Esther 7 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
474 BC, the day after Esther's first banquet
Location
The private banquet room in the palace at Susa, with the palace garden adjoining
Audience
Jews of the dispersion, hearing how a threat against their whole people collapsed
Situation
At the second banquet Esther finally names her request, revealing that she is a Jew and that Haman has bought the destruction of her people. The king storms out in fury, returns to find Haman fallen across Esther's couch pleading, and orders him impaled on the pole he built for Mordecai.
Key Background
Persians dined reclining on couches, so Haman throwing himself toward Esther to beg would have brought him physically onto her couch, and touching a royal woman was an offence severe enough to read as assault. Covering a condemned man's face was a recognised signal that sentence had been passed. Esther's phrasing, that if her people had merely been sold as slaves she would have stayed silent, uses the language of Haman's own bribe to the treasury and frames the issue as a loss to the king himself, which was the strongest argument available in that court.
1
So the king and Haman came to drink wine with Queen Esther.
2
On this second day of the banquet, while they were drinking wine, the king again asked Esther, "What is your request, Queen Esther? It will be granted. What do you want? Even up to half the kingdom — it's yours."