EXPOSITION
MOURNING OF MORDECAI, AND OF THE JEWS GENERALLY, ON HEARING OF THE DECREE (Esther 4:1-17 1-3). Haman had no doubt kept his intentions secret until the king's consent to them was not only granted, but placed beyond his power to recall The Jews first heard of the terrible blow impending over them by the publication of the edict. Then they became acquainted with it quickly enough. The edict was for a while the talk of the town. Placarded openly in some conspicuous and frequented place, every loiterer read it, every gossip spoke of it, every one whom it threatened could with his own eyes see its exact terms. Mordecai soon "perceived all that was done" (Esther 4:1)—perused the edict, understood whence it had originated, was fully aware that he himself and his whole nation stood in the most awful peril. His first impulse was to rend his garments and put on sackcloth and ashes; after which he quitted the environs of the palace, and "went out into the midst of the city," where he gave free vent to his grief and alarm, "crying with a loud and bitter cry." The signs of mourning were not permitted within the walls of the royal residence, and Mordecai could come no nearer than the space before the gate, where he probably sat down in the dust "astonied" (see Ezra 9:4). Nor was he long alone in his sorrow. In every province—and therefore at Susa, no less than elsewhere—"there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing" (Esther 4:3). The proscribed race made bitter lamentation—"lay in sackcloth and ashes," humbled itself before God, and waited. As yet no thought of escape seems to have occurred to any, no resolution to have been taken. Even Mordecai's thoughtful brain was paralysed, and, like the rest, he gave himself up to grief.