Esther 5:5

ESTHER DELAYS HER REQUEST UNTIL A SECOND BANQUET

"Then the king said, Cause Haman to make haste, that it may be done as Esther hath said. So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared. And the king said to Esther at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition, and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? and even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed. Then answered Esther and said, My petition and my request is: If I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it please the king to grant my petition, and to perform my request, let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I shall prepare for them, and I will do tomorrow as the king hath said."

Why was Esther so reluctant to make her request known? Matthew Henry suggested that it might have been due: (1) "To her prudence as she sought more time to ingratiate herself with the king; (2) or that her heart failed her as she did not find sufficient courage to make it known without further time for prayer; or (3) that it was due to God's overruling providence which would use the intervening time prior to that second banquet to make the granting of Esther's petition absolutely certain."[6] It might very well have been a combination of all these things. "She wisely concluded that the king would understand that there was indeed a real petition in the background; which, of course, he did."[7]

Joyce Baldwin thought that Esther's intuition told her that the strategic moment had not yet come. "Although she could not have foreseen it, that second invitation played an essential part in bringing about her opportunity."[8] "This, of course, was providential. The intervening events, as recorded in chapter 6, provided the necessary background for her accusation, and the king's appropriate response to it."[9]

"I will do tomorrow as the king hath said" (Esther 5:8). "This meant that, `Tomorrow, I will reveal my request.'"[10]