Esther 4:3

4:3 Throughout each and every province where the king’s edict and law were announced ¹  there was considerable ²  mourning among the Jews, along with fasting, weeping, and sorrow. ³  Sackcloth and ashes were characteristic ⁴  of many.

Esther 4:14

4:14 “Don’t imagine that because you are part of the king’s household you will be the one Jew ⁵  who will escape. If you keep quiet at this time, liberation and protection for the Jews will appear ⁶  from another source, ⁷  while you and your father’s household perish. It may very well be ⁸  that you have achieved royal status ⁹  for such a time as this!”

Esther 8:17

8:17 Throughout every province and throughout every city where the king’s edict and his law arrived, the Jews experienced happiness and joy, banquets and holidays. Many of the resident peoples ¹⁰  pretended ¹¹  to be Jews, because the fear of the Jews had overcome them. ¹² 

¹ tn Heb “reached” (so NAB, NLT); KJV, NASB, NIV “came”; TEV “wherever the king’s proclamation was made known.”

² tn Heb “great” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the Jews went into deep mourning.”

³ sn Although prayer is not specifically mentioned here, it is highly unlikely that appeals to God for help were not a part of this reaction to devastating news. As elsewhere in the book of Esther, the writer seems deliberately to keep religious actions in the background.

⁴ tn Heb “were spread to many”; KJV, NIV “many (+ people NLT) lay in sackcloth and ashes.”

⁵ tn Heb “from all the Jews”; KJV “more than all the Jews”; NIV “you alone of all the Jews.”

⁶ tn Heb “stand”; KJV, NASB, NIV, NLT “arise.”

⁷ tn Heb “place” (so KJV, NIV, NLT); NRSV “from another quarter.” This is probably an oblique reference to help coming from God. D. J. A. Clines disagrees; in his view a contrast between deliverance by Esther and deliverance by God is inappropriate (Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther [NCBC], 302). But Clines’ suggestion that perhaps the reference is to deliverance by Jewish officials or by armed Jewish revolt is less attractive than seeing this veiled reference as part of the literary strategy of the book, which deliberately keeps God’s providential dealings entirely in the background.

⁸ tn Heb “And who knows whether” (so NASB). The question is one of hope, but free of presumption. Cf. Jonah 3:9.

⁹ tn Heb “have come to the kingdom”; NRSV “to royal dignity”; NIV “to royal position”; NLT “have been elevated to the palace.”

⁹ tn Heb “peoples of the land” (so NASB); NIV “people of other nationalities”; NRSV “peoples of the country.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “were becoming Jews”; NAB “embraced Judaism.” However, the Hitpael stem of the verb is sometimes used of a feigning action rather than a genuine one (see, e.g., 2 Sam 13:5, 6), which is the way the present translation understands the use of the word here (cf. NEB “professed themselves Jews”; NRSV “professed to be Jews”). This is the only occurrence of this verb in the Hebrew Bible, so there are no exact parallels. However, in the context of v. 17 the motivation of their conversion (Heb “the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them”) should not be overlooked. The LXX apparently understood the conversion described here to be genuine, since it adds the words “they were being circumcised and” before “they became Jews.”

¹¹ tn Heb “had fallen upon them” (so NRSV); NIV “had seized them.”