Esther 4:3

Context
4:3 Throughout each and every province where the king’s edict and law were announced¹ there was considerable² mourning among the Jews, along with fasting, weeping, and sorrow.³ Sackcloth and ashes were characteristic⁴ of many.

Esther 8:17

Context
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 peoples⁵ pretended⁶ to be Jews, because the fear of the Jews had overcome them.⁷

[4:3] ¹tn Heb “reached” (so NAB, NLT); KJV, NASB, NIV “came”; TEV “wherever the king’s proclamation was made known.”

[4:3] ²tn Heb “great” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the Jews went into deep mourning.”

[4:3] ³sn 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.

[4:3] ⁴tn Heb “were spread to many”; KJV, NIV “many (+ people NLT) lay in sackcloth and ashes.”

[8:17] ⁵tn Heb “peoples of the land” (so NASB); NIV “people of other nationalities”; NRSV “peoples of the country.”

[8:17] ⁶tn 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.”

[8:17] ⁷tn Heb “had fallen upon them” (so NRSV); NIV “had seized them.”