Now when Mordecai found out all that was done, Mordecai tore his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the middle of the city, and wailed loudly and bitterly. He came even before the king’s gate, for no one is allowed inside the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. In every province, wherever the king’s commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
Esther’s maidens and her eunuchs came and told her this, and the queen was exceedingly grieved. She sent clothing to Mordecai, to replace his sackcloth; but he didn’t receive it. Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, whom he had appointed to attend her, and commanded him to go to Mordecai, to find out what this was, and why it was. So Hathach went out to Mordecai, to city square which was before the king’s gate. Mordecai told him of all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. He also gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Susa to destroy them, to show it to Esther, and to declare it to her, and to urge her to go in to the king, to make supplication to him, and to make request before him, for her people.
Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai. Then Esther spoke to Hathach, and gave him a message to Mordecai: “All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, know, that whoever, whether man or woman, comes to the king into the inner court without being called, there is one law for him, that he be put to death, except those to whom the king might hold out the golden scepter, that he may live. I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.”
They told Esther’s words to Mordecai. Then Mordecai asked them to return this answer to Esther: “Don’t think to yourself that you will escape in the king’s house any more than all the Jews. For if you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Who knows if you haven’t come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
Then Esther asked them to answer Mordecai, “Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Susa, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 14, 16 Because he would advertise Esther of this cruel proclamation.
Because he would advertise Esther of this cruel proclamation.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–17 Est 4:1 When Mordecai perceived all that was done,…
Est 4:1 When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry;
Ver. 1. When Mordecai perceived all that was done] Mαθων το γινομενον, saith Josephus, when he had learned or fully informed himself, so that he knew it to be so, as the Hebrew text hath it (Jadang.). Solicitous he was of the Church’s welfare, and sat listening, as Eli did once, what would become of the ark, 1Sa 3:13. Now therefore, as ill news is swift of foot, saith Sophocles, αι βλαβαι ποδωκεις, and comes like ill weather, before it be sent for, Mordecai taketh knowledge of that bloody decree, though Esther and those about her had not heard of it, Est 4:4-5. Neither sitteth he still at home, as desponding and despairing, or seeketh by sinister practices to help himself and his people, but applieth himself, first, to God, by hearty humiliation and prayer; and then to the king, by the intercession of Esther. A carnal heart would have taken other shifting courses, like as a dog that hath lost his master will follow after any other for relief.
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Mordecai rent his clothes] To show that his very heart was rent with sorrow for Sion. This custom of rending their clothes in time and in token of greatest grief, was in use not among the Jews only, but Persians also, and other nations, as is noted by Herodotus and Curtius.
And put on sackcloth] The coarsest clothing he could get; as holding any clothes too good for so vile a captive, and showing that but for shame he would have worn none. So the Nine vites sat in sackcloth and ashes, for more humiliation. See Exo 33:4, &c.
And ashes] He put on ashes or dust, that is, a dusty garment sprinkled with ashes, saith Drusius, putting his mouth in the dust, as Lam 3:29, acknowledging himself to be of the earth earthy, and fit fuel for hell fire, Non e foco, sed e terra desumptum pulverem notat (Merlin).
And went out into the midst of the city] That he might be a pattern to others. Si vis me flere, &c.
And cried with a loud and a bitter cry] More barbarico, after the manner of that country; but there was more in it than so. It was not his own danger that so much affected him (how gladly could he have wished, with Ambrose, that God would please to turn all the adversaries from the Church upon himself, and let them satisfy their thirst with his blood? Oτι μηδεν αδικησον εθνος αναιρειται, Joseph.) as that so many innocent people should perish. This made him lift up his voice unto God on high.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16 Partly, to express his deep sense of the mischief…
Partly, to express his deep sense of the mischief coming upon his people; partly, to move the pity of others to do what they could to prevent it; and partly, that by this means it might come to the queen’s ear.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 Here we have an account of the general sorrow…
Here we have an account of the general sorrow that there was among the Jews upon the publishing of Haman's bloody edict against them. It was a sad time with the church. 1. Mordecai cried bitterly, rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth, Est 4:1, Est 4:2. He not only thus vented his grief, but proclaimed it, that all might take notice of it that he was not ashamed to own himself a friend to the Jews, and a fellow-sufferer with them, their brother and companion in tribulation, how despicable and how odious soever they were now represented by Haman's faction. It was nobly done thus publicly to espouse what he knew to be a righteous cause, and the cause of God, even when it seemed a desperate and a sinking cause. Mordecai laid the danger to heart more than any because he knew that Haman's spite was against him primarily, and that it was for his sake that the rest of the Jews were struck at; and therefore, though he did not repent of what some would call his obstinacy, for he persisted in it (Est 5:9), yet it troubled him greatly that his people should suffer for his scruples, which perhaps occasioned some of them to reflect upon him as too precise. But, being able to appeal to God that what he did he did from a principle of conscience, he could with comfort commit his own cause and that of his people to him that judgeth righteously. God will keep those that are exposed by the tenderness of their consciences. Notice is here taken of a law that none might enter into the king's gate clothed with sackcloth; though the arbitrary power of their kings often, as now, set many a mourning, yet none must come near the king in a mourning dress, because he was not willing to hear the complaints of such. Nothing but what was gay and pleasant must appear at court, and every thing that was melancholy must be banished thence; all in king's palaces wear soft clothing (Mat 11:8), not sackcloth. But thus to keep out the badges of sorrow, unless they could withal have kept out the causes of sorrow - to forbid sackcloth to enter, unless they could have forbidden sickness, and trouble, and death to enter - was jest. However this obliged Mordecai to keep his distance, and only to come before the gate, not to take his place in the gate. 2. All the Jews in every province laid it much to heart, Est 4:3. They denied themselves the comfort of their tables (for they fasted and mingled tears with their meat and drink), and the comfort of their beds at night, for they lay in sackcloth and ashes. Those who for want of confidence in God, and affection to their own land, has staid in the land of their captivity, when Cyrus gave them liberty to be gone, now perhaps repented of their folly, and wished, when it was too late, that they had complied with the call of God. 3. Esther the queen, upon a general intimation of the trouble Mordecai was in, was exceedingly grieved, v. 4. Mordecai's grief was hers, such a respect did she still retain for him; and the Jews' danger was her distress; for, though a queen, she forgot not her relation to them. Let not the greatest think it below them to grieve for the affliction of Joseph, though they themselves be anointed with the chief ointments, Amo 6:6. Esther sent change of raiment to Mordecai, the oil of joy for mourning and the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness; but because he would make her sensible of the greatness of his grief, and consequently of the cause of it, he received it not, but was as one that refused to be comforted.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–14 When Mordecai perceived all that was done,.... By the…
When Mordecai perceived all that was done,.... By the king, at the instigation of Haman, against the Jews; which he came to the knowledge of, either by some of the conflicts or by common fame, or on the sight of the edicts which were published in Shushan; though the Jews think it was made known to him in a supernatural way, either by Elijah, as the former Targum (x), or by the Holy Ghost, as the latter:
Mordecai rent his clothes: both behind and before, according to the same Targum; and this was a custom used in mourning, not only with the Jews, but with the Persians also, as Herodotus (y) relates:
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and put on sackcloth with ashes; upon his head, as the former Targum; which was usual in mourning, even both; Job 2:12
and went out into the midst of the city; not Elam the province, as Aben Ezra, but the city Shushan:
and cried with a loud and bitter cry; that all the Jews in the city might be alarmed by it, and inquire the reason of it, and be affected with it; and a clamorous mournful noise was used among the Persians, as well as others, on sad occasions (z).
(x) So Midrash Esther, fol. 94. 1. (y) Thalia, sive, l. 3. c. ----. Urania, sive, l. 8. c. 99. (z) Calliope, sive, l. 9. c. 24.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 11, 14, 16 The Jews fast and mourn, ver. 1-3. Esther is…
The Jews fast and mourn, ver. 1-3. Esther is informed of the design, ver. 4-9, Mordecai presses her to intercede with the king, ver. 10-14. She desires all the Jews to keep a solemn fast, ver. 15- 19.
Cry - To express his deep sense of the mischief coming upon his people. It was bravely done, thus publickly to espouse a just cause though it seemed to be a desperate one.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16 On hearing the king's decree to exterminate the Jews,…
CHAPTER IV
On hearing the king's decree to exterminate the Jews, Mordecai
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mourns, and clothes himself in sackcloth, 1, 2.
The Jews are filled with consternation, 3.
Esther, perceived Mordecai in distress at the palace gate, sends
her servant Hatach to inquire the reason, 4-6.
Hatach returns with the information, and also the express desire
of Mordecai that she should go instantly to the king, and make
supplication in behalf of her people, 7-9.
Esther excuses herself on the ground that she had not been
called by the king for thirty days past; and that the law was
such that any one approaching his presence, without express
invitation, should be put to death, unless the king should, in
peculiar clemency, stretch out to such persons the golden
sceptre, 10-12.
Mordecai returns an answer, insisting on her compliance, 13, 14.
She then orders Mordecai to gather all the Jews of Shushan, and
fast for her success three days, night and day, and resolves to
make the attempt, though at the risk of her life, 15-17.
NOTES ON CHAP. IV
Verse 1. Mordecai rent his clothes] He gave every demonstration of the most poignant and oppressive grief. Nor did he hide this from the city; and the Greek says that he uttered these words aloud: Αιρεται εθνος μηδεν ηδικηκος, A people are going to be destroyed, who have done no evil!
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 11, 13, 16 Est 4:1. And put on sackcloth with ashes —…
Est 4:1. And put on sackcloth with ashes — That is, he put on a garment of sackcloth or hair, and sprinkled ashes upon his head. And cried with a loud and bitter cry — To express his deep sense of the mischief coming upon his people. It was bravely done thus publicly to espouse what he knew to be a righteous cause, and the cause of God, even then when it seemed to be a sinking and desperate cause. The latter Targum upon the book of Esther gives us the following account of Mordecai’s behaviour upon this sad occasion: “He made his complaints in the midst of the streets, saying, ‘What a heavy decree is this, which the king and Haman have passed, not against a part of us, but against us all, to root us out of the earth!’ Whereupon all the Jews flocked about him, and, having caused the book of the law to be brought to the gate of Shushan, he, being covered with sackcloth, read the words of Deu 4:30-31, and then exhorted them to fasting, humiliation, and repentance, after the example of the Ninevites.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 11, 14, 16 None might enter into the king’s gate clothed with…
None might enter into the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth - This law is not elsewhere mentioned; but its principle - that nothing of evil omen is to be obtruded on the monarch - has been recognized throughout the East in all ages.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16 Shewing. Septuagint, old Vulgate, and Josephus, "a nation which…
Shewing. Septuagint, old Vulgate, and Josephus, "a nation which has done no wrong, is to be cut off." The eastern nations were accustomed to such marks of sorrow, Jonas ii. 6. The citizens of Susa tore their garments, and cried aloud, for many days after the defeat of Xerxes. (Herodotus viii. 98.) --- The domestics of Darius and Alexander tore also their hair, &c., after their masters’ death. (Curtius iii., and xi.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 The Conflict of Opposites
SECOND SECTION
The Conflict of Opposites
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Esther 4, 5
A.—MORDECAI, GREATLY SORROWING WITH HIS PEOPLE, URGES ESTHER TO PLEAD FOR MERCY WITH THE KING
Est_4:1-17
I. Communication between Mordecai and Esther. Est_4:1-5
1When [And] Mordecai perceived [knew] all that was done, [and, i.e. then] Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with [and] ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried1 with a loud [great] and a bitter cry; 2And came even before the king’s gate: for none might [there was none to] enter [go] into the king’s gate clothed with [in clothing of] sackcloth. 3And in every province,2 whithersoever [the place that] the king’s commandment [word] and his decree [law] came [was approaching], there was great mourning among [for] the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing [smiting the breast]: and many lay in sack-cloth 4and ashes [sack-cloth and ashes was strown for the many]. So [And] Esther’s maids and her chamberlains [eunuchs] came and told it her. Then [And] was the queen exceedingly grieved; and she sent raiment to clothe Mordecai, and to 5take away his sackcloth from [upon] him: but [and] he received it not. Then [And] called Esther for [to] Hatach, one of the king’s chamberlains [eunuchs], whom he had appointed to attend upon [stationed before] her, and gave him a commandment [enjoined him] to [upon, i.e. concerning] Mordecai, to know what it was, and why it was.
II. Mordecai commissions Esther to present his petition; but she raises a point of difficulty. Est_4:6-11
6So [And] Hatach went forth to Mordecai unto the street of the city, which was before the king’s gate: 7and Mordecai told him of all that had happened unto him, and of the sum [designation] of the money [silver] that Haman had promised [said] to pay to [upon] the king’s treasuries for [in consideration of] the Jews, to 8destroy [cause them to perish]: Also [And] he gave him the copy of the writing of the decree [law] that was given at Shushan to destroy them, to show it unto Esther, and to declare [tell] it unto her, and to charge [enjoin upon] her that she should go [to go] in unto the king, to make supplication unto him, and to make request before him for [upon] her people. 9And Hatach came and told Esther the 10words of Mordecai; Again [And] Esther spake [said] unto Hatach, and gave him commandment [enjoined him] unto Mordecai; 11All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, do know [are knowing], that whosoever, whether man [every man] or [and] woman, shall [who shall] come unto the king into the inner court, who is not [shall not be] called, there is one law of his to put him to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that [and] he may live; but I3 have not been called to come in unto the king these [this] thirty days.
III. Mordecai presents his request still more urgently, and Esther promises to execute it. Est_4:12-17
12And they told to Mordecai Esther’s words. 13Then [And] Mordecai commanded [said] to answer Esther, Think not with thyself [in thy spirit] that thou shalt 14escape in [to deliver] the king’s house more than all the Jews. For [But] if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but [and] thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed [utterly perish]; and who knoweth whether thou art come [hast 15approached] to the kingdom for such a time as this? Then [And] Esther bade them [said to] return Mordecai this answer; 16Go, gather together all the Jews that are present found] in Shusan, and fast ye for [upon] me, and neither eat [eat not] nor drink “and drink not] three days, night or [and] day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law; 17and if [whereas] I perish [have perished], I perish [have perished]. So [And] Mordecai went his way [passed] and did according to all that Esther had commanded [enjoined upon] him.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
1 [Est_4:1. זעק, a later or Aramæan form for זעק, seems to be intensive of קרא, including the simple call for help, שׁוע, and the shriek from pain or danger, אנק, and denotes an earnest and vociferous demonstration.—Tr.]
2 [Est_4:3. See Note 7 in preceding section.—Tr.]
3 [Est_4:11. The pronoun, being expressed in the original, is emphatic.—Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The author manifestly desires to show in this chapter how very difficult it was for Mordecai to make even the one effort to save his people from destruction. But he was faithful and persistent; taking step after step until the object was attained. He here entered a conflict which was forced upon him, and which he was unable to avert. But thereby lie ran the greatest danger both for himself and for Esther, whom he required to assist. him. Three separate endeavors are recorded by our author as made on the part of Mordecai in order to involve Esther in this conflict. The first was preparatory, being designed simply to establish a connection with her; of the second the only result was the objections raised by Esther; and in the third she expressed her willingness and her resignation to a possible fate.
Est_4:1-5. Here is described the first step. The first thing Mordecai did was to take a leading part in the general sorrow of the Jews. Thereby he attracted the attention of Esther, and induced her not only to send him other garments than those of mourning, but also to send a confidential messenger through whom he could communicate with her. Est_4:1. “When Mordecai perceived all that was done.—As is told us in Est_4:7. Mordecai was even informed as to the sum of money which Haman expected to obtain by destroying the Jews. Possibly some of Haman’s intimate friends heard of it and spoke of it in the king’s gate where Mordecai could hear it. Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, i. e., a garment of hair cloth, and with the same also put on ashes, by strewing ashes over his person and clothing (comp. Dan_9:3; Job_2:12).4And went out into the midst of the city.—He did not conceal the fact that he was in deep distress, and cried with a loud and bitter cry; literally, occurs in Gen_27:34 with reference to Esau.
Est_4:2. And came even before the king’s gate, i. e., up to the free place that was before the entrance to the royal palace (comp. Est_4:6),— further he could not come, no more could he come into the gate of the palace as before—for none (might) enter into the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth.—So אֵין לָכוֹא, comp. Ewald, § 321 c.
Est_4:3. Many other Jews also mourned. The sorrow was general. Despite the elevation of Esther her people now had everywhere only distress and grief, instead of honor and joy. It seems as if the author would here describe how the Jews were treated contrary to what one would naturally expect after the elevation of Esther. He would here, doubtless, also give prominence to the remarkable mode which Mordecai adopted to secure the attention of Esther. Further in Est_4:3 he would show us how pressing was the need of every possible endeavor for their preservation. And in every province, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, etc.—מְקוֹם is the Accusative of place found in stat. constr. before אֲשֶׁר, as in Est_8:17; Ecc_11:3; comp. Lev_4:24בִּמְקוֹם אֲשֶּׁר. And many lay in sackcloth and ashes.—While all gave vent to their distress and tears, many manifested their sorrow by putting on sackcloth and sitting in ashes (comp. Isa_58:5).
Est_4:4. The first object that Mordecai gained by his public grief was that he drew the attention of Esther’s women-servants and eunuchs, i. e., such as were assigned her for her exclusive service (comp. Est_2:9), and they gave notice to the queen. Though they had not as yet discovered the nationality of Esther, still they became aware of Esther’s relation to Mordecai, who on his part was very diligent in his inquiries concerning her. Hence they delayed not to inform the queen of all that they know of him. Following the Kethib we should read וַתְּבוֹאֶינָה. As this prolonged form of the word does not usually occur after a Vav. cons., the Keri has the form וַתָּבוֹאנָה. The object of יָגִּידוּ is found in what follows: the present appearance of Mordecai in mourning garments was not the cause (comp. Est_4:5); but this was enough to give her considerable anxiety. וַתִּתְהַלְחַל, a passive intensive from חוּל, they were seized as with pains of delivery. She sent clothes to her guardian, that he might put them on, doubtless, that thereby he might again stand in the gate of the king, and so relate to her the cause of his grief. But he refused them, not only because he would wear no other than garments of mourning, but because he desired a private opportunity to communicate with her.
Est_4:5. Mordecai accomplished his object, and Hatach the eunuch was sent to him to obtain particulars. הֶעֱמִיד לְפָנֶיהָ, the king had appointed Hatach to serve Esther; hence he belonged to her eunuchs (Est_4:4). וַתְּצַוֵּהוּ עַל, she commissioned him with respect to orעַל, substantially similar to אֵל, “she sent him to,” (comp. Est_4:10).
Est_4:6-11. Here we have the second step. In the face of the greatness of the danger that threatened the Jews it was hardly to be expected but that Mordecai should make a request of Esther whose fulfilment would be very serious in its consequences.
Est_4:6-7. When Hatach had proceeded to the open place before the palace, he found Mordecai, who in the hope that Esther would do something more, had remained there longer or more frequently resorted thither. Then Mordecai informed him of all that had occurred and that now threatened the Jews, and mentioned also the sum of money that Haman promised to place in the king’s treasury, in return for the extermination of the Jews. This he did, no doubt, to show what low and despicable motives were at play in the matter; and thus he very naturally hoped to excite the greater indignation and wrath in Esther. She must not be left to think that Haman had found the Jews guilty of real transgressions when he obtained the consent of the king. That the king had remitted the money to Haman, is not referred to here because not pertinent. פָּרָשָׁה derived from פָּרַשׁto cut off, separate, then to define correctly (comp. Lev_24:12), the exact statement of a thing, i.e., here, of the amount, sum of money to be given. For the Jews, to destroy them, means when the Jews would be surrendered to him with permission to destroy them. The Kethib form of יְהוּדִיִּים is less frequently used for יְהוּים, which is found in Est_8:1; Est_8:7; Est_8:13; Est_9:15; Est_9:18.
Est_4:8. Also he gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given at Shushan (comp. Est_3:15), to destroy them, i. e., which ordered them to be destroyed. פַּתְשֶׁגֶן could here have the meaning of “copy;” but the rendering “contents” of the writing of the decree is preferable, (comp. Ezr_4:11). Possibly Mordecai had briefly noted down the substance of the decree. To shew (it) unto Esther, and to declare (it) unto her, and to charge her that she should go in unto the king to make supplication unto him.—וּלְהַגִּיּד, contrary to the accents, is by Bertheau and Keil connected with what follows, as if it were the same in sense with לְעַוּוֹת עָלֶיהָ. But it rather belongs to what precedes according to its import. Hatach was to show the writing to Esther and give her the substance of the information it conveyed. It is quite possible that Esther could read it herself; Mordecai sent the copy for the purpose of enabling Hatach to give the proper meaning of its contents. The infinitives with לְּ are here best translated by “in order that.” To declare (explain) it unto her, and to charge her to go in unto the king, to make supplication unto him … for her people.— בַּקֵשׁ with עַל here, as in Est_7:7. means: to entreat, supplicate for something diligently (comp. Ezr_8:23). She should petition relief for her people.
Est_4:9-11. Mordecai elicited only the answer: All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, do know, that whosoever, whether man or woman shall come unto the king, etc.— כָּל־אִשׁ וְאִישָׁה is prefixed as a Nom. absol. The predicate with אַחַת דָּתוֹ follows as an anacoluthon: “one is his law,” (i.e., one law extends to all. דָּתוֹ is the law having reference in his case. Its substance reads briefly: לְהָמִיתto kill, i. e., him. One was not even allowed to enter the inner court-yard, much less the king’s palace. That the king resided in the inner court before the royal house (Bertheau and Keil), would not follow from Est_5:1. Every one was to be killed, except him toward whom the king extended the golden sceptre. לְבַד מִן, except, as for example, Exo_12:23; Jos_17:5. הוֹשִׁיט, from ישׁט, found only in this book (in Est_5:2; Est_8:4), in the Aramaic tongue signifies “to reach out towards, to extend,” and is connected with שׁוט ,שׁט. In the time of Deioces the Mede, approach to the king was already very difficult (Herod. I. 9); and among the Persians, with very few exceptions (Herod. III. 118), no one was permitted to approach the king without a notice (comp. Est_1:14; and Herod. III. 140; also C. Nep. Conon, c. 3). According to our verse the sense of the law is not that no one should approach unannounced, but that no one should approach unless called. But the sense of both is the same. If one must give due notice of approach, one must first be also accepted; but to be accepted is to be called. As regards that law any one was free to give notice of his approach (comp. Herodot. III. 140), and hence arises the question, why Esther kept this privilege out of sight. Josephus says (Antiq. XI. 6, 3) that the husband of Esther (according to him Artaxerxes) forbade his people, by a special law, to approach him while he sat upon the throne. But he would manifestly give greater weight to our explanation. If we desire to find the correct answer we must not overlook the remark of Esther, that she had not been called to the king for now thirty days.5 Possibly she apprehended that the king had become somewhat indifferent to her, and that, if she were to announce herself without being called by him, she would be refused admittance to his presence. This would have made the venture still more dangerous. According to Est_3:7, nearly five years had passed since their marriage. Hence she had possibly been somewhat forgotten. It could hardly appear otherwise in her eyes than that it was best to approach the king unannounced and place reliance on the fact that her appearance should kindle his love anew.6
Est_4:12-17. The third step. In order to move Esther to a compliance with his request, despite her hesitation, Mordecai had it reported to her (Est_4:13): Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all the Jews.-—To be saved does not here mean, if I only am saved, the others do not concern me, as if Mordecai would warn her of a selfish and indifferent feeling toward her people. But the sense is: “Do not think that thou shalt escape, or that thou art better off.” This is clear from Est_4:14 : For if thou altogether holdest thy peace, not making intercession with the king, at this time, (then) shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed, i. e., be not better off, but worse. That the entire Jewish people cannot be thus destroyed is a matter self-evident to Mordecai. This is an incontestable truth, under all circumstances, which in his mind is made sure by the divine promises. And although neither God nor God’s assurances are here mentioned, still, as is justly remarked by Brenz: “We have this noble and clearly heroic faith of Mordecai, which sees the future deliverance, even amidst the most immediate and imminent danger.” Those Jews only can and must be destroyed, in his opinion, who, when it concerns the preservation of the people, do not perform their duty. It is very improbable that he should think that Haman has not power sufficient to cause the destruction of the Jewish nation as a whole, but merely of that detested Mordecai and his family, hence also Esther, must die (Bertheau,—otherwise he would not have said: “thou and thy father’s house,” but “thy father’s house and thou, ye shall perish.” He here makes reference rather to a divine punishment that shall come upon Esther first, but on her account also upon her father’s house. רְוָחה = רֶוַח (Exo_8:11) means relief from pressure because of want of air. עַמַד in later language may have been given the meaning of קּוּם, so that it should mean to arise, to go forth, to be (1Ch_20:4). But it may also signify: deliverance will be established (Bertheau), or stand ready. The “other place” is not God as immediate for help, but another agent of God, in contrast with Esther. Mordecai means: God will find other instruments whom He will employ, if thou wilt not serve Him The last sentence of Est_4:14 is, by most interpreters, declared to mean: “And who knows but that thou hast been elevated to be queen for just such an emergency as this, where there is danger, which thou shouldst assist in averting, so that thou canst easily help. But if thou wilt not help, thou wilt not escape an especially severe sentence.” But to take אִם in the sense of הֲלא, is to say the least, venturesome, and cannot be justified by the fact that מִי יֹדֵעַ is sometimes, (but without אִם) used in the sense of perhaps (2Sa_12:22; Joe_2:14; Jon_3:9). Again it does not correspond to the sense of “if,” “whether;” and we may say with Bertheau: “Who knows, when thou hast approached the royal throne (beseechingly), what then shall happen, whether the king will not receive you graciously;” or again, as Keil says: “Who knows but that thou hast attained to royalty for just such a time as this (as was no doubt true), what shall then be done by thee?” Mordecai would perhaps say, by way of adding to the before-expressed threat, “Thou shalt be destroyed, if thou art silent: and who knows whether thou shalt really be courageous enough to speak for us, and thereby manifest to us that, for just such a time as this thou wast elevated to royal dignity?” A doubt such as this would evidently be the most powerful incentive to her to do what was requested of her.
Est_4:15. In fact this resolve was reached by her. She made request that Mordecai, together with the Jews in Shushan, should fast three days and nights in her behalf. Doubtless she thus expected to secure the help and protection of God for that eventful hour and step, and therefore she declared, with great resignation, that she would venture to fulfil their request. This fast could only mean that great misery impended over their heads, that with a contrite spirit God’s hand was seen in this event, and that prayer was made to God for help (comp. 1Ki_21:27-29; Joe_1:14; Jon_3:5). That Esther still does not make mention of God, no more than did Mordecai before this, when he asserted his faith in the indestructibility of the Jewish nation, may easily be explained, as has been observed in the Introduction, § 3, by remarking that it pertains to the style of the author. To the expression: fast ye for me, Esther adds: and neither eat nor drink three days, night nor day, in order to mark the severity of the fast. A strict fast of three days would indeed have been a severe task, and Esther would thereby have done injury to her appearance (J. D. Michaelis). But these three days seem, as in Jon_2:1, not to be clearly understood; hence the sense would be, from this day until the third day. For the fast must have begun on the same day that Esther’s answer came to Mordecai. The “third day” mentioned in Est_5:1 must mean the third day from that in which the decision of Esther was made. This decision was the main fact from which time was reckoned. Of course we cannot expect that Mordecai should that very day have induced all the Jews in Shushan to fast. Still it matters not so much that not all, if only many, fasted.—And so will I go in unto the king, which is not, etc.—[בְּכֵן, i.e., under such circumstances, or under such conditions. אֲשֶׁר לֹא כַּדָת may simply mean: “which is not legally allowed,” although not, etc. אֲשֶׁר may be taken in a neuter sense, although אֲשֶׁר לֹא reminds us of the Aramaic דִּי לָא, and hence it can easily be taken in the sense of “without” (comp. Ewald, § 322 c). The last words: And if I perish, I perish, are an expression of willing submission to the fate that may threaten her in the performance of her duty (comp. Gen_43:14). Esther had great cause to prepare for her own destruction. She not only proposed to go to the king without being called, but also to request something of him, which, according to Persian custom, it was impossible to grant. She would by her petition recall the edict and thereby seem to disregard the royal majesty. She would and indeed must reveal herself as a daughter of this detested Jewish people thus given over to destruction. Last of all, she must thereby place herself in open opposition to that all-powerful favorite, Haman.
Est_4:17. Mordecai went forth to fulfil the wish of Esther. The verb עָבַר has induced the Targums and older interpreters, as J. D. Michaelis, to advance the opinion that he had violated, “passed over,” namely, the law, which ordered the Paschal feast to be celebrated in a joyous manner (from Est_3:12 it might follow that we are still in the time of the Passover); but the word has the meaning of: going away, going further. It has its explanation as contrasting with what Mordecai had done before, since, so long as Esther’s answer was not satisfactory, he remained standing there.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
Est_4:1 sqq. 1. Mordecai rends his clothing, and puts on sack-cloth and ashes. He enters the city thus, and raises a great and bitter lamentation. So also the Church of God, in its development as regards the history of humanity, should again and ever anew put on the habiliments of mourning. “The world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful.” The then existing nation of Jews could not manifest its loyalty to the law without coming into conflict with heathendom. Nor can the Church bring to development its inherent spiritual powers without challenging all the Hamans and their opposition in the world. Even this present period is an instance in proof. Following upon the great progress of the things of the kingdom of God since the time of wars for freedom, we must naturally expect reactions, such as have been manifest in the sphere of science and other relations. Indeed, we must constantly look for increasing opposition on the part of the world. But when the Church shall have most fully developed the gifts of grace granted to it, then conflict and sorrow will have reached its highest point at the end of days. The real cause of sorrow on the part of the true members of God’s Church will not be, as was the case with Mordecai, their own distress, but that of the world. It will consist in the fact that the world is still devoid of the blessed society of the true God; that the kingdom of God is still rejected and even persecuted. What joy it would give, if, instead of enmity, recognition and submission, and, instead of disdain, a participation in the gifts and grace of our Lord were to become the universal experience!
2. The more difficult the position of the Church as in contrast with the World, the more favorable is her position for bringing to view her glory. Her glory is that of her Head. If even in the Old Testament times, and in the “dispersion” itself, there existed a Mordecai, who for love of the people manifested his firmness and strength in the hour of tribulation; and if there was found an Esther, who, when called upon, willingly came forward to bring about the salvation of her countrymen; how much more in New Testament times and in the modern Church will there arise individuals, who, in following the Lord, especially in evil days, will manifest a watch-care for others and a self-sacrificing spirit for them; who will show forth patience and meekness, as well as energy, fidelity and tenacity, a spirit of giving and an ability to make sacrifices; and withal will carry in their hearts joy and peace as the seal of their kinship with God. All these graces may be so many illuminating rays of the glorious life of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who more and more attains in them a full stature. May all Seize the special opportunity, recognize the particular duty, and know when to perform it, which the times of distress of the Church place in their hand, of showing forth the power that dwells in them by their life and work!
3. Mordecai took an especially great part in the universal grief that overcame the Jews when the edict of their annihilation was issued and promulgated. It was not his personal danger that alarmed him, but, as may be expected of such a faithful follower of Judaism, it was the calamity threatening the whole Jewish people. While, however, thought and feeling were centred upon the event, he was free from despair. With him it was a settled conviction that the people of God, as a whole, could not be destroyed, and that deliverance must come from some source. Instead of giving way to despondency, he turned his distress into a power that urged him to still greater endeavors. There was no more a fear of appearing as a Jew, nor did he hesitate because his loud lamentation would attract general attention, and thereby expose him to the derision and disdain of many. However reluctant he might have been to expose his beloved Esther, whose welfare had ever been a matter of great concern to him, to extreme danger, still he persisted with the greatest determination that she should run the whole risk, and only rested when she gave her assent. It is barely possible that he attributed some blame to himself because of his firmness against Haman, or thought that on that account he more than any other was under obligation to remove the threatened danger. The sole moving impulse was doubtless his love for his people. But this should not be less in any true member of the Church. It should rather, in proportion as there are more members in the body of Christ, be the stronger than it was in him. Would that no one among us were behind him as regards energy, self-denial and a willingness to make sacrifices! There are doubtless many who are able to endure all this in their own person. But—if no lighter consideration—the thought that their relatives, yea, even wife and children, may suffer on account of their confession, bows them down. Would, if necessary, that we too may stand equal to Mordecai in willingness to surrender our dearest kin!
Est_4:6 sqq. Mordecai manifests a remarkable tenacity as opposed to Esther. He keeps his position at the gate of the king until she sends him not only her maids with garments, but also Hatach to transmit his message. He departs not thence until she has resolved to stand before Ahasuerus as a Jew pleading for the Jews. Under other circumstances he might have been thought to be tiresome by his persistency and demands; but his relation to her now justified it. When he had been accustomed to inquire concerning her health and well-being, to give her counsel, to care for her, he had shown no less persistency; and his demand that now she should reveal her Jewish descent, and as such should venture all, was equally in keeping with his character. So long as no danger threatened he counseled her to keep silence respecting her Jewish parentage; but now he had himself taken the lead in an open confession of the fact. Although it had before been difficult for him to approach Esther as the queen, or request any favor at her hand, now he hesitated no longer to implore her help, not so much for himself, as for the whole people. There was no motive for him to be selfish, or to conduct himself in a heartless or severe manner towards her. Hence there was no question but that his undertaking would succeed, that Esther would be willing to comply with his request. It is eminently desirable that those who, like him, must move and induce others to make sacrifices of self and possessions in the service of the kingdom of God, should stand on a level with him in this respect.
Brenz: “At first the lazy (i. e. Jews) do not snore. For the Holy Spirit exhorts us in all adversities to confide in the Lord; He does not exhort us to be indolent, indifferent and sleepy. For our confidence in the Lord is a powerful and efficacious means of stimulating in His service all strength and limbs.… Further, the Jews, though in the greatest peril, do not utter virulent words against the king, nor do they fly to arms.… Mordecai and the other Jews rend their garments, put on sack-cloth, strew ashes upon their heads, wail, weep and fast. These manifestations signify not that the Jews in Persia were turbulent, but that they take refuge in God; since help could not be discovered upon earth, they seek it from heaven.… ‘The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.’.… By this example we too are taught that when afflictions are sent upon us, we should reflect that God then sets before us the fat oxen and calves which we may offer to Him. In this way we offer to God in our prayers the afflictions which we sustain, and call upon the name of the Lord that He may help us.… Behold, however, the reverse of this order of things. The palaces of princes are divinely instituted to be the places of refuge for the miserable. On the contrary in the palaces of Persia nothing is regarded as more odious and abominable than men with the signs of affliction.… Heaven is ever open to the cries of mourners, and God is never unapproachable to those calling on His name by faith.”
Starke: “Temporal fortunes and successes are never so great as not to be subject to sorrow, terror and fear (Sir_40:3). God permits His Church to be plunged into sorrow at times; He leads her even into hell; but He also takes her out again (1Sa_2:16). Though the Lord elevate us to high honors, we should never be ashamed of our poor relatives (Gen_47:2), but rather relieve their needs (1Sa_22:3). We should never reject proper and suitable means to escape a danger, but promptly use them (2Co_11:32-33).”
Est_4:13 sqq. Mordecai manifests a precious sense of trust, saying: “For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place.” But he who would save his soul will lose it. The risk which Mordecai called upon Esther to assume, that she should come to the king uninvited, and manifest herself as a daughter of the people thus devoted to destruction, was indeed great and important. Moreover, the hope that Xerxes would recall his edict, thus, according to Persian ideas, endangering the respect due his royal majesty, and likewise abandoning his favorite minister, was very uncertain of fulfilment. But Esther had been elevated to a high position. Mordecai, who in a doubting manner sends her word: “Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” doubtless did it from a conviction that she must now prove herself worthy of such distinction, if she would retain it. He also conveys the idea that the higher her position the greater her responsibility, and consequently, in case of failure because of carelessness or fearfulness, the more intense her guilt. In these convictions of Mordecai are contained the most earnest exhortations even for us. This is especially true since we are all called to be joint heirs of Jesus Christ to the throne of the heavenly kingdom. In the deportment of Esther a no less reminder to duty is contained. It appears quite natural that Esther should order a fast not only to be observed by Mordecai and the rest of the Jews, but she also imposed on herself this fast of three days’ duration. Had she had a little more of the common discretion of her sex, she would have feared the effects of the fast upon her appearance. Hence she would have adopted quite a different plan or preparation previous to her entrance into the king’s presence. Here also she reveals the same attractive feature of mind and manner as when she was first presented to the king. Instead of placing reliance upon what she should externally put on or adorn herself with, we find her trust placed upon something higher. She well knows that she will only succeed if the great and exalted Lord be for her, who, notwithstanding His glorious majesty, yet dwells among the most lowly of men. It is in just such times as these, when we are raised to the greatest endeavors and self-sacrifices, that we must not expect to accomplish these things by our own power, but only through Him who in our weakness is our strength. Otherwise, despite our best intentions and most successful beginnings, we shall soon grow discouraged and fail. Our own weakness is but too often made manifest to our eyes. It is only when we consider and remember that the hand of the Lord is in it all that we will be saved from a lack of courage.
Brenz: “As it is the most pleasing worship to God to support the Church with all our strength, so He execrates no one more than him who withholds from the Church when in danger that help which he is able to render.… If the cry of a single poor man is so availing that although unheard by man, it finds an avenging ear in God, what must be the influence of the cry of the whole Church in her affliction imploring assistance from Him who it hopes is able to help?… This teaches us that God confers power upon princes, riches upon the rich, wisdom upon the wise, and other gifts upon others, not that they may abuse them for their own pleasure, but that they may assist the Church of God, and protect it in whatever way they can. For the Church on earth is so great in the eyes of God, that He requires of all men whatever may serve her. ‘The people,’ He says, ‘and the king that will not serve thee shall perish, and the nations shall dwell in a solitary place.’ ”
Starke: “Our flesh is always timid when it has to encounter a hazard (Exo_4:13). My Christ in His divine majesty stands at the entrance into the faith, and sounds the free invitation to each and all, ‘ever frequent, ever dear, ever happy’ (Sir_25:20-21). One should succor his neighbor in peril and need (Pro_24:11; Psa_82:3), and especially the brethren in the faith (Gal_6:10), even at the peril of one’s own life (1Jn_3:16). We are born for good not to ourselves, but to others, and thus God oftentimes shows us that through us He aids our own, our country and the community (Gen_45:5). Faith is the victory that overcomes the world (1Jn_5:8). We may use ordinary prayer for important blessings (Jam_5:14; Gen_24:7; Gen_43:14). Life can never be spent better than when it is the aim to lose it (Mat_16:25; Act_20:24; Act_21:13).”
Footnotes:
[1][Est_4:1. זעק, a later or Aramæan form for זעק, seems to be intensive of קרא, including the simple call for help, שׁוע, and the shriek from pain or danger, אנק, and denotes an earnest and vociferous demonstration.—Tr.]
[2][Est_4:3. See Note 7 in preceding section.—Tr.]
[3][Est_4:11. The pronoun, being expressed in the original, is emphatic.—Tr.]
[4][“To rend one’s clothes in grief was as much a Persian as a Jewish practice (see Herod. viii. 99; Æschylus, Pers. 540–1, 1039, etc.).” Rawlinson.—Tr.]
[5][“According to Herodotus (iii. 69), the wives of a Persian king, whether primary or secondary, shared his bed in rotation. As their number sometimes exceeded three hundred, the turn of a particular wife might not come for nearly a year.” Rawlinson.—Tr.]
[6][As to the golden sceptre Rawlinson observes. “A modern critic asks: ‘Is it likely that a Persian king would always have a golden sceptre by him to stretch out towards intruders on his privacy? It seems enough to reply that in all the numerous representations of Persian kings at Persepolis, there is not one in which the monarch does not hold a long tapering staff (which is probably the ‘sceptre’ of Esther) in his right hand.”—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 8, 11, 13, 16 Then was the queen . . . grieved; and…
Then was the queen . . . grieved; and . . . sent raiment to . . . Mordecai--Her object in doing so was either to qualify him for resuming his former office, or else, perhaps, of fitting him to come near enough to the palace to inform her of the cause of such sudden and extreme distress.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16 1. Mordecai rent his clothes — The customary sign…
1. Mordecai rent his clothes — The customary sign of bitter grief. See 2Sa_1:11, note. A like sign was also the putting on of sackcloth sad sitting in ashes, (Job_2:8; Jon_3:6,) or sprinkling ashes upon the head. Mordecai also, in expression of his most intense agony, cried with a loud and a bitter cry. Compare Gen_27:34. Similar exhibitions of grief were customary with the Persians. When tidings of Xerxes’ defeat at Salamis reached Shushan all the people “rent their garments and uttered unbounded shouts and lamentations.” — Herod., 8:99.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17 1. rent his clothes] So e.g. Reuben, when his…
1. rent his clothes] So e.g. Reuben, when his brother Joseph was sold to the Midianites (Gen_37:29), and Jacob, when he thought that his son had perished (Gen_37:34). Cp. 2Ki_18:37; Mat_26:65.
put on sackcloth with ashes] the two things together constituting an expression of the deepest grief. So Daniel (Dan_9:3) and the king of Nineveh (Jon_3:6).
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went out into the midst of the city] Utterances and other signs of mourning not being permitted within the royal precincts, he went where it was possible to exhibit his grief more unrestrainedly.
Chap. Est_4:1-3. Dismay of Mordecai and the Jews
Mordecai not only shares with the other dwellers in Susa the knowledge of the impending calamity, but also has obtained (Est_4:7) information as to the nature of the transactions between the king and Haman. He exhibits the usual Oriental tokens of grief and horror.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 10, 11, 14 (1) Mordecai rent his clothes.—This was a common sign…
IV.
(1) Mordecai rent his clothes.—This was a common sign of sorrow among Eastern nations generally. It will be noticed that the sorrow both of Mordecai and of the Jews generally (Est_4:3) is described by external manifestations solely. There is rending of garments, putting on of sackcloth and ashes, fasting and weeping and wailing: there is nothing said of prayer and entreaty to the God of Israel, and strong crying to Him who is able to save. Daniel and Ezra and Nehemiah are all Jews, who, like Mordecai and Esther, have to submit to the rule of the alien, though, unlike them, they, when the danger threatened, besought, and not in vain, the help of their God. (See Dan_6:10; Ezr_8:23; Neh_1:4, &c.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 MOURNING OF MORDECAI, AND OF THE JEWS GENERALLY, ON…
MOURNING OF MORDECAI, AND OF THE JEWS GENERALLY, ON HEARING OF THE DECREE. (Es 4 1-3) Haman had no doubt kept his intentions secret until the king"s consent to them was not only granted, but placed beyond his power to recall The Jews first heard of the terrible blow impending over them by the publication of the edict. Then they became acquainted with it quickly enough. The edict was for a while the talk of the town. Placarded openly in some conspicuous and frequented place, every loiterer read it, every gossip spoke of it, every one whom it threatened could with his own eyes see its exact terms. Mordecai soon "perceived all that was done" (ver. 1) perused the edict, understood whence it had originated, was fully aware that he himself and his whole nation stood in the most awful peril. His first impulse was to rend his garments and put on sackcloth and ashes; after which he quitted the environs of the palace, and "went out into the midst of the city," where he gave free vent to his grief and alarm, "crying with a loud and bitter cry." The signs of mourning were not permitted within the walls of the royal residence, and Mordecai could come no nearer than the space before the gate, where he probably sat down in the dust "astonied". (see Ezr_9:4) Nor was he long alone in his sorrow. In every province and therefore at Susa, no less than elsewhere was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing" (ver. 3). The proscribed race made bitter lamentation in sackcloth and ashes," humbled itself before God, and waited. As yet no thought of escape seems to have occurred to any, no resolution to have been taken. Even Mordecai"s thoughtful brain was paralysed, and, like the rest, he gave himself up to grief.
Mordecai rent his clothes. Compare Ezr_9:3, 5 with the comment. The meaning of the act was well understood by the Persians. Put on sackcloth with ashes. So Daniel, (Dan_9:3) and the king of Nineveh. (Jon_3:6) Either act by itself was a sign of deep grief; both combined betokened the deepest grief possible. And went out into the midst of the city. The palace was not to be saddened by private griefs (see the next verse). Mordecai, therefore, having assumed the outward signs of extreme sorrow, quitted the palace, and entered the streets of the town. There, overcome by his feelings, he vented them, as Asiatics are wont to do, in loud and piercing cries. (comp. Neh_5:1)
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Vers. 1-3.
The cry of a doomed people.
The decree against the Jews was not yet known in the palace; Esther herself was not yet informed of it. And the signs of sorrow and mourning were prohibited within the royal precincts; nothing of ill omen was suffered to come before the king and his household. But in the city evil tidings (which ever travel fast) soon came abroad.
1. THE FIRST NOTE OF LAMENTATION WAS UTTERED BY MORDECAI The rending of clothes in grief was practised by the Persians as well as by the Jews. The Ninevites in their penitence sat in sackcloth and ashes. It was and is the custom of Orientals to weep aloud in times of mourning. All these expressions of sorrow and lamentation were in the circumstances natural and proper. It was the woe of a patriot. Mordecai was not thinking so much of himself as of his people; he made their sorrows and alarms his own. It was the sorrow of a godly man. He did not simply mourn; he evidently humbled himself before God, and implored Divine pity and help.
II THE CRY WAS COMMUNICATED TO AND TAKEN UP BY THE JEWS THROUGHOUT THE EMPIRE. The news of a great victory flies and flashes through a land, awakens the universal joy, and the land is filled with gladness and song.. And the tidings of the impending calamity spread far and wide through the provinces of Persia, and created consternation in thousands of hearts. They mourned as they thought of the land of their fathers, and of all the privileges enjoyed in that sacred and fertile territory their proper home and inheritance. For now they were not only doomedto exile; they were marked for destruction. They fasted, doubtless, as a religious exercise, accompanying their fasting with repentance and with prayers. They wept and wailed, knowing that though their cry could not pierce the walls of the palace at Shushan, it would penetrate the gates of heaven, and reach the ear of the King of kings. They lay in sackcloth and ashes, as permitting themselves no comfort or ease in prospect of their own and their brethren"s ruin. Thus they prepared a way for the tender mercy of God to visit them from on high.
Practical lesson: Sinners against whom a sentence of Divine wrath might rightfully be issued should lose no time in humbling themselves before the Lord, and confessing their sins with contrition and repentance, that they may partake in the mercy of heaven, and, through the redemption of Christ Jesus, be saved from the wrath to come.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-3.
Distress.
We have a very vivid picture, in these few touches, of a nation"s exceeding sorrow. We are reminded of
I THE HEARTLESSNESS AND IMPOTENCE OF TYRANNY IN REGARD TO IT. The king could cheerfully speak the word which caused the calamity, and then, when its sorrow surged up to his palace wall, shut his doors against the entrance of any sign of it; "for none might enter into the king"s gate clothed with sackcloth" (ver. 2). The tyrant first becomes responsible for grievous and widespread woe, and then takes measures to prevent its utterance from disturbing his royal pleasure or repose. Such is selfishness in unchecked power. But though heartless, it will discover the limits of its sway; the hour will come when it will find itself impotent as a leaf in the flood; when the loud and bitter cry of a people"s wrongs and sufferings will pass the sovereign"s guards and penetrate his gates, will find entrance to his chamber and smite his soul.
II ITS CRAVING FOR EXPRESSION. "Mordecai rent his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes,.., and cried with a loud and bitter cry" (ver. 1). "And in every province.., there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes" (ver. 3). All strong feeling craves utterance; joy in song, grief in tears. In this case intensity of national distress found expression in the most speaking and striking forms to which Eastern misery and despair were accustomed to resort in "sackcloth and ashes;" a "loud and bitter cry;" "fasting, and weeping, and wailing" To command ourselves when we suffer pain or stand in grave peril is manly and virtuous. Yet it is but shallow wisdom to say that crying will not make it better. There is real and valuable relief in the act of utterance. In saddest griefs the worst sign of all is a dead silence, the undimmed eye.
Home they brought her warrior dead;
She nor swooned nor uttered cry.
All her maidens, watching, said,
She must weep, or she will die.
Even the "loud and bitter cry" is not without its worth to the heart that utters it. (Esau Gen_27:34) Sorrow may utter itself in many ways; the best of all is in prayer in hallowed, soothing, reassuring communion with our heavenly Father, telling all our tale of grief in the ear of our Divine Friend. Next best is human sympathy the unburdening of our souls to our most tried and sympathising friend. We may well be thankful that he has so "fashioned our hearts alike" that we can reckon on true and intense sympathy in the time of our distress. A third channel is in sacred poetry. How many of the bereaved have had to bless God for the hymns and poems in which their own grief has found utterance, through which it has found most valuable relief.
III ITS PITEOUSNESS.
1. We are moved by it. Our hearts are stirred to their depth by the recital ofthe woes which are endured by great numbers of men and women, when fire, or flood, or famine, or the sword of man comes down upon them in irresistible calamity.
2. Are not the angels of God moved by it, and do not these "ministering spirits" with unseen hands minister then to the children of need and sorrow?
3. God himself, we know, is moved by it. I have surely seen the affliction of my people". (Exo_3:7) He "heard their groaning". (Exo_2:24) If the woe of the world is not doubled, it is largely swollen by the sorrowful sympathy it excites. But it is well it should be so, for such sympathy is good for those who feel it, and it is the spring of remedy and removal.
IV THE DISTRESS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. Looking on the afflicted Israelites at this crisis of their history, we may regard them as a type of the Church of God in its distress. Thus regarding the subject, we remark
1. That God allows his Church to pass through very strange and trying scenes. It is wholly inexplicable to us, but it is a certain fact that he has done so, and it is probable that he will do so again. There have been, and
2. will be, crises in its history. Persecution will assail it. Infidelity will seek to undermine it. Worldliness will endeavour to corrupt it. It may go hard with it, and its very life be threatened.
1. That in its distress and danger it must seek Divine deliverance. God only can, and he will rescue and restore. At the eleventh hour, perhaps, but then, if not earlier, he will interpose and save. But his aid must be
1. earnestly,
2. continuously,
3. believingly sought by his faithful children. C.
HOMILIES BY W. DINWIDDLE Vers. 1-3.
An unyielding grief.
I THE SUFFERING CAUSED BY ONE EVIL ACT CANNOT BE ESTIMATED. It was easy for Haman to draw up the instrument of destruction, and for the king to let him affix his signet to it, and then for both to sit down to drink; but very soon through that easily-performed act thousands of families were plunged into an agony of terror and grief. One sin committed lightly may extend widely, and descend to many generations in its disastrous effects. There is no calculating the issues-of evil. The chief enemy to the happiness of men is man, through the evil that is in him. "Man"s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.
II A RELIGIOUS VIRTUE MAY BE BROUGHT TO SPECIAL SUFFERING BY GIVING OCCASION TO THE MALEVOLENT WRATH OF AN EVIL MIND. We can understand how Mordecai, when he learned the diabolic scheme of revenge which Haman had set on foot, should have been almost unmanned by his horror and grief. Was not the decreed slaughter of all his countrymen the result of his own conduct towards Haman? This thought would bite into his soul. Israel might have been in safety and peace but for him. Of all the griefs awakened by the king"s proclamation, Mordecai"s would be the greatest. See here
1. How grief varies in its outward manifestations. To us Mordecai"s behaviour may seem wild and unreasonable. But in the East such signs of mourning were the rule, and even amongst Western peoples wailings in times of bereavement are not uncommon. Real sorrow is glad to embrace any outlet that may ease its inward burden. Differences of temperament also, as well as of custom, have much to do with differing expressions of grief.
2. How deep grief kills every sense of danger. Mordecai raised his "loudand bitter cry in the midst of the city," and at length seemed about to enter the king"s palace, when he was reminded that sackcloth was not allowed to show itself there. Such conduct was very bold; the king and his favourite were set at nought by it. But it must be attributed to the fearlessness of a profound grief which could not but tell itself forth in spite of consequences.
3. How vain the attempt is to enclose any spot or circle of human life fromthe inroads of suffering. Esther"s elevation to the throne did not make the happiness secure which it brought to herself and Mordecai. Neither did the foolish law that prohibited sackcloth or any sign of mourning from entering the king"s gate prevent the intrusion of sorrow into that guarded sanctuary of ease and lust. Many hope to avoid grief by avoiding its signs and scenes, and by surrounding themselves with all that is pleasant and joyous. But the hope is vain. Whatever may be their success or failure, there is one visitor which cannot be warded off. Into every palace and cottage alike death perforce enters, and brings its own solemn gloom. Every human life, however resplendent in worldly attributes, must in the end succumb to that assailant. Happy the soul that possesses the life eternal, God"s gift to men in his Son, which swallows up death in victory. (1Co_15:54-57)
III GODLY PRINCIPLE SHOWS ITS STRENGTH BY REMAINING FIRM IN PRESENCE OF ANY SUFFERING WHICH IT MAY BRING ON ITSELF OR ON OTHERS. Amidst all his grief and fear Mordecai never entertained the idea of withdrawing from the stand which he had made against Haman. We find him some time afterwards still maintaining his erect and defiant attitude, and thereby increasing the malignity of the favourite. His example is a noble one, but it is not singular. Our Lord himself forewarned his disciples of the sufferings they would have to endure for his name"s sake, (Joh_16:1-4) yet he calmly pursued his course, and laid on his followers all the burden of his cross. Nor were his apostles unlike him. Taking up his cross, they freely laid it on others. They were never weakened in their labours by fear of the persecutions, cruelties, losses, and deaths which resulted from the reception of their gospel. If we do our duty to God we may safely leave results in his hand. Mordecai"s firmness in obeying religious principle at all costs ultimately taught him and others this great lesson. D.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15 When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent…
Est_4:1
When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes.
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Mordecais grief
In the case of Mordecai, the first effect of the proclamation was bitter anguish, for his conduct had been the flint out of which the spark leaped to kindle this portentous conflagration. But Mordecais grief did not upset his judgment. The genuine sorrow of an honest soul very seldom has that effect; and this mans greatness comes out in his deliberateness. Faith, too, as well as sound judgment, may be discerned under this good mans grief. (A. M. Symington, B. A.)
Mordecai in sackcloth
I. Mordecai was exceedingly affected at what the king had commanded (Est_4:1). See the stirring benevolence of this man, the sweet philanthropy which dwelt in his soul, and how deeply he felt the common calamity, which resulted from his own conscientious doings. There is nothing new in the Lords people meeting with adversities and troubles in this life. Let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
II. In the depth of his grief, Mordecai came even before the kings gate, clothed with sack cloth for none might enter into the kings gate clothed with sackcloth (Est_4:2). Amusements or diversions are one class of spiritual idols to which many of the sons of men render homage. The wise man informs us that a scene of unbroken enjoyment is not the best for the interest of the soul. It is better to go to the house of mourning, etc. for that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to heart. Do as the saints of old did; we never hear them saying, I will rejoice in the world; but I will rejoice in the Lord, I will rejoice in Thy salvation. In the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice. My soul shall be joyful in my God: for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.
III. Mordecai, though he could not enter within the kings gate with his signals of distress, went as near it as he dared to go, with the view of acquainting Esther, by means of her attendants, with the impending danger. As soon as she heard of his mournful habit, she sympathised with him, and sent him raiment instead of his sackcloth, that he might resume his place. We cannot but admire two things which the grace of God had wrought in this woman--her condescension and gratitude. She was now a queen. Providence had placed her on the summit of worldly greatness, yet did she not disregard one of her subjects in distress. She kindly inquired into the cause of his sorrow. Her gratitude also was lovely. Mordecai had acted the part of a tender father towards her, when she was cast a parentless child on the wide world. She does not now forget that tenderness.
IV. Mordecai sent back to Esther tidings of the situation in which he, and she, and their people were placed (verses 7, 8). Esther was now in a station, high and influential, and she is here charged to use her influence on the side of right and justice, and against oppression and tyranny. It is delightful to behold power thus employed! Power is a mighty weapon, and effects great things either to the injury or benefit of the community.
V. Esther sent again to Mordecai, to tell him that she had not for a considerable period been invited to the royal presence, and that to go uninvited was certain death.
VI. Notwithstanding what Esther said, Mordecai would by no means have her neglect the work which he had assigned her (verses 13, 14). We learn a few particulars from these words.
1. That Mordecai had a strong belief that God would interfere for His people in this case.
2. That we are not to flinch from our duty by reason of the danger which we incur by its performance. It is easy to walk in the way while it is smooth and easy, but it must be walked in also when it is rough and thorny.
3. That the work of the Lord shall prosper, whether we endeavour to promote it or otherwise. Deliverance shall arise to the Jews from another place: but thou, etc. God is never at a loss for instruments to accomplish His will. If we neglect the honour, He will make others willing to spend and to be spent in His service.
VII. We come now to Esthers answer (verses 15, 16). Fasting and prayer were resorted to on this occasion. Spiritually performed, they never fail of success. United prayer, as in these cases, and in that of Peter, who was about to be killed by Herod, is omnipotent. Like Esther, let us work and pray. These duties must ever be associated. To work without praying is Pharisaism and presumption. To pray without working is insincerity and hypocrisy. Like Mordecai, let us counsel others to do their duty, heedless of all temporal consequences, and pray that they may have power from on high for its due accomplishment. (J. Hughes.)
Anguish keenly felt
At first it would appear that he was so stunned, and almost stupefied, by the news, that he knew not what to do. He was cast into the uttermost distress. He was like a vessel struck by a cyclone. He would get to the use of efforts to meet the crisis by and by; but, for the moment, when the hurricane first burst upon him, he could do nothing but give way to the violence of the storm. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Great sorrow
I. Sorrow cannot be prevented. Sibbes says, None ever hath been so good or so great as could raise themselves so high as to be above the reach of troubles. Thomas Watson observes, The present state of life is subject to afflictions, as a seamans life is subject to storms. Man is born to trouble; he is heir-apparent to it; he comes into the world with a cry and goes out with a groan.
II. Sorrow cannot be explained. In its general aspect sin is the cause of sorrow. When we come to particularise we find ourselves at fault. Eternity is the only true and complete interpreter of time. Heavenly joys only can make plain the meaning of earthly sorrows.
III. Sorrow cannot be hidden. Emotion is as much part of our God-given nature as intellect. The man who does not feel is a man with the better part of manhood destroyed. Feeling must sooner or later find an expression. It is better not to hide our sorrows. Trouble concealed is trouble increased.
IV. Sorrow cannot be confined. It passes from nature to nature; from home to home. This community of feeling, this susceptibility to sorrow, speaks to us of our brotherhood. We are members one of another.
V. But sorrow can be mitigated.
1. By believing that the threatened trouble may never come.
2. By believing that God knows how to effect a deliverance.
3. By believing that sorrow may be made productive.
As the waters of the Nile overflow the surrounding country, and open up the soil, end prepare it for the reception of the rice seed, so the waters of sorrow should overflow and open up the otherwise barren soil of our nature, and prepare it for the reception of the seed of all truth in its manifold bearings. Tribulation worketh patience, etc. (W. Burrows, B. A.)
Mordecais grief
There is perhaps but little doubt that Mordecai passed hours--they come to nearly all--when gloom lay heavy upon the soul, when the shock he had felt seemed to render existence a blank, leaving little of hope before him save that which glittered around the gateway of death and seemed to whisper, Abandon effort; accept the inevitable--seasons when the fruitlessness of labour, the unreasonableness of man, the malignancy of human enmity, the worthlessness of human sacrifice, the emptiness of the most ardent aspirations, and the ineffciency of goodness, leave the soul drifting upon the open sea of despondency with a torturing sense of loneliness--moments when faith in man, even faith in the Church, is shaken, inducing the spirit to cast itself upon the Fatherhood of God, as the storm drives the wearied bird to its home in the rocks. But since faith still lives, and can only live, in the performance of present duty--which alone has the power of maintaining piety in the soul--he soon discovers that continued reliance upon God is urging him to labour for the realisation of the results he covets. (J. S. Van Dyke, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Est_4:1-5; Est_7:1-4; Est_9:12-13
QUEEN ESTHER
Est_4:1-5; Est_7:1-4; Est_9:12-13
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THE young Jewess who wins the admiration of the Persian king above all the chosen maidens of his realm, and who then delivers her people in the crisis of supreme danger at the risk of her own life, is the central figure in the story of the origin of Purim. It was a just perception of the situation that led to the choice of her name as the title of the book that records her famous achievements, Esther first appears as an obscure orphan who has been brought up in the humble home of her cousin Mordecai. After her guardian has secured her admission to the royal harem-a doubtful honour we might think, but a very real honour in the eyes of an ancient Oriental-she receives a years training with the use of the fragrant unguents that are esteemed so highly in a voluptuous Eastern court. We should not expect to see anything better than the charms of physical beauty after such a process of development, charms not of the highest type-languid, luscious, sensuous. The new name bestowed on this finished product of the chief art cultivated in the palace of Ahasuerus points to nothing higher, for "Esther" (Istar) is the name of a Babylonian goddess equivalent to the Greek "Aphrodite." And yet our Esther is a heroine-capable, energetic, brave, and patriotic. The splendour of her career is seen in this very fact, that she does not succumb to the luxury of her surroundings. The royal harem among the lily-beds of Shushan is like a palace in the land of the lotus-eaters, "where it is always afternoon," and its inmates, in their dreamy indolence, are tempted to forget all obligations and interests beyond the obligation to please the king and their own interest in securing every comfort wealth can lavish on them. We do not look for a Boadicea in such a hot-house of narcotics. And when we find there a strong, unselfish woman such as Esther, conquering almost insuperable temptations to a life of ease, and choosing a course of terrible danger to herself for the sake of her oppressed people, we can echo the admiration of the Jews for their national heroine.
It is a woman, then, who plays the leading part in this drama of Jewish history. From Eve to Mary, women have repeatedly appeared in the most prominent places on the pages of Scripture.
The history of Israel finds some of its most powerful situations in the exploits of Deborah, Jael, and Judith. On the side of evil, Delilah, Athaliah, and Jezebel are not less conspicuous. There was a freedom enjoyed by the women of Israel that was not allowed in the more elaborate civilisation of the great empires of the East, and this developed an independent spirit and a vigour not usually seen in Oriental women. In the case of Esther these good qualities were able to survive the external restraints and the internal relaxing atmosphere of her court life. The scene of her story is laid in the harem. The plots and intrigues of the harem furnish its principal incidents. Yet if Esther had been a shepherdess from the mountains of Judah, she could not have proved herself more energetic. But her court life had taught her skill in diplomacy, for she had to pick her way among the greatest dangers like a person walking among concealed knives.
The beauty of Esthers character is this, that she is not spoiled by her great elevation. To be the one favourite out of all the select maidens of the kingdom, and to know that she owes her privileged position solely to the kings fancy for her personal charms, might have spoilt the grace of a simple Jewess. Haman, we saw, was ruined by his honours becoming too great for his self control. But in Esther we do not light on a trace of the silly vanity that became the most marked characteristic of the grand vizier. It speaks well for Mordecais sound training of the orphan girl that his ward proved to be of stable character where a weaker person would have been dizzy with selfish elation.
The unchanged simplicity of Esthers character is first apparent in her submissive obedience to her guardian even after her high position has been attained. Though she is treated as his Queen by the Great King, she does not forget the kind porter who has brought her up from childhood. In the old days she had been accustomed to obey this grave Jew, and she has no idea of throwing off the yoke now that he has no longer any recognised power over her. The habit of obedience persists in her after the necessity for it has been removed. This would no have been so remarkable if Esther had been weak-minded woman, readily subdued and kept in subjection by a masterful will. But her energy and courage at a momentous crisis entirely forbid any such estimate of her character. It must have been genuine humility and unselfishness that prevented her from rebelling against the old home authority when a heavy injunction was laid upon her. She undertakes the dangerous part of the champion of a threatened race solely at the instance of Mordecai. He urges the duty upon her, and she accepts it meekly. She is no rough Amazon. With all her greatness and power, she is still a simple, unassuming woman.
But when Esther has assented to the demands of Mordecai, she appears in her peoples cause with the spirit of true patriotism. She scorns to forget her humble origin in all the splendour of her later advancement. She will own her despised and hated people before the king, she will plead the cause of the oppressed, though at the risk of her life. She is aware of the danger of her undertaking, but she says, "If I perish. I perish." The habit of obedience could not have been strong enough to carry her through the terrible ordeal if Mordecais hard requirement had not been seconded by the voice of her own conscience. She knows that it is right that she should undertake this difficult and dangerous work. How naturally might she have shrunk back with regret for the seclusion and obscurity of the old days when her safety lay in her insignificance? But she saw that her new privileges involved new responsibilities. A royal harem is the last place in which we should look for the recognition of this truth. Esther is to be honoured because even in that palace of idle luxury she could acknowledge the stern obligation that so many in her position would never have glanced at. It is always difficult to perceive and act on the responsibility that certainly accompanies favour and power. This difficulty is one reason why "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." For while unusual prosperity brings unusual responsibility, simply because it affords unusual opportunities for doing good, it tends to cultivate pride and selfishness, and the miserable worldly spirit that is fatal to all high endeavour and all real sacrifice. Our Lords great principle, "Unto whom much is given, of him shall much be required," is clear as a mathematical axiom when we look at it in the abstract, but nothing is harder than for people to apply it to their own cases. If it were freely admitted, the ambition that grasps at the first places would be shamed into silence. If it were generally acted on, the wide social cleft between the fortunate and the miserable would be speedily bridged over. The total ignoring, of this tremendous principle by the great majority of those who enjoy the privileged positions in society is undoubtedly one of the chief causes of the ominous unrest that is growing more and more disturbing in the less favoured ranks of life. If this supercilious contempt for an imperative duty continues, what can be the end but an awful retribution? Was it not the wilful blindness of the dancers in the Tuileries to the misery of the serfs on the fields that caused revolutionary France to run red with blood?
Esther was wise in taking the suggestion of her cousin that she had been raised up for the very purpose of saving her people. Here was a faith, reserved and reticent, but real and powerful. It was no idle chance that had tossed her on the crest of the wave while so many of her sisters were weltering in the dark floods beneath. A clear, high purpose was leading her on to a strange and mighty destiny, and now the destiny was appearing, sublime and terrible, like some awful mountain peak that must be climbed unless the soul that has come thus far will turn traitor and fall back into failure and ignominy. When Esther saw this, she acted on it with the promptitude of the founder of her nation, who esteemed "the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt," but with this difference, that, while Moses renounced his high rank in Pharaohs court in order to identify himself with his people, the Queen of Ahasuerus retained her perilous position and turned it to good account in her saving mission. Thus there are two ways in which an exalted person may serve others. He may come down from his high estate like Moses, like Christ who was rich and for our sakes became poor, or he may take advantage of his privileged position to use it for the good of his brethren, regarding it as a trust to be held for those whom he can benefit, like Joseph, who was able in this way to save his father and his brothers from famine, and like Esther in the present case. Circumstances will guide the willing to a decision as to which of these courses should be chosen.
We must not turn from this subject without remembering that Mordecai plied Esther with other considerations besides the thought of her mysterious destiny. He warned her that she should not escape if she disowned her people. He expressed his confidence that if she shrank from her high mission deliverance would "come from another place," to her eternal shame. Duty is difficult, and there is often a call for the comparatively lower, because more selfish, considerations that urge to it. The reluctant horse requires the spur. And yet the noble courage of Esther could not have come chiefly from fear or any other selfish motive. It must have been a sense of her high duty and wonderful destiny that inspired her. There is no inspiration like that of the belief that we are called to a great mission. This is the secret of the fanatical heroism of the Madhist dervishes. In a more holy warfare it makes heroes of the weakest.
Having once accepted her dreadful task, Esther proceeded to carry it out with courage. It was a daring act for her to enter the presence of the king unsummoned. Who could tell but that the fickle monarch might take offence at the presumption of his new favourite, as he had done in the case of her predecessor? Her lonely position might have made the strongest of women quail as she stepped forth from her seclusion and ventured to approach her lord. Her motive might be shamefully misconstrued by the low-minded monarch. Would the king hold out the golden sceptre to her? The chances of life and death hung on the answer to that question. Nehemiah, though a courageous man and a favourite of his royal master, was filled with apprehension at the prospect of a far less dangerous interview with a much more reasonable ruler than the half-mad Xerxes. These Oriental autocrats were shrouded in the terror of divinities. Their absolute power left the lives of all who approached them at the mercy of their caprice. Ahasuerus had just sanctioned a senseless, bloodthirsty decree. Very possibly he had murdered Vashti, and that on the offence of a moment. Esther was in favour, but she belonged to the doomed people, and she was committing an illegal action deliberately in the face of the king. She was Fatima risking the wrath of Bluebeard. We know how Nehemiah would have acted at this trying moment. He would have strengthened his heart with one of those sudden ejaculations of prayer that were always ready to spring to his lips on any emergency. It is not in accordance with the secular tone of the story of Esthers great undertaking that any hint of such an action on her part should have been given. Therefore we cannot say that she was a woman of no religion, that she was prayerless, that she launched on this great enterprise entirely relying on her own strength. We must distinguish between reserve and coldness in regard to religion. The fire burns while the heart muses. even though the lips are still. At all events, if it is the intention of the writer to teach that Esther was mysteriously raised up for the purpose of saving her people, it is a natural inference to conclude that she was supported in the execution of it by unseen and silent aid. Her name does not appear in the honour roll of Hebrews 11. We cannot assert that she acted in the strength of faith. And yet there is more evidence of faith, even though it is not professed, in conduct that is true and loyal, brave and unselfish, than we can find in the loudest profession of a creed without the confirmation of corresponding conduct. "I will show my faith by my works," says St. James, and he may show it without once naming it.
It is to be noted, further, that Esther was a woman of resources. She did not trust to her courage alone to secure her end. It was not enough that she owned her people, and was willing to plead their cause. She had the definite purpose of saving them to effect. She was not content to be a martyr to patriotism; a sensible, practical woman, she did her utmost to be successful in effecting the deliverance of the threatened Jews. With this end in view, it was necessary for her to proceed warily. Her first step was gained when she had secured an audience with the king. We may surmise that her beautiful countenance was lit up with a new, rare radiance when all self-seeking was banished from her mind and an intense, noble aim fired her soul, and thus, it may be, her very loftiness of purpose helped to secure its success. Beauty is a gift, a talent, to be used for good, like any other Divine endowment; the highest beauty is the splendour of soul that sometimes irradiates the most commonplace countenance, so that, like Stephens, it shines as the face of an angel. Instead of degrading her beauty with foolish vanity, Esther consecrated it to a noble service, and thereby it was glorified. This one talent was not lodged with her useless.
The first point was gained in securing the favour of Ahasuerus. But all was not yet won. It would have been most unwise for Esther to have burst out with her daring plea for the condemned people in the moment of the kings surprised welcome. But she was patient and skilful in managing her delicate business. She knew the kings weakness for good living, and she played upon it for her great purpose. Even when she had got him to a first banquet, she did not venture to bring out her request. Perhaps her courage failed her at the last moment. Perhaps, like a keen, observant woman, she perceived that she had not yet wheedled the king round to the condition in which it would be safe to approach the dangerous topic. So she postponed her attempt to another day and a second banquet. Then she seized her opportunity. With great tact, she began by pleading for her own life. Her piteous entreaty amazed the dense-minded monarch. At the same time the anger of his pride was roused. Who would dare to touch his favourite queen? It was a well-chosen moment to bring such a notion into the mind of a king who was changeable as a child. We may be sure that Esther had been doing her very best to please him throughout the two banquets. Then she had Haman on the spot. He, too, prime minister of Persia as he was, had to find that for once in his life he had been outwitted by a woman. Esther meant to strike while the iron was hot. So the arch-enemy of her people was there, that the king might carry out the orders to which she was skilfully leading him on without the delay which would give the party of Haman an opportunity to turn him the other way. Haman saw it all in a moment. He confessed that the queen was mistress of the situation by appealing to her for mercy, in the frenzy of his terror even so far forgetting his place as to fling himself on her couch. That only aggravated the rage of the jealous king. Hamans fate was sealed on the spot., Esther was completely triumphant.
After this it is painful to see how the woman who had saved her people at the risk of her own life pushed her advantage to the extremity of a bloodthirsty vengeance. It is all very well to say that, as the laws of the Medes and Persians could not be altered, there was no alternative but a defensive slaughter. We may try to shelter Esther under the customs of the times; we may call to mind the fact that she was acting on the advice of Mordecai, whom she had been taught to obey from childhood, so that his was by far the greater weight of responsibility. Still, as we gaze on the portrait of the strong, brave, unselfish Jewess, we must confess that beneath all the beauty and nobility of its expression certain hard lines betray the fact that Esther is not a Madonna, that the heroine of the Jews does not reach the Christian ideal of womanhood.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 6, 10, 13, 15, 17 Est_4:1. Perceived all that was done] Evident that Mordecai…
CRITICAL NOTES.]
Est_4:1. Perceived all that was done] Evident that Mordecai knew not only the terms of the public proclamation, but the particulars of the private arrangement between Haman and the king. For in Est_4:7 it is said, “And Mordecai told him of all that had happened unto him, and of the sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king’s treasuries for the Jews, to destroy them.” Put on sackcloth with ashes] An abbreviated combination, meaning that he put on a hairy garment and spread ashes upon his head in sign of deep grief. To rend one’s clothes in grief was as much a Persian as a Jewish practice. When tidings of Xerxes’ defeat at Salamis reached Shushan, all the people “rent their garments and uttered unbounded shouts and lamentations.”—Herod. viii. 99. זעק an intensified form of expression, similar to the Latin conquestus, violent complaint, earnest and vociferous demonstration.
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Est_4:2.] The king’s gate was the free place before the entrance to the royal palace. Further he could not go, for it was not permitted to bear the semblance of an evil omen before the king.
Est_4:3.] The sorrow was general. All the Jews broke out into mourning, weeping, and lamentation, while many manifested their grief in the manner described.
Est_4:4-5.] The matter was made known to Esther by her maids and eunuchs; and she fell into convulsive grief. The verb here used is a passive intensive—to be affected with grief as one seized with the pains of delivery. She sent clothes to her guardian, that he might put them on, doubtless, that thereby he might again stand in the gate of the king, and so relate to her the cause of his grief. But he refused them, not only because he would wear no other than garments of mourning, but because he desired a private opportunity to communicate with her. Mordecai accomplished his object, and Hatach the eunuch was sent to him to obtain particulars.—Lange. What it was, and why it was] lit what this, and why this? She had not been informed of this terrible decree.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. Est_4:1-4
GREAT SORROW
A TRAGIC interest attaches to the man who is the subject of great sorrow. We are drawn towards him by the power of sympathy. He is lifted out of the common herd, and his individuality becomes at once more apparent and more prominent. Job is one of those characters that stand out most conspicuously in ancient story. His name is the most frequently mentioned, and the most widely known. Job is a very byword, and is as familiar in our mouths as household words, yea, it is a household word itself. And why is this? It is, we presume, not merely on account of his great patience under suffering, but on account of those varied and dark sorrows through which he passed. The patriarch Jacob is to us more luminous, more human, more fragrant, and more attractive, when tempest-tossed by trouble, when crushed by sorrow, than when luxuriating in the land of Goshen. The centre point of interest in the history of Abraham is when he is called upon to offer up his son Isaac. David is never sublimer than when in the intensity of his anguish he mourns the slaughter of his wayward SOD Absalom. And Mordecai is to us grander and more endearing when clothed in his hairy garment and with ashes on his head, indicative of his grief, than when he was arrayed in royal apparel, and the crown royal was placed on his head, and he rode forth on the king’s own horse. Mordecai’s loud and bitter cry of sorrow touches humanity more deeply than the proclamation of Haman, “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour.” But if such interest attaches to the individual in sorrow, what shall be said of a nation in mourning? A whole nation weeping and wailing. Throughout that vast empire, in all its towns and villages, might be seen Jews clothed with sackcloth and sitting in ashes. National joy is attractive, but national sorrow has a more solemn interest. Sublimely and solemnly grand is the aspect of Nineveh mourning and fasting, as one man, for its sins. But these poor Jews were weeping and wailing on account of a threatened slaughter which was undeserved. Let us come near to the man and the nation thus under the dark shadow of threatened evil.
I. Sorrow cannot be prevented. Sibbes says, “None ever hath been so good or so great as could raise themselves so high as to be above the reach of troubles.” And Watson observes in the same strain, “The present state of life is subject to afflictions, as a seaman’s life is subject to storms. ‘Man is born to trouble;’ he is heir-apparent to it; he comes into the world with a cry, and goes out with a groan.” This paragraph is a forcible illustration of these truths. Goodness is personified in Mordecai. Goodness combined with greatness are personified in Esther the queen. Earthly greatness is personified in the king. He was so great that the emblems of sorrow are not permitted to come nearer than the king’s gate. And there were varying degrees of goodness and of greatness among the Jewish people, and yet all were subject to sorrow. The very goodness of Mordecai was the cause of his trouble. The tender, gentle goodness of Esther the queen was the reason why she was “intensely grieved.” The king’s gate might be closed against the entrance of those wearing the garb of sorrow. But sorrow itself can overleap the loftiest barriers, and find a way through the strongest bulwarks. Sorrow darkens the cottage and the palace. The merry laugh and prattle of childhood in sweet country homes are hushed in the presence of this great on-coming calamity. Lovers forget their new-found joy as they think of the national trouble. The harps are hung on the willows, and the children of Zion weep as they feel that the hands of the persecutors are strong. Mordecai’s loud and bitter cry is heard in the palace, and mingles itself with the music of pipers and harpists. The bright and cheery countenance of Esther wears an unwonted gloom.
II. Sorrow cannot be explained. Of course we may give the explanation that sin is the cause of sorrow in its general and broad aspect. But when we come to particularize we find ourselves at fault. Easy it is for us now to see the mistakes made by Job’s friends in trying to account for his great troubles; but if Job’s friends had kept silent and lived till the present time they would most likely be found to be as wise as their critics. It is not so very difficult to be wise after the event. But sorrows even after they have passed and have done their blessed work cannot always be explained. Eternity is the only true and complete interpreter of time. Heavenly joys only can make plain the meaning of earthly sorrows. Why should Mordecai suffer? What is the purpose of his present distress? Why should intense grief shake and toss the fair nature of the virtuous Esther? Why should many hearts be troubled that are the shrines of truth, of beauty, and of goodness? In the light of history and of God’s providential dealings we may now offer an explanation; but while the facts of history are being enacted, while God’s providential dealings are in operation, the troubled hearts are sorely perplexed. Mordecai’s cry was the cry of grief, but was it not also the cry of baffled endeavour to understand the mystery? Our particular sorrows cannot at present receive definite explanation. The seed can only be properly explained by the harvest. The seed of our present sorrows can only be properly explained by the consequent harvest of eternal joys.
III. Sorrow cannot be hidden. It does not appear that Mordecai strove to hide his sorrow. Some assert that he gave vent to his sorrow in order to attract notice, and to get an audience with Esther. Difficult to say how far this suggestion is correct. Certainly Mordecai’s patriotism and goodness would lead him to feel deeply the present position of his people. He could not help the manifestation of his grief. Stoics might say, Keep your sorrows to yourself; do not parade your griefs; do not be ever showing the bleeding sores of your wounded heart. But poor Mordecai could not carry out the stony lessons of these stern teachers. Emotion is as much a part of our God-given nature as intellect. The man who does not feel is a man with the better part of manhood destroyed. And feeling must sooner or later find an expression. These people were demonstrative. The English are not demonstrative. They are said to take their very pleasures sadly. They are comparatively silent about their sorrows. But it can even be found out when an Englishman is in trouble. The cry of wounded hearts may be silent, but it is penetrating. The fragrance of crushed spirits is pungent and powerful. It is better not to hide our sorrows. Trouble concealed is trouble increased. Sorrow caged up and confined is the breeder of much mischief. If earth closes her kingly gates against the cry of our sorrows, heaven opens wide its pearly gates, and as soon as ever the cry passes inside those gates it is changed into laughter.
IV. Sorrow cannot be confined. It passes from nature to nature. It travels from home to home. Even when men and women are not personally affected by that which is the cause of the sorrow, yet they feel its influence, and are sad. Go into the house where death has entered; see all the family in tears, and your nature is at once softened and subdued. It was natural to expect that all the Jews should be affected with sorrow for a common calamity threatened. But the maids and the eunuchs participated in the grief. And Esther, though ignorant of the reason for the sorrow, was intensely grieved. This community of feeling, this wonderful susceptibility to sorrow, speaks to us of our brotherhood. We are members one of another.
V. But sorrow can be mitigated. It may not be in our power to remove sorrow, but it may be so mitigated as not to crush and destroy. It may be mitigated, yea, removed—(a) By believing that the threatened trouble may never come. The trouble which Mordecai and these Jews feared never came. They had good reason for fear and for sorrow. Many of our fears are without foundation. Many of the troubles we fear may never come. Why weep over ideal troubles? Let us keep our tears till the sorrow is present. Do not let us go out to meet the enemy in our present weakness. (b) By believing that God knows how to effect a deliverance. Mordecai’s trouble was not the mere fancy of a disordered brain. The trouble was there. The edict had gone forth. The death-warrant was signed and sealed. To all human appearance Mordecai was as much a doomed man as the criminal fettered in his cell and waiting the hour of his execution. But God worked out for him and all the Jews a wonderful deliverance. Mordecai’s God still reigns, and can still work for the deliverance of the oppressed. (c) By believing that sorrow may be rendered productive. In this case the sorrow was the means of bringing about deliverance. The sorrow of Mordecai and of these Jews was one of the methods employed by God to work out the deliverance of his chosen people. Your sorrows may work out your deliverance. The sorrows of an Egyptian bondage may lead you to desire and to attain to the joys of the promised land. “Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of.” Salvation here mentioned is the highest and most complete deliverance. Sorrow may be the means of bringing about enlargement. Not enlargement merely in the sense of respiration, as the word is employed in this chapter as a translation of Mordecai’s declaration, out enlargement in the sense of development. Sorrow is a great developing agency when rightly received, and when blessed by the Holy Spirit of God. Mordecai’s sorrow developed his nature, enlarged his sympathies, and increased his power of vision. Sorrow sometimes makes people selfish. They nurse their sorrows like mothers fondle their sickly babies. They think of nothing but of themselves and their troubles. This, however, is not the proper effect, is not the designed purpose of sorrow. It should open up the whole nature. It should expand all the powers, both intellectual and moral, of a man’s being. As the waters of the Nile overflow the surrounding country, and open up the soil, and prepare it for the reception of the rice seed; so the waters of our sorrows should overflow and open up the otherwise barren soil of our natures, and prepare it for the reception of the seed of all truth in its manifold bearings. Let sorrow do its perfect work of developing. Sorrow seems to say in mournful measures to all its children, “Be ye also enlarged.” It touches to finer and broader issues. It should bring out the latent powers and forces of suffering humanity. It should develop into strength and Christlike nobility and manliness. The developing power of sorrow is brought out by the apostle when he tells us that “tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope.” See to it that such is the blessed fruit of sorrow’s operation. Sorrow should be productive in another sense. It should intensify the appreciative faculty, and set our souls longing for the pure realms where sorrows will be all unknown because they will be no longer required. Hunger is the best sauce. The sorrows of time prepare us to receive the joys of heaven. When there is intense thirst there can be nothing more refreshing than a drink of clear, sparkling spring water. The sorrows of our pilgrimage intensify the soul’s thirst for the consolations of the gospel and of God’s promises, and for the abiding comforts of the celestial home. The hart pants for the water-brooks. The poor soul hunted and harried by the fierce dogs of trouble pants for the earthly sanctuary, and much more for the heavenly sanctuary. Mordecai in his trouble looked to Esther, and looked still higher, for he expected enlargement and deliverance from another place. We may look to earth. We must make use of all legitimate earthly means. But we must look for true enlargement and deliverance from another place. What place is that but the throne of God, the mercy-seat, the Father’s house. In that house sorrow will be turned into joy, weeping into laughter, crying into songs of gladness, and pain into perpetual and unsullied pleasure.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Est_4:1-4
2. For none might enter into the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth.—Behold, they that wear softs are in kings’ houses, and those that are altogether set upon the merry pin. Jannes and Jambres, those jugglers, are gracious with Pharaoh, when Moses and Aaron are frowned upon. Baal’s prophets are fed at Jezebel’s table, when Elias is almost pined in the desert. The dancing damsel trippeth on the toe, and triumpheth in Herod’s hall, when the rough-coated Baptist lieth in cold irons; and Christ’s company there is neither cared for nor called for, unless it be to show tricks and do miracles for a pastime. The kings and courtiers of Persia must see no sad sight, lest their mirth should be marred, and themselves surprised with heaviness and horror. But if mourners might not be suffered to come to court, why did those proud princes so sty up themselves, and not appear abroad for the relief of the poor oppressed.—Trapp.
In the case of Mordecai, the first effect of the proclamation was bitter anguish, for his conduct had been the flint out of which the spark leaped to kindle this portentous conflagration. Not for a moment would we doubt the rightness of that conduct, for his way had been hedged in by the providence of God on the one side, and the precept of God on the other; but this, while it eased his conscience, would only drive the sword deeper into his heart. He “rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry; and came even before the king’s gate.” But Mordecai’s grief did not upset his judgment. The genuine sorrow of an honest soul very seldom has that effect; and this man’s greatness comes out in his deliberateness. To see him rushing out into the streets and up to the palace gate clothed in sackcloth, and filling the air with shrieks and groans, you might fancy that his reason had been thrown off its balance; but Mordecai knew very well where he was running to, and how far he must make his cry reach. It soon appeared that he had made a copy of the edict and brought it with him, that he had informed himself as to the details of the blood-money, and that he had thought out and fixed in his own mind what must be done. Faith too, as well as sound judgment, may be discerned under this good man’s grief. Certainly the cloud was very black, but he had found out a thinner place, if not a rift, in it. “In the way of obeying God I have exposed my people to this fearful peril; but, on the other hand, God has these four years and more established my foster child next to the throne. Putting these two things together, I am surely not wrong in judging that they point to the place where the cloud will yet part and greater light come through it.” It was precisely the latent force of piety that gave Mordecai courage enough to set aside every thought of his own safety, to make the most public exhibition of his grief, to go straight towards the supreme earthly power. No doubt he had already gone to the supreme power in heaven; but those who have done that are not found folding their hands in the time of trouble. Moses erred when he said to the people, “Stand still,” in front of the Red Sea: God told him that up to even such a barrier and through it his people must march. “Wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.” Mordecai had learned this lesson, and now taught it to Esther.—A. M. Symington.
And weeping and wailing.—This was the way to get in with God, though they might not come crying to the court. Oh, the Divine rhetoric and omnipotent efficacy of penitent tears! Weeping hath a voice. Christ turned to the weeping women when going to his cross and comforted them. He showed great respects to Mary Magdalene, that weeping vine; she had the first sight of the revived phœnix (though so bleared that she could scarce discern him), and held him fast by those feet which she had once washed with her tears, and wherewith he had lately trod upon the lion and adder.—Trapp.
In sad thoughts did Mordecai spend his heart, while he walked mournfully in sackcloth before that gate wherein he was wont to sit; now his habit bars his approach; no sackcloth might come within the court. Lo! that which is welcomest in the court of heaven is here excluded from the presence of this earthly royalty: “A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”—Bishop Hall.
It is well remarked by Henry, in his commentary upon this passage, that “although nothing but what was gay and pleasant must appear at court, and everything that was melancholy must be banished thence, yet it was vain thus to keep out the badges of sorrow unless they could withal have kept out the causes of sorrow, and to forbid sackcloth to enter unless they could have forbidden sickness and trouble and death to enter.” We are reminded by these words of the well-known saying of John Knox to the ladies of Queen Mary’s court, when he had been dismissed from her presence with marks of high displeasure, and was waiting to hear the result of his interview with her: “O, fair ladies, how pleasing were this life of yours if it should ever abide, and then in the end that we may pass to heaven with all this gay gear. But fie upon that knave, death, that will come whether we will or not.” But it is not to those only who dwell in palaces that our application of the text may be made. People in exalted stations among ourselves, people who might be expected to act more rationally than heathen potentates and nobles were accustomed to do, often exhibit the same desire to have removed out of their sight everything that would remind them of their frailty and mortality, as if in this way they could put trouble and mortality away from them. But this is unavailing. The unwelcome heralds of death, in the varied forms of disease, will find their way into the mansions of the great as well as into the humble dwellings of the poor; and at length the enemy himself will appear all unceremoniously to drag away from their luxuries and their selfish enjoyments those who have no portion out in the present life. What I would say here then is, would it not be the best course for all to have their minds directed towards the reality which must overtake them whether they will or not; and to avail themselves of the means which God has provided in the gospel to strip death of its terrors?—Davidson.
Could Mordecai have been permitted to redeem his countrymen from the avenging sword, he would have rejoiced in “offering himself upon the sacrifice of their faith,” and have gone to the scaffold, or the furnace, or the lions’ den, clothed in white, with garlands bound round his temples, and with the song of triumph in his mouth. But he knew that his enemy would have refused this as a “kindness and a precious oil,” which, instead of breaking his head, would have refreshed and exhilarated his wounded spirit. His grief was that not only he, but his people were sold “to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish.” But, besides, Mordecai had to reflect that he had been instrumental in bringing this calamity upon his people by refusing the honours claimed by Haman. This could not fail to give him pain, and to aggravate the evil which he deplored. Not that he repented of what he had done, for we find him afterwards persisting in the same line of conduct, and refusing to propitiate the haughty favourite by giving him the marks of reverence. We may innocently, or in the discharge of what we owe to God, do what may be the means of injuring both ourselves and others whom we love. It does not follow from this that we ought to have acted otherwise. But still it is a painful reflection. And it was a great addition to the affliction of Mordecai that the Jews were to be sacrificed in consequence of his having incurred the hatred of a wicked but powerful individual. This also accounts for his grief being more poignant than that of Esther.—McCrie.
Poor Mordecai had it not in his power to confine his anguish to his own bosom, or to his own house. He published it through all the city of Shushan. You need not ask for what reasons persons overwhelmed with grief do not inquire what purpose the publication of their grief may serve. The strong impulse of sorrow often makes them publish their complaints to the winds or the trees. Yet who knows what good end it might serve to announce the unmerited calamity of the Jews through the whole city of Shushan. There might be some compassionate hearts amongst the people that would be interested by such a dire calamity; and though the people had no direct access to the king, yet they could present their supplications to the counsellors who saw his face; or if nothing could be gained, nothing could be lost by men already doomed to death.—Lawson.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. Est_4:4
THE ACTION OF SYMPATHY REJECTED
Change of place is not necessarily change of state. Wherever we travel we remain essentially the same. We cannot lose our identity. Foreign travel, change of scene, alteration of position, may do much to benefit the man or the woman both physically, intellectually, and morally. But these changes cannot radically change the nature. The benefit is often only temporary, and we soon relapse into our old condition. Esther the orphan had her troubles, but she did not become superior to trouble when she became Esther the queen. The royal Esther had troubles which were not possible to the uncrowned Esther. Let us seek, not to be free from trouble by change of place, or by alteration of outward condition, but to be fortified in the inward condition so that we may bear trouble in Christlike fashion.
I. Bad news. “So Esther’s maids and her chamberlains came and told it her.” Bad news travels fast and far. Esther was soon told of Mordecai’s great trouble. The bearers of evil tidings cannot be welcome messengers. Some gladly carry evil tidings through the promptings of a depraved nature. Such ought not to be received. Their mouths ought to be shut by tokens of disapproval. The listeners to evil stories are almost as much to blame as the tellers. In this case, however, we have no just reason to suppose that there was any evil design; yea, we may rather and legitimately suppose a good purpose. Esther’s maids must have known of the relationship that existed between her and Mordecai; and we may well imagine that they carried the evil tidings to see if anything could be done to alleviate Mordecai’s distress. Let us be slow to be the bearers of bad news. See to it that our information is correct. Examine our purpose in telling the dismal tale. And then, when we see that the tale must be told, pray for grace and wisdom that it may be told in the best possible manner.
II. Consequent grief. “Then was the queen exceedingly grieved.” The poet tells us, “And he who meditates on others’ woes shall in that meditation lose his own.” He may lose his own, but he gets fresh trouble by entering sympathetically into the woes of the other. We can only bear another’s burdens of trouble by becoming troubled ourselves. How can we weep with those that weep unless we share their sorrows? To attend to the troubles of others is both to lessen and to increase our own troubles. Shall we then shut our ears to the cries of sorrow? No; for the consideration of the troubles of others may reconcile us to the pains of our own condition. There is to the true heart a sweet luxury in tasting the bitter cup of other people’s sorrows. And benevolence, not inordinate self-love, should be the rule of life. The outward and the inward are closely and marvellously connected. Place together the words “told it her,” “exceedingly grieved.” The words of the maids acted powerfully on Esther’s sensitive and loving nature. So it was with Job. After the messengers had told him of the slaughter of his cattle, his servants, and his children, then he rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped. Esther, however, did not know that Mordecai’s calamity was her own, and yet she was exceedingly grieved. Oh, these words! One is ready to say, Would that I had not been endowed with the power of speech! These words carry untold joy on their wings. What treasures they embody! But oh, what sorrows they produce! A word may change a destiny. Guilty or not guilty may mean life or death. These maids were no eloquent orators. They told a simple tale, and the queen was exceedingly grieved. They might well recoil from the effects of their own speech. It was not the style of the composition, but the subject matter of the discourse that produced the effect. Let preachers and speakers look to the matter as well as the manner. There was preparedness on the part of Esther. She loved Mordecai, and so was exceedingly grieved when the maids told her the story. Preparedness on the part of the hearer tends to make the speaker eloquent and successful. A Demosthenes could not have made Haman feel for Mordecai’s great trouble. A simple maid can send Esther into paroxysms of convulsive grief.
III. The resulting sympathetic action. “She sent raiment to clothe Mordecai, and to take away his sackcloth from him.” Royalty weeps; that is interesting and commendable. Royalty weeps on hearing the account of the sorrows of one of the subjects; that is still more commendable. Royalty bends itself to try and remove the trouble, and that is most commendable. A queen should be the mother of her people. Esther was a motherly queen, and sought by gentle nursing to remove the pains of the sick and troubled Mordecai. Sympathy should be practical. Tears are good, but tears that do not flow to water and nourish noble purposes, and practical efforts for the good of others, will be like the streams that flow to deaden life, and to produce miserable petrifactions. These maids were successful preachers. The bearers went forth to do good. Many preachers preach for years and not one Esther is found to go forth and remove the sackcloth from the Mordecais. Practicalness is the want of the age. A little more of wise utilitarianism is needed in the present day. Preachers to tell the story simply of the world’s troubles; Esthers to hear the story sympathetically, and then not to go home to their play, their luxuries, and their pleasures, but to visit the Mordecais, and if this be not possible, to send goodly raiment to those clothed in sackcloth. Sympathy should be guided by wise discretion. Esther did not understand all the case, and she committed an error. But while we condemn, let us remember that she did what she could. And even mistaken workers will not lose their reward if the work is done from a right motive. A new raiment cannot remove sorrow. The tailor cannot minister to a mind diseased. The dressmaker cannot root out the deep-seated sorrow of the brain, that is, not as a mere dressmaker. Harm may then be done by acting according to mere sympathetic impulses. In benevolent enterprises there must be the exercise of the judgment. A new raiment may be a disastrous gift as well as useless. And the receiver of the gift may not be as wise as Mordecai The latter rejected the offer, but the former may clutch at the present to his own damage.
IV. The strange but wise rejection. “But he received it not.” There are circumstances under which gifts may be wisely refused, and this was one of those occasions. Strange at first sight that Mordecai should refuse Esther’s loving offer of help. If he felt that sorrow was better than laughter, he might have taken the raiment of joy to show his grateful appreciation of Esther’s consideration. What an ungrateful and unseemly course of conduct! would Haman have exclaimed had he heard of the case. Just like that surly dog Mordecai, who would not bow to me as I passed. But Mordecai had a wise reason for his course. He had a purpose in view. The true cause of his sorrow must be made known to Esther. He was grateful to Esther, but he must still be stern in order to bring her up to the point of self-sacrifice and heroic daring. Self-interest and the feeling of affection must not be allowed to stand in the way of duty. We have seen that Mordecai loved Esther, but we now see that he would forego her love and even treat her rudely at the call of patriotism. Love of kindred must be subordinated to the love of duty.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Est_4:4
The perpetual intelligences that were closely held betwixt Esther and Mordecai could not suffer his public sorrows to be long concealed from her. The news of his sackcloth afflicts her ere she can suspect the cause; her crown doth but clog her head while she hears of his ashes. True friendship transforms us into the condition of those we love; and, if we cannot raise them to our cheerfulness, draws us down to their dejection. Fain would she uncase her roster father of these mournful weeds, and change his sackcloth for tissue; that yet, at least, his clothes might not hinder his access to her presence for the free opening of his griefs. It is but a slight sorrow that abides to take in outward comforts; Mordecai refuses that kind offer, and would have Esther see that his affliction was such as that he might well resolve to put off his sackcloth and his skin at once; that he must mourn to death, rather than see her face to live.—Bishop Hall.
Ignorant as yet of the evil that was purposed against her nation, and supposing that it was some private sorrow that pressed upon the spirit of her friend, Esther sent a change of raiment to him, thus expressing her desire that, whatever the cause of his trouble was, she was anxious that he should be comforted. This was one of the ways in which, in those times and countries, sympathy and affection were manifested. And so we learn that when the prodigal returned, the father said to his servants, “Bring forth the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.” And it is in allusion to the same custom that the Saviour says, “The Lord hath sent me to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion; to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” It is a very pleasing trait in the character of Esther, that her advancement, and the grandeur and luxury of the palace, had not made her forget the friend of her childhood. His grief touched her heart, and she would have him know this. But his sorrow was too deeply-seated to be assuaged even by her kindness. Mordecai refused the raiment which she sent, and persisted in wearing his sackcloth. The rejection of such a present would have been accounted highly offensive in ordinary circumstances, but it only made Esther apprehend that Mordecai’s trouble must be of no usual kind.—Davidson.
Esther, in her elevation, and in separation from her friends, was far from forgetting them. She was deeply afflicted when she heard of the mourning habit and sore affliction of Mordecai. She was vexed that he should appear at the king’s gate in a dress in which he could not enter it, and therefore sent to him a change of raiment. But she knew not the sources of his distress. Grief so firmly rooted and so well founded could not be removed without a removal of its cause. To send him change of raiment was like singing songs to a heavy heart. Mordecai was doubtless pleased with her kind attention; but she must do something of a very different nature to banish his sorrows.—Lawson.
The character of Esther is greatly enhanced in our view from this little incidental circumstance. It shows that her feelings had not been blunted by her exaltation and the influences of the court life of Shushan; that she was not self-contained, but had an admirable tenderness and consideration for others, and that she was willing to relieve their burdens by becoming herself a sharer in and a mutual bearer of them. Never does woman appear more noble, and we might almost say resplendent in moral beauty, than when becoming a true “Sister of Mercy” to our fallen humanity. The New Testament Scriptures sparkle and glitter with such characters as this. Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with pure spikenard of great price, and wiping them with the hairs of her head, as if she could not find a token sufficiently tender of her respect and love. Martha actively engaged in benefitting a beloved brother, and unweariedly serving in every-day life the Saviour whom she adored. Dorcas “full of good works and alms-deeds,” seeking to help the poor and comfort the widows at Joppa, and leaving behind a blank when she died, the greatness of which was evinced by the tears of a bereaved multitude. Phœbe, the deaconess of Cenchrea, a “succourer of many.” Priscilla, the true helpmate of her devoted husband in the work of the Lord. Lydia, and Joanna, and Susanna, and Syntyche, and Salome, and Tryphena, and Tryphosa, and many others, whose names are in the book of life. The ministry of woman may be silent and noiseless as the light which shines into the chamber in the morning without breaking the repose of the sleeper; but as the light, too, it is mighty in diffusing around cheerfulness and blessing. And never does she appear more laudably than in the homes of the suffering, like the angel who strengthened our Lord in his agony. So do we honour Esther the more because of this sidelight thrown on her character. Though it was only a sorrowful kinsman wailing at the gate, yet was there on this account one queenly heart in the palace which was “exceedingly grieved.”—McEwan.
So Esther’s maids came and told it her.—She herself (say interpreters) was kept in a closer place than they, not having the liberty of going abroad, as others had, because the Persians that were of highest quality used so to keep in their wives; and if they went forth at any time, they were carried in a close chariot, so as that none could see them.
Then was the queen exceedingly grieved.—Dolens exhorruit. So Tremellius. The Hebrew is, she grieved herself, scil., for Mordecai’s heaviness; as our Saviour, when he heard of the death of his friend Lazarus, groaned in spirit and troubled himself. And here we see that of Plautus disproved—No woman can grieve heartily for anything. Holy Esther is here sick at heart of grief, as the word importeth; and yet (as one saith of the Lady Jane Grey) she made grief itself amiable—her night-clothes becoming her as well as her day-dressings, by reason of her gracious deportment.
And she sent raiment to clothe Mordecai.—That he might be fit to come unto her, and make known the cause of his grief, for she yet knew nothing of the public calamity. And although she was so highly advanced above Mordecai, yet she condoleth with him, and honoureth him as much as ever. This was true friendship. Ego aliter amare non didici, said Basil to one that disliked him for stooping so low to an old friend.
But he received it not.—Such was the greatness of his grief which he could not dissemble, such was his care of the community, that he could not mind his own private concernments while it went ill with the public. Such also was his patient continuance in well-doing, that he would not give over asking of God till he had received, seeking till he had found, knocking till the gate of grace was open. His clothes were good enough, unless his condition were more comfortable.—Trapp.
Temporal fortunes and successes are never so great as not to be subject to sorrow, terror, and fear. God permits his Church to be plunged into sorrow at times; he leads her even into hell; but he also takes her out again. Though the Lord elevate us to high honours, we should never be ashamed of our poor relatives, but rather relieve their needs. We should never reject proper and suitable means to escape a danger, but promptly use them.—Starke.
At first the lazy (i.e. Jews) do not snore. For the Holy Spirit exhorts us in all adversities to confide in the Lord; he does not exhort us to be indolent, indifferent, and sleepy. For our confidence in the Lord is a powerful and efficacious means of stimulating in his service all strength and limbs. Further, the Jews, though in the greatest peril, do not utter virulent words against the king, nor do they fly to arms. Mordecai and the other Jews rend their garments, put on sackcloth, strew ashes upon their heads, wail, weep, and fast. These manifestations signify not that the Jews in Persia were turbulent, but that they take refuge in God; since help could not be discovered upon earth, they seek it from heaven. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” By this example we too are taught, that when afflictions are sent upon us we should reflect that God sets before us the fat oxen and calves which we may offer to him. In this may we offer to God in our prayers the afflictions which we sustain, and call upon the name of the Lord that he may help us. Behold, however, the reverse of this order of things. The palaces of princes are Divinely instituted to be the places of refuge for the miserable. On the contrary, in the palaces of Persia nothing is regarded as more odious and abominable than men with the signs of affliction. Heaven is ever open to the cries of mourners, and God is never unapproachable to those calling on his name by faith.—Brenz.
Est_4:1; Est_6:1. Mordecai rends his clothing, and puts on sackcloth and ashes. He enters the city thus, and raises a great and bitter lamentation. So also the Church of God, in its development as regards the history of humanity, should again and ever anew put on the habiliments of mourning. “The world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful.” The then existing nation of Jews could not manifest its loyalty to law without coming into conflict with heathendom. Nor can the Church bring to development its inherent spiritual powers without challenging all the Hamans and their opposition in the world. Even this present period is an instance in proof. Following upon the great progress of the things of the kingdom of God since the time of wars for freedom, we must naturally expect reactions, such as have been manifest in the sphere of science and other relations. Indeed, we must constantly look for increasing opposition on the part of the world. But when the Church shall have fully developed the gifts of grace granted to it, then conflict and sorrow will have reached its highest point at the end of the days. The real cause of sorrow on the part of the true members of God’s Church will not be, as was the case with Mordecai, their own distress, but that of the world. It will consist in the fact that the world is still devoid of the blessed society of the true God; that the kingdom of God is still rejected and even persecuted. What joy it would give if, instead of enmity, recognition and submission, and, instead of disdain, a participation in the gifts and grace of our Lord, were to become the universal experience.
2. The more difficult the position of the Church as in contrast with the world, the more favourable is her position for bringing to view her glory. Her glory is that of her Head. If in the Old Testament times, and in the “dispersion” itself, there existed a Mordecai, who for love of his people manifested his firmness and strength in the hour of tribulation; and if there was found an Esther, who, when called upon, willingly came forward to bring about the salvation of her countrymen; how much more in New Testament times and in the modern Church will there arise individuals who, in following the Lord, especially in evil days, will manifest a watchful care for others and a self-sacrificing spirit for them; who will show forth patience and meekness as well as energy, fidelity, and tenacity, a spirit of giving and an ability to make sacrifices; and withal will carry in their hearts joy and peace as the seal of their kinship with God. All these graces may be so many illuminating rays of the glorious life of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who more and more attains in them a full stature. May all seize the special opportunity, recognize the particular duty, and know when to perform it, which the times of distress of the Church place in the hand, of showing forth the power that dwells in them by their life and work!
3. Mordecai took an especially great part in the universal grief that overcame the Jews when the edict of their annihilation was issued and promulgated. It was not his personal danger that alarmed him, but, as may be expected of such a faithful follower of Judaism, it was the calamity threatening the whole Jewish people. While, however, thought and feeling were centred upon the event, he was free from despair. With him it was a settled conviction that the people of God, as a whole, could not be destroyed, and that deliverance must come from some source. Instead of giving way to despondency, he turned his distress into a power that urged him to still greater endeavours. There was no more a fear of appearing as a Jew, nor did he hesitate because his loud lamentations would attract general attention, and thereby expose him to the derision and disdain of many. However reluctant he might have been to expose his beloved Esther, whose welfare had ever been a matter of great concern to him, to extreme danger, still he persisted with the greatest determination that she should run the whole risk, and only rested when she gave her assent. It is barely possible that he attributed some blame to himself because of his firmness against Haman, or thought that on that account he more than any other was under obligation to remove the threatened danger. The sole moving impulse was doubtless his love for his people. But this should not be less in any member of the Church. It should rather, in proportion as there are more members in the body of Christ, be stronger than it was in him. Would that no one among us were behind him as regards energy, self-denial, and a willingness to make sacrifice! There are doubtless many who are able to endure all this in their own person. But—if no lighter consideration—the thought that their relatives, yea, even wife and children, may suffer on account of their confession bows them down. Would, if necessary, that we too may stand equal to Mordecai in willingness to surrender our dearest kin!
4. Mordecai manifests a remarkable tenacity as opposed to Esther. He keeps his position at the gate of the king until she sends him not only her maids with garments, but also Hatach to transmit his message. He departs not thence until she has resolved to stand before Ahasuerus as a Jew pleading for the Jews. Under other circumstances he might have been thought to be tiresome by his persistency and demands; but his relation to her now justified it. When he had been accustomed to inquire concerning her health and well-being, to give her counsel, to care for her, he had shown no less persistency; and his demand that now she should reveal her Jewish descent, and as such should venture all, was equally in keeping with his character. So long as no danger threatened he counselled her to keep silence respecting her Jewish parentage; but now he had himself taken the lead in an open confession of the fact. Although it had before been difficult for him to approach Esther as the queen, or request any favour at her hand, now he hesitated no longer to implore her help, not so much for himself, as for the whole people. There was no motive for him to be selfish, or to conduct himself in a heartless or severe manner towards her. Hence there was no question but that his undertaking would succeed, that Esther would be willing to comply with his request. It is eminently desirable that those who, like him, must move and induce others to make sacrifices of self and possessions in the service of the kingdom of God, should stand on a level with him in this respect.—Lange.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4
Est_4:3. The patriotic Greek. Be like that patriotic Greek, who with his little band of followers had to check the great army of the Persians. He knew that to go down into the open plain and to expose himself there to all his enemies at once would be speedy destruction. He therefore took his stand in the narrow mountain pass, and encountered his foes as they came one by one. So be it with you. Keep to the narrow pass of today. Face your troubles one by one as they arise. Do not commit yourself to the open plain of tomorrow. You are not equal to that. God does not require you to do that—Spurgeon.
Human may not hare the power to carry out his bloody and revengeful decree. God will interpose in a wonderful method to your deliverance. Face for the present only the trouble caused by the proclamation, and do not ask how will it be when the time comes for the proclamation to take effect.
Est_4:3. Unskilful persons in a boat. I have seen young and unskilful persons sitting in a boat, when every little wave sporting about the sides of the vessel, and every motion and dancing of the barge, seemed a danger, and made them cling fast upon their fellows; and yet all the while they were as safe as if they sat in a tree, while the gentle wind shook the leaves into refreshment and cooling shade. And so the unskilful, inexperienced Christian shrieks out whenever his vessel shakes, thinking it always danger that the watery pavement is not stable and resident like the rock; and yet all his danger is in himself, none at all from without; for he is indeed moving upon the waters, but fastened to a rock; faith is his foundation, and hope his anchor, and death is his harbour, and Christ his port, and heaven his country; and all the evils of poverty, or affronts of tribunals and evil judges, all fears and sad anticipations, are bent like the loud wind blowing from the right point; they make a noise and drive faster to the harbour.
Est_4:3. Sour milk and black bread. We had traversed the Great Aletsch Glacier, and were very hungry when we reached the mountain tarn half-way between the Bel Alps and the hotel at the foot of the Aeggischorn; there a peasant undertook to descend the mountain, and bring us bread and milk. It was a very Marah to us when he brought us back milk too sour for us to drink, and bread black as a coal, too hard to bite, and sour as the curds. What then? Why, we longed the more eagerly to reach the hotel towards which we were travelling. We mounted our horses, and made no more halts till we reached the hospitable table where our hunger was abundantly satisfied. Thus our disappointments on the road to heaven whet our appetites for the better country, and quicken the pace of our pilgrimage to the celestial city.—Spurgeon.
Est_4:4. Hardening effects of sensibility. The frequent repetition of that species of emotion which fiction stimulates tends to prevent benevolence, because it is out of proportion to corresponding action; it is like that frequent “going over the theory of virtue in our thoughts,” which, as Butler says, so far from being auxiliary to it, may be obstructive of it. As long as the balance is maintained between the stimulus given to imagination with the consequent emotions, on the one hand, and our practical habits, which those emotions are chiefly designed to form and strengthen, on the other, so long the stimulus of the imagination will not stand in the way of benevolence, but aid it; and, therefore, if you will read a novel extra now and then, impose upon yourself the corrective of an extra visit or two to the poor, the distressed, and afflicted! Keep a sort of debtor and creditor account of sentimental indulgence and practical benevolence. I do not care if your pocket-book contains some such memoranda as these: For the sweet tears I shed over the romantic sorrows of Charlotte Devereux, sent three basins of gruel and a flannel petticoat to poor old Molly Brown; For sitting up three hours beyond the time over the “Bandit’s Bride,” gave half-a-crown to Betty Smith; My sentimental agonies over the pages of the “Broken Heart” cost me three visits to the Orphan Asylum and two extra hours of Dorcas Society work; Two quarts of caudle to poor Johnson’s wife, and some gaberdines for his ragged children, on account of a good cry over the pathetic story of the “Forsaken One.” If the luxury of sympathy and mere benevolent feeling be separated from action, then Butler’s paradox becomes a terrible truth, and the heart is not made better, but worse, by it. Those who indulge in superfluous expression of sentiment are always neophytes in virtue at the best; and, what is worse, they are very often among the most heartless of mankind. Sterne and Rousseau were types of this class,—perfect incarnations of sensibility without benevolence,—having, and having in perfection, the “form” of virtue, but “denying the power thereof.”—Grey-son’s Letters.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv10, 14, 15 Est 4:10 - Est 4:17; Est 5:1 - Est…
Esther
ESTHER’S VENTURE
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Est 4:10 - Est 4:17; Est 5:1 - Est 5:3.
Patriotism is more evident than religion in the Book of Esther. To turn to it after the fervours of prophets and the continual recognition of God in history which marks the other historical books, is like coming down from heaven to earth, as Ewald says. But that difference in tone probably accurately represents the difference between the saints and heroes of an earlier age and the Jews in Persia, in whom national feeling was stronger than devotion. The picture of their characteristics deducible from this Book shows many of the traits which have marked them ever since,-accommodating flexibility, strangely united with unbending tenacity; a capacity for securing the favour of influential people, and willingness to stretch conscience in securing it; reticence and diplomacy; and, beneath all, unquenchable devotion to Israel, which burns alike in the politic Mordecai and the lovely Esther.
There is not much audible religion in either, but in this lesson Mordecai impressively enforces his assurance that Israel cannot perish, and his belief in Providence setting people in their places for great unselfish ends; and Esther is ready to die, if need be, in trying to save her people, and thinks that fasting and prayer will help her in her daring attempt. These two cousins, unlike in so much, were alike in their devotion to Israel; and though they said little about their religion, they acted it, which is better.
It is very like Jews that the relationship between Mordecai and Esther should have been kept dark. Nobody but one or two trusted servants knew that the porter was the queen’s cousin, and probably her Jewish birth was also unknown. Secrecy is, no doubt, the armour of oppressed nations; but it is peculiarly agreeable to the descendants of Jacob, who was a master of the art. There must have been wonderful self-command on both sides to keep such a secret, and true affection, to preserve intercourse through apparent indifference.
Our passage begins in the middle of Esther’s conversation with the confidential go-between, who told her of the insane decree for the destruction of the Jews, and of Mordecai’s request that she should appeal to the king. She reminds him of what he knew well enough, the law that unsummoned intruders into the presence are liable to death; and adds what, of course, he did not know, that she had not been summoned for a month. We need not dwell on this ridiculously arrogant law, but may remark that the substantial accuracy of the statement is confirmed by classical and other authors, and may pause for a moment to note the glimpse given here of the delirium of self-importance in which these Persian kings lived, and to see in it no small cause of their vices and disasters. What chance of knowing facts or of living a wholesome life had a man shut off thus from all but lickspittles and slaves? No wonder that the victims of such dignity beat the sea with rods, when it was rude enough to wreck their ships! No wonder that they wallowed in sensuality, and lost pith and manhood! No wonder that Greece crushed their unwieldy armies and fleets!
And what a glimpse into their heart-emptiness and degradation of sacred ties is given in the fact that Esther the queen had not seen Ahasuerus for a month, though living in the same palace, and his favourite wife! No doubt, the experiences of exile had something to do in later ages with the decided preference of the Jew for monogamy.
But, passing from this, we need only observe how clearly Esther sees and how calmly she tells Mordecai the tremendous risk which following his counsel would bring. Note that she does not refuse. She simply puts the case plainly, as if she invited further communication. ‘This is how things stand. Do you still wish me to run the risk?’ That is poor courage which has to shut its eyes in order to keep itself up to the mark. Unfortunately, the temperament which clearly sees dangers and that which dares them are not often found together in due proportion, and so men are over-rash and over-cautious. This young queen with her clear eyes saw, and with her brave heart was ready to face, peril to her life. Unless we fully realise difficulties and dangers beforehand, our enthusiasm for great causes will ooze out at our fingers’ ends at the first rude assault of these. So let us count the cost before we take up arms, and let us take up arms after we have counted the cost. Cautious courage, courageous caution, are good guides. Either alone is a bad one.
Mordecai’s grand message is a condensed statement of the great reasons which always exist for self-sacrificing efforts for others’ good. His words are none the less saturated with devout thought because they do not name God. This porter at the palace gate had not the tongue of a psalmist or of a prophet. He was a plain man, not uninfluenced by his pagan surroundings, and perhaps he was careful to adapt his message to the lips of the Gentile messenger, and therefore did not more definitely use the sacred name.
It is very striking that Mordecai makes no attempt to minimise Esther’s peril in doing as he wished. He knew that she would take her life in her hand, and he expects her to be willing to do it, as he would have been willing. It is grand when love exhorts loved ones to a course which may bring death to them, and lifelong loneliness and quenched hopes to it. Think of Mordecai’s years of care over and pride in his fair young cousin, and how many joys and soaring visions would perish with her, and then estimate the heroic self-sacrifice he exercised in urging her to her course.
His first appeal is on the lowest ground. Pure selfishness should send her to the king; for, if she did not go, she would not escape the common ruin. So, on the one hand, she had to face certain destruction; and, on the other, there were possible success and escape. It may seem unlikely that the general massacre should include the favourite queen, and especially as her nationality was apparently a secret. But when a mob has once tasted blood, its appetite is great and its scent keen, and there are always informers at hand to point to hidden victims. The argument holds in reference to many forms of conflict with national and social evils. If Christian people allow vice and godlessness to riot unchecked, they will not escape the contagion, in some form or other. How many good men’s sons have been swept away by the immoralities of great cities! How few families there are in which there is not ‘one dead,’ the victim of drink and dissipation! How the godliness of the Church is cooled down by the low temperature around! At the very lowest, self-preservation should enlist all good men in a sacred war against the sins which are slaying their countrymen. If smallpox breaks out in the slums, it will come uptown into the grand houses, and the outcasts will prove that they are the rich man’s brethren by infecting him, and perhaps killing him.
Mordecai goes back to the same argument in the later part of his answer, when he foretells the destruction of Esther and her father’s house. There he puts it, however, in a rather different light. The destruction is not now, as before, her participation in the common tragedy, but her exceptional ruin while Israel is preserved. The unfaithful one, who could have intervened to save, and did not, will have a special infliction of punishment. That is true in many applications. Certainly, neglect to do what we can do for others does always bring some penalty on the slothful coward; and there is no more short-sighted policy than that which shirks plain duties of beneficence from regard to self.
But higher considerations than selfish ones are appealed to. Mordecai is sure that deliverance will come. He does not know whence, but come it will. How did he arrive at that serene confidence? Certainly because he trusted God’s ancient promises, and believed in the indestructibility of the nation which a divine hand protected. How does such a confidence agree with fear of ‘destruction’? The two parts of Mordecai’s message sound contradictory; but he might well dread the threatened catastrophe, and yet be sure that through any disaster Israel as a nation would pass, cast down, no doubt, but not destroyed.
How did it agree with his earnestness in trying to secure Esther’s help? If he was certain of the issue, why should he have troubled her or himself? Just for the same reason that the discernment of God’s purposes and absolute reliance on these stimulate, and do not paralyse, devout activity in helping to carry them out. If we are sure that a given course, however full of peril and inconvenience, is in the line of God’s purposes, that is a reason for strenuous effort to carry it out. Since some men are to be honoured to be His instruments, shall not we be willing to offer ourselves? There is a holy and noble ambition which covets the dignity of being used by Him. They who believe that their work helps forward what is dear to God’s heart may well do with their might what they find to do, and not be too careful to keep on the safe side in doing it. The honour is more than the danger. ‘Here am I; take me,’ should be the Christian feeling about all such work.
The last argument in this noble summary of motives for self-sacrifice for others’ good is the thought of God’s purpose in giving Esther her position. It carries large truth applicable to us all. The source of all endowments of position, possessions, or capacities, is God. His purpose in them all goes far beyond the happiness of the receiver. Dignities and gifts of every sort are ours for use in carrying out His great designs of good to our fellows. Esther was made queen, not that she might live in luxury and be the plaything of a king, but that she might serve Israel. Power is duty. Responsibility is measured by capacity. Obligation attends advantages. Gifts are burdens. All men are stewards, and God gives His servants their ‘talents,’ not for selfish squandering or hoarding, but to trade with, and to pay the profits to Him. This penetrating insight into the source and intention of all which we have, carries a solemn lesson for us all.
The fair young heroine’s soul rose to the occasion, and responded with a swift determination to her older cousin’s lofty words. Her pathetic request for the prayers of the people for whose sake she was facing death was surely more than superstition. Little as she says about her faith in God, it obviously underlay her courage. A soul that dares death in obedience to His will and in dependence on His aid, demonstrates its godliness more forcibly in silence than by many professions.
‘If I perish, I perish!’ Think of the fair, soft lips set to utter that grand surrender, and of all the flowery and silken cords which bound the young heart to life, so bright and desirable as was assured to her. Note the resolute calmness, the Spartan brevity, the clear sight of the possible fatal issue, the absolute submission. No higher strain has ever come from human lips. This womanly soul was of the same stock as a Miriam, a Deborah, Jephthah’s daughter; and the same fire burned in her,-utter devotion to Israel because entire consecration to Israel’s God. Religion and patriotism were to her inseparable. What was her individual life compared with her people’s weal and her God’s will? She was ready without a murmur to lay her young radiant life down. Such ecstasy of willing self-sacrifice raises its subject above all fears and dissolves all hindrances. It may be wrought out in uneventful details of our small lives, and may illuminate these as truly as it sheds imperishable lustre over the lovely figure standing in the palace court, and waiting for life or death at the will of a sensual tyrant.
The scene there need not detain us. We can fancy Esther’s beating heart putting fire in her cheek, and her subdued excitement making her beauty more splendid as she stood. What a contrast between her and the arrogant king on his throne! He was a voluptuary, ruined morally by unchecked licence,-a monster, as he could hardly help being, of lust, self will, and caprice. She was at that moment an incarnation of self-sacrifice and pure enthusiasm. The blind world thought that he was the greater; but how ludicrous his condescension, how vulgar his pomp, how coarse his kindness, how gross his prodigal promises by the side of the heroine of faith, whose life he held in his capricious hand!
How amazed the king would have been if he had been told that one of his chief titles to be remembered would be that moment’s interview! Ahasuerus is the type of swollen self-indulgence, which always degrades and coarsens; Esther is the type of self-sacrifice which as uniformly refines, elevates, and arrays with new beauty and power. If we would reach the highest nobleness possible to us, we must stand with Esther at the gate, and not envy or imitate Ahasuerus on his gaudy throne. ‘He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for My sake and the gospel’ s, the same shall find it.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Mordecai's Appeal to Esther to Save her Countrymen
Mordecai's Appeal to Esther to Save her Countrymen
1. When Mordecai perceived] His position at the door of the palace (Est_2:21) would enable him to obtain early intelligence.
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2. Even before] better, 'as far as before.' The LXX adds, 'and stopped.'
6. The street] RV 'the broad place': and so in Est_6:9, Est_6:11.
11. One law of his] RV 'one law for him': i.e. who approached the king without leave given.
14. Then shall there enlargement, etc.] RV 'Then shall relief,' etc. Mordecai's speech, though no mention is made in it of God, nevertheless breathes a spirit of trust in His Providence, and expresses a conviction that help will come from some unperceived quarter.
But thou.. destroyed] Divine judgment would overtake her if she neglected her duty to her countrymen. Whether.. as this] i.e. who knows whether thou hast not been raised to the throne by God for the express purpose of averting the dangers threatening at the present crisis?
16. Fast ye for me] Fasting was an accompaniment of prayer (cp. Ezr_8:23; Neh_1:4), and Esther's request was for united prayer on her behalf. If I perish, I perish] Esther proceeded on her dangerous venture in a spirit of resignation.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v3 and many lay
and many lay
Heb. sackcloth and ashes were laid under many. Isa 58:5; Dan 9:3.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. The great lamentations of the Jews (Est 4:1-3)
THE CONSTERNATION OF THE JEWS -- MORDECAI AND ESTHER
CHAPTER 4
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1. The great lamentations of the Jews (Est 4:1-3)
2. Esther’s discovery (Est 4:4-9)
3. Esther’s helplessness (Est 4:10-12)
4. Mordecai’s answer (Est 4:13-14)
5. Esther’s decision (Est 4:15-17)
Est 4:1-3. When Mordecai heard of what had been done and the plan to exterminate his people became known to him he rent his clothes. This and the putting on of sackcloth and ashes were the outward expressions of the most intense grief. The sackcloth was a coarse hair-cloth of a black color. Then his bitter cry and wailing was heard in the midst of the city. Because of the sackcloth, which was also used as a sign of mourning over the dead among the Persians, it was regarded as unclean, and inasmuch as the palace of the king was looked upon as a clean and holy place, Mordecai could not enter the king’s gate. He had to stand outside the wall. And throughout the provinces as the proclamation became known and was read by the condemned race, there was the same weeping and wailing with fasting. Prayer unquestionably was also connected with this grief.
Est 4:4-9. Esther in the secluded portion of the palace knew nothing of the great edict which had gone forth. Her maids and chamberlains, whom she may have used to keep in touch with her uncle, then informed her that Mordecai was missing inside of the gate and that he was sitting outside in a most pitiable condition, weeping and wailing. How this report must have shocked Esther! She was exceedingly grieved and then sent raiment to Mordecai. This was according to Persian custom in connection with mourning over the dead that the nearest relations should send the mourner new garments, to put these on instead of the sackcloth. The Jews must have conformed to some of these customs. Esther thought that some one of the family of Mordecai had died. But Mordecai refused the garments for he was not mourning over death. This must have mystified Esther still more. She therefore sent Hathach, one of the king’s chamberlains, her personal attendant, to Mordecai to find out the cause of his mourning.
And Hathach went forth. Mordecai told him of Haman’s plot. As he possessed a copy of the decree he gave it to Hathach to deliver to Esther and then Mordecai’s message to Esther. “To charge her that she should go in unto the king, to make supplication unto him, and to make request before him, for her people.” He did not say “for this people” but “for her people.” This made known to Hathach Esther’s Jewish origin. Mordecai knew the great favor Esther had found before the king and he hoped that her supplication would avert the doom of the race. There is nothing said of Mordecai calling upon God, no record of his supplications to the God of Abraham. Undoubtedly he did call on Him. This is in accord with the character of the people; they are seen as out of the land and out of touch with the Lord. Yet Jehovah in unchanging mercy watcheth over them. And Hathach delivered the message.
Est 4:10-12. Esther sent the answer. Mordecai heard the alarming news that the king was unapproachable. Esther herself had not seen his face for a whole month. To enter the king’s presence unbidden would mean sure death. Death to all “except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that he may live.” Esther thus informed Mordecai that she is subject to the same law, and if she transgresseth it, no exception would be made, though she be the queen.
Est 4:13-14. Mordecai’s answer to Esther is a sublime one. It would have been quite natural for Mordecai to say “If thou canst not save all the people, at least save me, and the house of thy father, for thou belongest to the unassailable house of the king.” He does not think of his personal interest and safety; it is the salvation of his people which is upon his heart. He knows that Esther is in a position not only to be saved herself, but also to save her people. He gives her to understand if she does not act now and if she holds her peace deliverance for the Jews would be granted through another source. She would lose a great opportunity and she and her father’s house would perish. In these words Mordecai expressed his deep conviction that the Jewish people cannot perish. He knew the history of the past and trusted God that He would find a way out at this time also. And he believed more than this, that Providence had put her on the throne just to effect the deliverance: “Who knoweth whether thou art not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” “The answer of Mordecai is a masterpiece of eloquence. He who loved and cherished Esther as a daughter, seeks now that she should risk her life for the deliverance of Israel. He wills it, because he believes in the deliverance; because he draws from the history of Israel the assurance that as a race they cannot become extinct, and because he sees in the exaltation of Esther the divine purpose to use her in the deliverance. He encourages her to act and to risk her life and this he did by stimulating her faith in an overruling providence and that therefore she had nothing to fear.”
Est 4:15-17. She responded to this eloquent appeal; her believing heart had laid hold on the suggestion of her uncle. The Jews are to be gathered together in Shushan, she requests, for three days and three nights, neither to eat nor to drink. She would do the same with her maidens. “And so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law, and if I perish, I perish.”
Fasting in the Old Testament is always the symbolic form of prayer; it cannot be disassociated from prayer. In giving this command she expressed her dependence on God and put Him first before attempting to go in to the king. And then her noble word--If I perish, I perish. Her faith measured up to Mordecai’s expectation. She is ready to sacrifice herself in order to save her people. How it reminds us of Him who did more than say, “If I perish, I perish,” who gave Himself and took upon Himself the curse of the law. And Mordecai did according to all that Esther had commanded him.
Typical Application
In the weeping, and wailing of Mordecai and the Jews, the rent clothes, the sackcloth and the ashes, we have a prophetic foreshadowing of the earnest turning to God of the Jewish remnant during the end of this age. How vividly Joel speaks of this man in the name of Jehovah. “Therefore also now saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting and with weeping, and with mourning” (Joe 2:12). And then comes for them the final deliverance as revealed by Joel and foreshadowed in the deliverance of the book of Esther. Mordecai’s faith and Esther’s noble decision are equally typical of the trust and confidence of that godly portion of the Jewish people who will pass through the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jer 30:4) and who will be delivered out of it.
As we pointed out in the previous chapter, the great proclamation typifies what God has said as to the race of sinners, that the wages of sin is death. “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.” The whole race is therefore under condemnation. And the Jews read this awful proclamation and reading they believed, and believing what was written they gave expression to their grief in fasting and turning to God. Alas! that God’s proclamation telling the sinner of his dreadful condition, of the death and wrath which hangs over him is less believed than the proclamation of the Persian enemy of the Jews. Yet to know and to enjoy real salvation and deliverance, the realization of our real condition as lost sinners is eminently necessary.
As already stated, Esther is a faint type of our Lord in that she was willing to sacrifice herself in behalf of her people; while He gave that blessed life and died for that nation (Joh 12:27).
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 10 The Mourning of the Jews
The Mourning of the Jews
v. 1. When Mordecai perceived, found out about, all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, in token of his deep grief, and put on sackcloth, a garment of haircloth next to his skin, with ashes, which he strewed over his head and clothing, and went out into the midst of the city, openly in the streets, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry, concealing his deep distress from no one, but rather proclaiming it publicly;
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v. 2. and came even before the king’s gate, to the open place before the royal palace; for none might enter into the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth, while bearing the dress and the disfigurements of mourning.
v. 3. And in every province, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing, for according to the decree of the king there seemed to be no escape from the threatened doom; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes, for they felt just as Mordecai did.
v. 4. So Esther’s maids and her chamberlains, the eunuchs in charge of the royal harem, came and told it her, they brought her the news, Mordecai’s behavior, with which he had purposely drawn attention to himself, probably suggesting to them that he desired them to do so. Then was the queen exceedingly grieved, filled with great anxiety, although her nationality had not yet been revealed in the palace; and she sent raiment to clothe Mordecai, proper clothes, in which he might enter the palace grounds, and to take away his sackcloth from him; but he received it not, chiefly because he wanted to communicate with her in private, lest she divulge her secret.
v. 5. Then called Esther for Hatach, one of the king’s chamberlains, whom he had appointed to attend upon her, a eunuch set apart for her service alone, and gave him a commandment to Mordecai to know what it was and why it was, she wanted detailed information explaining his strange behavior.
v. 6. So Hatach went forth to Mordecai unto the street of the city which was before the king’s gate.
v. 7. And Mordecai told him of all that had happened unto him, the entire plan of Haman with its motive, and of the sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king’s treasuries for the Jews to destroy them, emphasizing this despicable sordidness in order to arouse the indignation of Esther all the more.
v. 8. Also, he gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given at Shushan to destroy them, as it was posted in the city, to show it unto Esther and to declare it unto her, give her an explanation of its import and significance, and to charge her that she should go in unto the king, to make supplication unto him, and to make request before him for her people, to entreat or petition relief and deliverance for her people, if necessary, by revealing her nationality. Mordecai’s plan depended upon the depth of the king’s fondness for Esther, of which he felt sure.
v. 9. And Hatach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai. It is in times of great distress and anxiety that the believers turn to the Lord with sighing and entreaty, begging Him for deliverance from all their enemies. And the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 6, 9, 13, 15 learned of all that had been done
learned of all that had been done
"found out about those letters"
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tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes
These acts are signs of severe sadness. AT: "tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes to show his grief" (See: Symbolic Action)
province
A province is a large area into which some countries are divided for the purposes of government. See how you translated this in Esther 1:1.
there was great mourning among the Jews
"the Jews mourned greatly"
Many of them lay in sackcloth and ashes
"Many of them were on the ground, dressed in sackcloth and sitting in ashes"
translationWords
Mordecai
sackcloth
king
gate
command
decree
Jew
fast
lament
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 8, 11, 13, 16 4:1 Mordecai’s dramatic response showed extreme grief and mourning…
4:1 Mordecai’s dramatic response showed extreme grief and mourning (see 2 Sam 1:11; Ezra 9; Jon 3:5-9).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.