4:1 Now when Mordecai became aware of all that had been done, he 4 tore his garments and put on sackcloth and ashes. He went out into the city, crying out in a loud 5 and bitter voice. 4:2 But he went no further than the king’s gate, for no one was permitted to enter the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth. 4:3 Throughout each and every province where the king’s edict and law were announced 6 there was considerable 7 mourning among the Jews, along with fasting, weeping, and sorrow. 8 Sackcloth and ashes were characteristic 9 of many. 4:4 When Esther’s female attendants and her eunuchs came and informed her about Mordecai’s behavior, 10 the queen was overcome with anguish. Although she sent garments for Mordecai to put on so that he could remove his sackcloth, he would not accept them.
18:14 A person’s spirit 11 sustains him through sickness –
but who can bear 12 a crushed spirit? 13
31:15 The Lord says,
“A sound is heard in Ramah, 14
a sound of crying in bitter grief.
It is the sound of Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted, because her children are gone.” 15
1 tn Heb “arose, stood”; which here suggests that they stood by him in his time of grief.
2 tn Heb “and he said, ‘Indeed I will go down to my son mourning to Sheol.’” Sheol was viewed as the place where departed spirits went after death.
3 tn Heb “his”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
4 tn Heb “Mordecai.” The pronoun (“he”) was used in the translation for stylistic reasons. A repetition of the proper name here is redundant in terms of contemporary English style.
5 tn Heb “great.”
6 tn Heb “reached” (so NAB, NLT); KJV, NASB, NIV “came”; TEV “wherever the king’s proclamation was made known.”
7 tn Heb “great” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the Jews went into deep mourning.”
8 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.
9 tn Heb “were spread to many”; KJV, NIV “many (+ people NLT) lay in sackcloth and ashes.”
10 tn The words “about Mordecai’s behavior” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in translation for the sake of clarity. Cf. NIV, NLT “about Mordecai”; TEV, CEV “what Mordecai was doing.”
11 tn Heb “the spirit of a man.” Because the verb of this clause is a masculine form, some have translated this line as “with spirit a man sustains,” but that is an unnecessary change.
12 sn This is a rhetorical question, asserting that very few can cope with depression.
13 sn The figure of a “crushed spirit” (ASV, NAB, NCV, NRSV “a broken spirit,” comparing depression to something smashed or crushed) suggests a broken will, a loss of vitality, despair, and emotional pain. In physical sickness one can fall back on the will to live; but in depression even the will to live is gone.
14 sn Ramah is a town in Benjamin approximately five miles (8 km) north of Jerusalem. It was on the road between Bethel and Bethlehem. Traditionally, Rachel’s tomb was located near there at a place called Zelzah (1 Sam 10:2). Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin and was very concerned about having children because she was barren (Gen 30:1-2) and went to great lengths to have them (Gen 30:3, 14-15, 22-24). She was the grandmother of Ephraim and Manasseh which were two of the major tribes in northern Israel. Here Rachel is viewed metaphorically as weeping for her “children,” the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, who had been carried away into captivity in 722
15 tn Or “gone into exile” (cf. v. 16), though some English versions take this as meaning “dead” (e.g., NCV, CEV, NLT), presumably in light of Matt 2:18.
16 tn Or “the Judeans”; Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the friends, acquaintances, and relatives of Lazarus or his sisters who had come to mourn, since the Jewish religious authorities are specifically mentioned as a separate group in John 11:46-47. See also the notes on the phrase “the Jewish leaders” in v. 8 and “the Jewish people of the region” in v. 19.
17 tn Grk “her”; the referent (Mary) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
18 tn Grk “Mary”; the proper name (Mary) has been replaced with the pronoun (her) in keeping with conventional English style, to avoid repetition.
19 tn Or “to mourn” (referring to the loud wailing or crying typical of public mourning in that culture).