The Pulpit Commentary on Esther 9:31

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Fasting and crying remembered amidst feasting and singing.

It is not good to banish from the mind perils and sorrows through which we have passed, and from which we have been delivered. In times of prosperity and rejoicing it is well to keep before us the mutability of all earthly things. Life is a chequered scene, a changing landscape. To-day is unlike yesterday, and unlike to-morrow. Undue elation and undue depression are alike unworthy of the Christian. By remembering past griefs, troubles, and dangers—

I. WE DISPOSE OURSELVES TO HUMILITY. Such was our lot, such our position, such our apprehensions and alarms but a short time since. Let us not then be puffed up with self-satisfaction because the cloud has blown over and the sky is blue again.

II. WE ENCOURAGE GRATITUDE. Who has turned fasting to feasting, and crying to songs? God is our deliverer; he has "turned again our captivity." To him be praise.

III. WE SEASON AND BRIGHTEN OUR JOYS. It is pleasant to look back upon the shipwreck from which we have been rescued, the battle out of which we have come unscathed; it gives a zest to the enjoyments of to-day when we remember the bitterness and the anguish of days gone by.

IV. WE FOSTER A SPIRIT OF DEPENDENCE AND CONFIDENCE IN GOD. Unmixed prosperity is not favourable to spiritual life. "Sweet are the uses of adversity." Remember your complaints and prayers, and how they were heard and answered from above. "He drew you out of many waters." So shall your trust be steadfast and sustaining.

V. WE ENJOY A FORETASTE OF SOME OF THE JOYS OF HEAVEN. When we come to the rest above, we shall look back wonderingly, gratefully, upon the scene of conflict from which we shall then be delivered; it will seem perhaps largely a scene of fasting and of crying. And the retrospect will surely enhance the "pleasures which are for evermore."

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