Esther 4

Mordecai persuades Esther to help defeat Haman

When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai tore his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the middle of the city, crying out with a loud and bitter cry, 2 and came only up to the king’s gate, for no one wearing sackcloth might enter the king’s gate. 3 And in every province, wherever the king’s command and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting and weeping and wailing, and many lay down in sackcloth and ashes.

4 So Esther’s maids and her officials came and told it to her. Then the queen was exceedingly grieved, and she sent garments to clothe Mordecai, and to take away his sackcloth from him. But he did not accept them. 5 Then Esther called for Hatach, one of the king’s officials, whom he had appointed to attend on her, and commanded him concerning Mordecai, to find out what the matter was, and why.

4:5 Esther was isolated in the king’s palace and was not free to come and go.⚜

6 So Hatach went out to Mordecai into the street of the city, which was in front of the king’s gate. 7 And Mordecai told him about everything that had happened to him, and about the sum of money that Haman had promised to pay to the king’s treasuries for the Jews, to destroy them. 8 He also gave him a copy of the writing of the decree that was given at Shushan to destroy them, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her, and to charge her to go to the king, to make supplication to him and to make request before him for her people.

9 And Hatach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai. 10 Again Esther spoke to Hatach, and ordered him to tell Mordecai: 11 “All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, know that any man or woman who goes to the king into the inner court, who has not been called, there is only one law of his: to put the person to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden sceptre, that he may live. And I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days”.

4:11 This reveals the power and cruelty of those ancient despots, and how highly they regarded their royal presence. Compare the behavior of the King of the universe – Matt 11:28; Heb 4:16.⚜

12 And they told Esther’s words to Mordecai. 13 Then Mordecai commanded them to answer Esther: “Do not imagine that being in the king’s house you will escape any more than all the Jews. 14 For if you keep altogether silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s house will be destroyed. And who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

15 Then Esther ordered them to take this answer back to Mordecai: 16 “Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, not eating or drinking for three days, night or day. I also and my maids will also fast, and so I will go in to the king, which is against the law. And if I perish, I perish”.

17 So Mordecai went and acted in accordance with all that Esther had commanded him.