”
- 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 male and female slaves, I would have held my peace, although the adversary could not have compensated for the king’s loss.”
- Rom 10:1Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God is for Israel, that they may be saved.
- Rom 9:2–3that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart.
- Esth 9:1Now in the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of the month, when the king’s commandment and his decree came near to be put in execution, on the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to conquer them, (but it was turned out the opposite happened, that the Jews conquered those who hated them),
- Jer 4:19My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I can’t hold my peace; because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
- Luke 19:41–42When he came near, he saw the city and wept over it,
- Gen 44:34For how will I go up to my father, if the boy isn’t with me? — lest I see the evil that will come on my father.”
- Jer 9:1Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
- Neh 2:3I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why shouldn’t my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies waste, and its gates have been 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.