that these days of Purim should be observed at their appointed seasons, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther obligated them, and as they had obligated themselves and their offspring, with regard to their fasts and their lamenting.
Esther 9:31 turns a rescue into a calendar. Two days in the month of Adar are set at a fixed time each year. Mordecai and Queen Esther confirm them, and the people take them up for themselves and their children. The verse carries an odd note too. The fasting and the crying of the crisis go into the record beside the feasting. And God is never named.
A feast the people bound on themselves
The obligation runs in two directions. Mordecai and Esther lay it down, and the people accept it as their own — not for one generation, but for every one that follows.
Leslie M. GrantThe Jews set up the feast of Purim and laid it on themselves and their descendants. They took on the urgent responsibility of celebrating these days every year. The feast continued in every family of the Jews, wherever they were, so that the memory of this great occasion would not fade from their minds.
These days also keep alive the fasting and the crying, not only the rescue. And the account ends by looking forward.
H. L. RossierEsther and Mordecai are in perfect harmony with the people. What Esther and Mordecai establish, the people establish for themselves (v. 31). Every generation celebrates what was "written in the book" (v. 32) on the occasion of their fasting and their cry. So ends this account. It leads us to the dawn of the glorious time that follows deliverance, and it leads us in prophecy to the threshold of the millennial reign of Christ.
The word of the man once ignored
By this point in the book the Persian king has faded from view. The letters that fix the feast carry Mordecai's name, and the people submit to them.
H. L. RossierThe king of the nations no longer appears on the scene except in dependence on Esther and Mordecai. They alone are in question until the end of the chapter. 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 exalted him in the sight of all.
A new feast, added to the old ones
Purim was not one of the feasts of the law. It grew out of a rescue that came with no miracle at all.
William KellyHow this danger was turned aside by secret providence, without a miracle, and even turned into the destruction of their enemies, is the story of this book… So here is the ground of a feast, added to the original feasts of the law. That feast carried its own special record of a merciful intervention, on a day so evil that everything most excellent and cherished by faith went unmentioned.
Kelly finds the same silence at the very point the feast is set up:
William KellyNotice again that the book keeps to the character stamped deeply on it. Even now it does not name Him — the One whom it would normally be the highest duty to proclaim.
Why God is left unnamed
Grant ties that silence to the state of the people who were keeping the feast.
Leslie M. GrantIn all of these instructions it seems strange that God is not mentioned. Yet it is clear that God's hand of protecting care had been over the Jews, to deliver them from their enemies. Very likely the Jews did include God's name in their celebration. But Scripture says nothing of this, because the Jews at that time showed no evidence of obedience to God. In effect He was disowning them in public, while caring for them behind the scenes.
What the fixed days point toward
The words chosen for these days say what they mark. They also reach far past Esther's own time.
Michael HardtThe language of verse 22 is beautiful and 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", "the month that was turned to them from sorrow to joy", and "from mourning into a good day"… Finally, the time of Jacob's trouble (Jer. 30:7) will be over. The Jews — long scattered and persecuted — will "rest from their enemies", and Israel will enter its sabbath rest.
Summary
- Rescue — no miracle, and no name of God in the decree, yet His care ran under the whole story.
- Record — the fasting and the crying were written down with the joy, so the feast never forgets the trouble.
- Rhythm — the two days are set at a fixed time, so each generation hands the rescue on instead of letting it fade.
- Received — Mordecai and Esther lay the obligation down, and the people take it up for themselves and their children.
- Rest — the month turned from sorrow to gladness points to a greater rest still ahead for Israel.