And when Mordecai knew all that was done, Mordecai rent his garments, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and bitter cry,
Haman's decree to wipe out the Jews now carries the king's seal. It has gone out to all 127 provinces of Persia, and this verse is the first answer to it. Mordecai's torn clothes and bitter cry raise the question the whole book turns on: where is God when His name is never spoken and no escape is left?
Torn clothes, sackcloth and ashes spoke a language everyone understood. The same custom stopped Mordecai at the palace gate.
When Mordecai heard what had been done, and learned of the plan to wipe out his people, he tore his clothes. Tearing his clothes and putting on sackcloth and ashes were the outward signs of the most intense grief. The sackcloth was a coarse hair-cloth of a black colour. Then his bitter cry and wailing rang out in the middle of the city. The Persians also used sackcloth as a sign of mourning over the dead, so they treated it as unclean. They looked on the king's palace as a clean and holy place. So Mordecai could not enter the king's gate. He had to stand outside the wall.
But there is more here than sorrow. One writer names the attitude behind the sackcloth, and is careful not to claim more than the text says.
Mordecai of course very soon learned of this satanic plot of Haman against Israel. He tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes as a sign of humiliation and repentance. Whether he prayed to God we are not told, but he cried out bitterly in the middle of the city.
Persian law gave no legal way back, and that is why the cry is so bitter. But the cry did not vanish into the air.
Their doom was sealed. So it appeared. All the more so because one rule of the Persian empire never changed: a law once passed was never revoked — "according to the law of the Medes and Persians that alters not." Nothing then, it seemed, could have saved the people. The master of 127 provinces had given his royal word. He signed it with his seal and sent it by messengers through the whole length and breadth of the empire. The day was fixed; the people named. Destruction seemed certain. But Mordecai tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth, goes into the middle of the city, and cries with a loud and bitter cry. God's name is not written here and does not appear, yet God's ears heard him all the same.
Many readers treat the missing name of God as a flaw in this book. One writer argues the opposite: the silence is the design.
Perhaps there is no more remarkable development of the great truth of divine providence in the Bible. Notice a striking feature: the name of God does not appear throughout. Ignorant men have supposed this to be a defect. In truth, if the book named God openly all the way through, it would be seriously spoiled. The prime object is to show His hand secretly working where His name could not rightly be proclaimed. Far from being a fault, this is one of the most strengthening thoughts we can have, once we remember that we deal with the same kind of secret providence every day.
Mordecai mourns like a man with no remedy, yet he expects rescue all along. Two other men show the same pairing.
On the issue of the fatal decree Mordecai fasts and mourns in sackcloth. But all the while he counts on deliverance. Such a combination is full of moral glory. Elijah gave a sample of it in his day. He knew the rain was at hand, yet he casts himself down on the earth and puts his face between his knees, as one in "effectual fervent prayer". The Lord Himself gives another sample of this. He knows and testifies that He is about to raise Lazarus from sleep, the sleep of death; but He weeps as He approaches the grave. So here with Mordecai. He will not put off his mourning. He refuses comfort while the decree stands against his people. Yet he counts, surely counts, on their deliverance one way or another.
The grief does not stop with Mordecai. It spreads through every province, and one writer sees in it a shadow of something worse ahead.
Mordecai goes out into the city with his garments torn, pouring out his desolation with a "loud and bitter cry." He no longer even has access to the king's gate, for the king will not tolerate mourning and weeping in his presence. Everywhere, in the provinces, there is mourning, fasting, weeping and wailing among the Jews. Esther herself is in great anguish. Do we not see here a weak early image "of the great tribulation" in the future?
- Sealed decree. Persian law could never be revoked. It named the day and named the people, so destruction looked certain.
- Open grief. Torn clothes, black sackcloth and ashes were the plain language of deepest sorrow. The same custom kept Mordecai outside the king's gate.
- Hidden God. His name is missing from the book on purpose. That way we see His hand working in secret where His name could not be proclaimed.
- Steady hope. Mordecai keeps mourning, and keeps expecting rescue. Grief and confidence stand together in one man.
- Shadow ahead. One writer sees in the mourning of every province a faint early picture of the great tribulation still to come.
and came even before the king's gate; for none might enter into the king's gate clothed with sackcloth.
Haman's decree has gone out, and Mordecai meets it with open grief — but the palace rules bar sackcloth from the gate. That small rule raises large questions: what sorrow means, where it may be shown, and what a man does when the one place of help is shut to him.
The ban had a reason. It lay in what the cloth stood for, and in what the palace claimed to be.
The sackcloth was a coarse hair-cloth of a black colour. Then his bitter cry and wailing was heard in the middle of the city. The Persians also used sackcloth as a sign of mourning over the dead, so they counted it unclean. And since they looked on the king's palace as a clean and holy place, Mordecai could not enter the king's gate. He had to stand outside the wall.
Mordecai's place is exact: at the gate, but not inside it. God's name never appears in this book, yet Kelly points to where the cry was heard.
Mordecai tears his clothes and puts on sackcloth. He goes into the middle of the city and cries with a loud and bitter cry (Esther 4:1). God's name is not written here and does not appear, but God's ears heard all the same. Mordecai came to the king's gate, for no one was allowed to enter the gate clothed in sackcloth. He came before it, not within it, and Esther heard.
The shut gate says something about the throne behind it. A king who will not have weeping near him leaves a mourner with nowhere to go.
Mordecai, with his garments torn, covered in sackcloth and ashes, goes out into the city, giving vent to his desolation with a "loud and bitter cry." He no longer even has access to the king's gate, for mourning and weeping are not tolerated in his presence… But how can we speak of resource, when there is none, and when any access to a righteously angered God is intercepted?
Rossier sees here a faint early picture of the great tribulation still to come. The head of the nations hands his people over to a merciless enemy, and they have no one left to run to.
Mordecai's mourning was not despair. Bellett finds two things in him that seldom meet in one heart.
He will not put off his mourning. He refuses to be comforted while the decree stands against his people. Yet all along he counts, and counts firmly, on their deliverance one way or another. This is another of those combinations that are necessary to character, or moral glory.
Kelly agrees, and names the person Mordecai was counting on:
The report of it soon reached the queen, as it was meant to do. Mordecai counted fully on relief and deliverance through her. Until it came, he refused even her plea to take off the sackcloth and ashes.
Everything here is visible: torn clothes, ashes, a cry in the street. What is missing is any word about prayer, and commentators differ on how to read that silence. Gaebelein takes prayer to be part of the grief; Grant treats the silence as deliberate.
Whether he prayed to God we are not told. But he cried out bitterly in the middle of the city, and came to the outside of the king's gate. He was forbidden to come into the gate clothed in sackcloth… No doubt God leaves this unclear on purpose, because of Israel's unfaithfulness to Him.
The torn clothes and ashes are also read as a picture of something still ahead.
In the weeping and wailing of Mordecai and the Jews, the torn clothes, the sackcloth and the ashes, we have a prophetic foreshadowing of the earnest turning to God of the Jewish remnant at the end of this age… Mordecai's faith and Esther's brave decision are just as typical of the trust and confidence of that godly part of the Jewish people. They will pass through the time of Jacob's trouble and be delivered out of it.
- Decree. A sealed royal order condemned a whole people. Mordecai answered with the plainest signs of grief: torn clothes, ashes, and a bitter cry in the street.
- Dress. Sackcloth was coarse black hair-cloth worn for the dead. The Persians counted it unclean, and the palace counted itself clean, so the cloth itself barred the man.
- Distance. He came before the gate, not within it. That was as close to the throne as sorrow could get — the very state of a people with no way in.
- Determination. He would not take the sackcloth off, yet he counted on rescue the whole time. Mourning and confidence held together is what the writers call moral glory.
- Deliverance. Commentators read the scene as a small picture of a coming tribulation. In it a remnant turns back to God in ashes, and God brings them out of it.
And 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 many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
The king's letters have gone out. Wherever they arrive, a whole people falls into mourning, fasting and sackcloth. This verse raises two hard questions — why did the Jews see no way out, and where was God in a book that never once names Him?
The mourning fits the threat. One writer points to the man behind the letters.
In Haman we see a man set on destroying the people of God completely. He had put up a gallows, fifty cubits high, to get rid of the man he hated most — the man God had decreed would be the saviour of His people. He had also sent out a decree to wipe out the nation of Israel... Haman had indeed brought the fear of death on all God's people.
Persian law could not be undone, and that is what made the grief so total.
Their doom was sealed. So it appeared. All the more, because the Persian empire always held to one rule: a law once passed was never taken back — "according to the law of the Medes and Persians that alters not." Nothing, it seemed, could have saved the people. The master of 127 provinces had given his royal word. He signed it with his seal and sent it out by messengers across the whole empire. The day was fixed; the people named.
Many of the mourners lay in ashes. Across the Bible, ashes carry a settled meaning.
Ashes, mostly from burnt wood, were a sign of sorrow or mourning. People put them on the head, 2 Samuel 13:19, or on the body with sackcloth, Esther 4:1; Jeremiah 6:26. They also spread them on a couch to lie on, Esther 4:3; Jonah 3:6. To eat ashes expresses great sorrow, Psalm 102:9. To be reduced to ashes is a picture of complete destruction.
The sackcloth had a meaning of its own.
Putting on sackcloth and ashes was the outward expression of the most intense grief. The sackcloth was a coarse hair-cloth, black in colour.
The verse names mourning, fasting, weeping and lamenting. Prayer is not among them. Commentators differ on what to make of that silence. One reads it as deliberate:
At the same time, everywhere Haman's decree had gone, the Jews fasted with weeping and wailing, many dressed in sackcloth. Again, the text says nothing about whether they prayed to God (v. 3). No doubt God leaves this unclear on purpose, because of Israel's unfaithfulness to Him.
Another is sure prayer was there:
Throughout the provinces the proclamation became known. As the condemned people read it, there was the same weeping and wailing with fasting. Prayer was without doubt joined to this grief as well.
The silence is not accidental. It has to do with where these Jews had chosen to live.
Many Jews chose to remain in Persia. If they had faith, it was so weak that it gave them no energy to get back to God's appointed place for them. The book of Esther then shows how God dealt with these Jews despite their lack of faith. But people have often noticed that God's name is never mentioned in the book. Why not? Because Israel had not submitted to God's authority. Their condition was such that God did not openly own them as His people.
Ezra 3 shows another group of Jews weeping. The difference is not the tears but what caused them.
In Esther 4:3 there is great mourning, fasting, weeping, and wailing. But how different it is from the weeping of the old men in Ezra 3... The old men weep at the dishonour done to God, at the ruin of His house. The others weep at their own condition and danger. Notice again that these are really the people of God. In their deep trouble they turn to Him, and they fast before Him.
One writer sees this scene, and Esther's own anguish, as a faint picture of a far greater trouble ahead.
Esther herself is in great anguish. Do we not see here a faint early picture "of the great tribulation" still to come...? But how can we speak of help, when there is none, and when every way to a rightly angered God is blocked? The head of the nations does not care about evil. He hands the people over to their fierce, heartless, ruthless enemy. Who is left for them to run to?
And yet the same writer sees what that pressure produced:
Tribulation gives birth to perfect communion in the hearts of these believers. It also brings out every feeling of devotion and self-denial that God can approve and acknowledge... faith — which has nothing to rely on but grace, a grace they are not yet sure of, and do not feel worthy of.
- Hidden people. These Jews had stayed in Persia when the way home was open — faith too weak to move them to God's appointed place.
- Hidden God. Because He could not publicly own them as His people, His name never appears in the book — He works, but unnamed.
- Hidden escape. A Persian law once passed was never revoked. The day was fixed and the people named, and no human power could undo it.
- Hidden prayer. The verse names mourning, fasting, weeping and lamenting. It says nothing about prayer, and commentators differ over why.
- Hidden work. With no way out, faith leans on nothing but grace — and one writer sees here a shadow of the great tribulation still ahead.