And Mordecai recorded these things and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far,
The fighting is over, the enemies have fallen, and the Jews have rested — and now Mordecai takes up a pen. What he writes, and where he sends it, turns one rescue into a feast a whole people would keep for generations.
Letters that carried the joy
Mordecai's letters reached Jews near and far. One writer follows the letters and what came of them.
William KellyAnd Mordecai writes and sends letters to all the provinces, and so the joy is spread throughout the whole earth. Not only that, but the Jews, as we are told, founded a feast upon this remarkable intervention of the providence of God.
What the letters asked them to remember
Mordecai fixed two days in the year. The names he gave them describe a reversal.
Michael HardtVerse 22 uses language full of meaning. The Jews were to celebrate the 14th and the 15th day "as the days on which the Jews rested from their enemies" and "the month that was turned to them from sorrow to joy", and "from mourning into a good day".
(The ESV renders verse 22 as the days the Jews "got relief from their enemies," and the month "turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday.")
A people ruled by a written word
The king has slipped into the background. Mordecai writes, and the people do what the writing says.
H. L. RossierThe king of the nations now appears only as one who depends on Esther and Mordecai. From here to the end of the chapter, only they are in question. It is Mordecai who, like the future Messiah, orders joy and rest. "The Jews undertook to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai had written to them." They submit to the written word of a man who had been unknown and ignored by everyone, including themselves. God had now raised him high in the sight of all.
The name that is still missing
The letter that founded the feast never names God. One writer sets that silence beside what the feast later became.
William KellyHere again the book keeps the character stamped on it. Even now He is not named — the One whom it would normally and naturally be the highest duty to proclaim. Yet man's own word shows the full difference: the Talmud lays down that at the feast of Purim a man should drink until he does not know the difference between "Blessed be Mordecai" and "Cursed be Haman." Judaism, and Christendom where Christ is ignored, each sink into the driest ditch of heathenism. Both dare to approve a drunken carnival where there had been a holy feast.
A feast of the Jews, not a feast of the Lord
A feast can carry the Lord's name or the people's. One writer asks whose feast this is.
Leslie M. GrantSo the history here speaks of Purim as a feast of the Jews, not a "feast of the Lord." Leviticus 23:1 speaks of "The Feasts of the Lord." But John 2:13 calls the Passover "the Passover of the Jews," and John 7:2 calls another feast of the Lord "the Jews' Feast of Tabernacles." Why? Because it was not primarily the Lord's honour the Jews sought, but their own enjoyment. What sad disrespect for the Lord's feasts!
A memorial that never lapsed
What Mordecai wrote did not fade with the generation that lived it. One writer follows the feast forward, past its own history.
H. L. RossierThe memory of these days is carried on from age to age. This book mentions only one feast, the feast of Purim. It is a new feast, and it will last forever in memory of the deliverance of God's earthly people. There is perfect harmony between Esther and Mordecai and the people. What Esther and Mordecai establish, the people establish for themselves. So ends this account. It brings us to the dawn of the glorious time that follows deliverance, and leads us, as a prophecy, to the threshold of the millennial reign of Christ.
Summary
- Written. Mordecai writes the rescue down. The whole nation then submits to what he wrote.
- Sent. The letters go out to Jews near and far in every province. Joy felt in one city spreads through them all.
- Named. The days carry the name of the change itself: rest from enemies, sorrow turned to joy, mourning turned into a good day.
- Unnamed. One name is missing from the letter: God's. The holy feast later sank into a drunken carnival.
- Kept. What one man wrote became a memorial no generation dropped. Writers see in it the dawn of the rest and joy that follow deliverance.