When Esther's young women and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed. She sent garments to clothe Mordecai, so that he might take off his sackcloth, but he would not accept them.
A decree of death against the Jews has gone out, and Mordecai mourns outside the palace gate in sackcloth. Esther hears of his grief and tries to fix what she can see — so why does he refuse the one kindness she can send?
A queen who grieves without knowing why
Her servants bring word of Mordecai's condition. Her sorrow is real, but it is sorrow in the dark.
William KellyMordecai came to the king's gate, because no one could enter the gate dressed in sackcloth. He came in front of it, not inside it, and Esther heard. They told her, and the queen was exceedingly grieved, little knowing the cause of the grief.
The verse names who brought the news: her young women and her eunuchs. They were her household servants, and perhaps her only line to Mordecai.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinEsther, shut away in her part of the palace, knew nothing of the great decree that had gone out. Her maids and palace officials, whom she may have used to keep in touch with her uncle, told her that Mordecai was missing from inside the gate, and that he was sitting outside in a pitiful state, weeping and wailing.
What the garments meant
The clothes she sent tell us what she assumed had happened.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinSending clothes followed the Persian custom for mourning the dead. Under that custom the closest relatives sent the mourner new clothes to put on instead of the sackcloth. The Jews must have followed some of these customs. Esther thought that someone in Mordecai's family had died. But Mordecai refused the clothes, because he was not mourning a death.
She was treating a death in the family. He was mourning a whole nation's death sentence, still to come.
A refusal with a purpose
His sackcloth was a signal, and he kept it on until it had done its work.
William KellyThe report of it soon reached the queen, as it was meant to do. Mordecai fully counted on relief and deliverance through her. Until it came, he refused even her own plea to take off his sackcloth and ashes.
Mourning and confidence held together
Mordecai grieves like a man with no hope, and acts like a man who is sure of rescue. Both are true of him at once.
J. G. BellettHe will not put off his mourning. He refuses all comfort while the decree stands against his people. Yet he counts on their deliverance, surely counts on it, one way or another. This is another of those combinations that true character, or moral glory, requires.
Why clothes could not touch this sorrow
Esther's remedy addressed the appearance of trouble. The trouble itself was a written, unchangeable word.
C E StuartThe king's decree, the written word, confronted men. It was a word that would not be changed. It was a word that must be carried out, unless someone found a way of deliverance in time. Haman's hatred by itself would have caused no sorrow. The decree of death made all the difference, because it came from the man who held the power to kill.
Change the man's coat and nothing changes. The sentence still stands.
A picture of trouble with no visible way out
Some writers see this chapter as a preview of a far greater distress. In that trouble every normal way of help is closed.
H. L. RossierDo we not see here a faint early picture of "the great tribulation" still to come? Matthew 24:21-22 describes it as a time "such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be." And "if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved." But how can we speak of a way out when there is none, and when the way to a rightly angry God is blocked? … When the ruler of the nations, careless about evil, hands the people over to their fierce, heartless, ruthless enemy, who can they run to? There is not a single ray of hope!
By the empire's own rules the case was closed. But a closed case is not the end of this story.
William KellyTheir doom was sealed. So it appeared. All the more so, because it was always one of the rules of the Persian empire that a law once passed was never revoked: the law of the Medes and Persians does not change. Nothing, it seemed, could have saved the people. … God's name is not written here and does not appear, but God's ears heard all the same.
Summary
- Decree. A written sentence of death started this grief, and no one could change that word.
- Distance. Palace walls kept Esther from the news. Her servants brought her the grief without the reason for it.
- Comfort. She sent clothes, the usual kindness for a person mourning a death, and so answered the wrong grief.
- Refusal. Mordecai kept the sackcloth on because it was his message to her, and he counted on deliverance through her.
- Hope. He mourned like a man with no hope and expected rescue at the same time. God's name never appears in the story, but God heard.