Esther 7:2
And the king said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the half of the kingdom. And the king said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the half of the kingdom.
The verse belongs to the book of Esther, covering the history of the Jews under Medo-Persian rule under the great Persian king Xerxes, called Ahasuerus in the Bible. It stands in the account of how in God's providence a Jewish maiden was brought to the throne of Persia while the Amalekites, the wicked and sworn enemies of God's children, were in the favor of the king with Haman the prime minister at their head, how Haman plotted to destroy the Jews, all God's people, and how God's overruling power frustrated the plan and saved them and brought salvation to them. It records the king's renewed offer on the second day at the banquet of wine that Esther had prepared for the king and Haman, asking for her petition and request with promise to grant it even to half the kingdom, and it marks the occasion on which she could appeal for her people's deliverance.
By calling the day after Esther's first feast or banquet the second day, the verse illustrates inclusive day-counting, in which the day of the first banquet or event is counted as the first and the day of speaking is counted as the second. At that moment, speaking to the king in the very presence of Haman, Esther presented her petition for her own life and her request for her people, declaring that she and her people were sold to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish, and that she would have held her tongue if they had only been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage. Her intervention at her banquet before Xerxes, where God's providence overruled Haman's plot, thus helped preserve the people through whom the promised Man Child would come.