In two rhetorical questions, Esther personalizes the tragedy that she wishes to avert. Using two pairs of near synonyms, calamity and destruction, and people and kindred, the author heightens the drama of the scene. Today’s English Version has restructured to form one sentence, thereby avoiding the apparent redundancy of two questions. The translator will need to consider the rules of dramatic literature in the receptor language to determine how to express Esther’s emotional plea.
Endure to see: the verb rendered “endure” most frequently means “to be able” in the Old Testament. It may also mean “to bear” or “to endure.” Compare New Jerusalem Bible: “For how can I bear to see the disaster…! And how can I bear to see the destruction…!” This may be stated as a negative in some languages. New Century Version, for example, says “I could not stand to see that terrible thing happen to my people. I could not stand to see my family killed.” In some languages rhetorical questions will express Esther’s emotion: “How could I see such a powerful bad thing fall on my people? How could I see the death of my family?”
Calamity … destruction: the first of these words is raʿah, which was used to describe Haman’s own situation (see 7.7). The second word, destruction, is the noun form of one of the three verbs that were used in the letters that were sent throughout the kingdom regarding the fate intended for the Jews (see 3.13, where the verb form is translated “to annihilate” in Revised Standard Version).
On my people and my kindred, see the comments on 2.10, 20.
Septuagint 8.6
How can I look on the ruin of my people?: in the form of a rhetorical question, Esther expresses the pain or the suffering that she would bear if this “ill-treatment” or “misfortune” were to fall upon her people. In a second question in the Hebrew text, Esther expresses concern for her relatives. In the second question in the Septuagint she expresses concern for her own safety. Today’s English Version seems to change the point of her safety into a lament describing her mental despair: “How can I go on living…?” It is better to keep the focus on her physical safety. In faithfulness to the original author, it is best to retain rhetorical questions in the translation when they are natural in the receptor language. However, some translators may find it necessary to restate the questions in the form of exclamations: “How I would suffer if I saw such a calamity fall upon my people! I would never be safe if my nation was destroyed!”
Most translations interpret “country” in the Greek text to mean Esther’s nation by birth or her race.
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Noss, Philip A. A Handbook on the Book of Esther — Deuterocanon: The Greek Text. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .