Esther 4:3

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; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

Ver. 3. And in every province] Heb. In every province, and province, &c., not only in Shushan, which, say the Hebrews, was called Elam Hammedina, but throughout the king's dominions.

Whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree] The latter was irrevocable, and therefore more dreadful.

There was great mourning among the Jews] Not murmuring or mutinying, or meditating revenge against the king and Haman. Not casting away their confidence in God, or committing all to fate and blind fortune. Not crying out of religion, as unhappy, to the professors, (ω τλημων αρετη, said he in the story. Oh miserable virtue! Oh practice of no profit! &c., Brutus apud Dion). Not taking up arms or betaking themselves to flight; (how should poor galley slaves at this day flee out of the middle of Turkey?) prayers and tears were the weapons of these condemned captives and prisoners. It troubled them exceedingly (as well it might), that through fearfulness and negligence they had not, before this, gone back to their own country, with Zerubbabel or some other, when they had good leave to have gone with their brethren; and God himself cried out unto them, "Ho, ho, come forth," &c., Zechariah 2:6. "Arise, depart; this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction," Micah 2:10. This was now a bodkin at their hearts; like as it shall be one day to those in hell, to think, we might have been delivered.

And fasting] The word signifieth an abstinence from food and sustenance, either a toto, totally, as 2 Samuel 12:16, or at least a tanto eta tali, partially, as Daniel 10:2,3. Hence, it is called a day of restraint, Nηστεια, Joel 2:15. Hence, Zechariah 8:19, they separated themselves, viz. from work, food, and delights, for the furtherance of their repentance, and the enforcing of their prayers. Preces nobis ieiuniis alendum, et quasi saginandum, saith one, our prayers must be pampered and grain fed with fasting. A practice in use, not among Jews and Christians only, but among Egyptian priests, Persian magi, and Indian wizards of old, and Turks to this day when they are in any great fear of pressure.

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! Psalms 6:8, 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 Phoenix (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, Psalms 91:13 .

And many lay in sackcloth and ashes] As many as were more deeply affected with their sins, and the sad consequents thereof. David lay on the bare ground, χαμαικοιτης, 2 Samuel 12:16; these, and those Joel 1:13, lodged in sackcloth and ashes, that they might watch as well as fast. See how they go linked together, Mark 13:33. See Esther 4:16 .