Esther 4:1

And put on sackcloth with ashes That is, he put on a garment of sackcloth or hair, and sprinkled ashes upon his head. And cried with a loud and bitter cry To express his deep sense of the mischief coming upon his people. It was bravely done thus publicly to espouse what he knew to be a righteous cause, and the cause of God, even then when it seemed to be a sinking and desperate cause. The latter Targum upon the book of Esther gives us the following account of Mordecai's behaviour upon this sad occasion: “He made his complaints in the midst of the streets, saying, ‘What a heavy decree is this, which the king and Haman have passed, not against a part of us, but against us all, to root us out of the earth!' Whereupon all the Jews flocked about him, and, having caused the book of the law to be brought to the gate of Shushan, he, being covered with sackcloth, read the words of Deuteronomy 4:30, and then exhorted them to fasting, humiliation, and repentance, after the example of the Ninevites.”