Estherchapter 9
32 verses · KJVEsther book hub →
Key verse
To stablish this among them, that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly,
It stands in scene C of the chapter, verses 20 to 28.
The chapter
Chapter summary
On the thirteenth of Adar, the day the enemies of the Jews hoped to have rule over them, 'it was turned to the contrary.' The Jews gather in their cities and no man can withstand them, for the fear of them had fallen upon all the peoples and the rulers helped them because the fear of Mordecai was upon them. Five hundred fall in Shushan with Haman's ten sons, and seventy and five thousand in the provinces. And three times over the text records that 'on the spoil they laid not their hand.' The fourteenth and fifteenth become days of feasting and gladness, 'and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor': Purim, named for Pur, the lot.
Context
History · Mordecai · Esther overview
Where the chapter sits
Esther 9 falls in The deliverance and Purim (chapters 8–10). The counter-edict; the Jews defend themselves; Purim instituted to remember; Mordecai honoured in the king's chronicles.
Purim instituted. The Jews defend themselves; ‘the thing was turned to the contrary’; Purim remembered yearly.
Before it: The reversal, chapters 5–7.
The whole shape of Esther→The world behind this chapter
Esther 9The history
The fighting described is defensive and limited. The Jews strike at those who came to attack them, and the provincial officials, reading the king's second letter and Mordecai's rise, back them rather than the mob. In the empire's cities the whole thing is done in one day; in Susa itself the king grants a second day, which is why the capital finished on the fourteenth while everyone else finished on the thirteenth.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
That one-day difference is why the festival is kept on two dates. Jews in unwalled towns observe the fourteenth of Adar; those in cities walled from ancient times observe the fifteenth, still called Shushan Purim. The rule is spelled out in the Mishnah's tractate on the reading of Esther, and it is still followed, Jerusalem keeps the later day.
Three times the text stops to say that the Jews did not touch the spoil, though the decree allowed it. Hearers who knew their history heard the correction at once: Saul son of Kish had been sent against Amalek and kept the plunder, and lost his kingdom over it. Mordecai's people, facing the descendant of Agag, take nothing.
The name of the festival is a jab. Purim comes from the pur, the lot Haman threw to pick a lucky date for a massacre. The day he chose became the annual party of the people he meant to kill. Its practices are laid down here in plain terms: feasting, sending portions of food to one another, and gifts to the poor.
What it meant to them
This chapter is the reason the book exists. It is the founding document of a holiday, written so that a community scattered across an empire would have one shared day, one shared story, and a fixed obligation to feed the poor while they celebrated.
The lesson it hands its first hearers is not that Jews always win. It is that this deliverance happened, on a date an enemy picked, and must not be forgotten, so the reading of the scroll became the ceremony, and Haman's lot became the name.
Sources cited
- The Mishnah, tractate Megillah (Danby translation)
- Flavius Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews (Whiston translation)
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews & Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
A. The day turned about: the Jews rule over those who hated them
1. (vv. 1-4)
a.(though it was turned to the contrary: The thirteenth of Adar arrives, the day the lot chose eleven months earlier, and the narrator states the book's thesis inside a parenthesis: though it was turned to the contrary, the sentence that occurs nowhere else in Scripture. The enemies' appointed day becomes the Jews' day, no man could withstand them, and the machinery of empire, rulers, lieutenants, deputies and officers, now helps the people it was ordered to destroy, because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them. The reversal runs from heaven's silence to the provincial payroll.
Esther 9:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Esther 9:1
“Now in the twelfth month - What a number of providences, and none of them apparently of an extraordinary nature, concurred to preserve a people so signally, and to all human appearance so inevitably, doomed to destruction! None are ever too low for God to lift up, or too high for God to cast down. Must not these heathens have observed that the uncontrollable hand of an Almighty Being had worked in behalf of the Jews? And must not this have had a powerful tendency to discredit the idolatry of the country?”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Esther 9:1
“YOU are probably aware that some persons have denied the Inspiration of the Book of Esther because the name of God does not occur in it. They might, with equal justice, deny the Inspiration of a great number of chapters in the Bible, and of a far greater number of verses. Although the name of God does not occur in the Book of Esther, the Lord Himself is there most conspicuously in every incident which it relates.”
Esther 9:2, 1 voice
Esther 9:2
“But the Jews were the conquerors. That very day when the king's decree for their destruction was to be put in execution, and which the enemies thought would have been their day, proved God's day, Ps. xxxvii. It was turned to the contrary of what was expected, and the Jews had rule over those that hated them,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Esther 9:3, 3 voices
Esther 9:3
“And all the rulers of the provinces, and the lieutenants, and the deputies, and officers of the king, blessed the Jews,.... Countenanced them and encouraged them, and gave them all assistance in their power; extolled them, as the word signifies, lifted them up, and spoke well of them, or praised them, as the Targum: because the fear of Mordecai was upon them; he being now chief minister, they might fear, if they took part with the enemies of the Jews against them, they might be turned out of their places.”
Esther 9:3
“All the rulers ... helped the Jews - i. e. the Persians, who formed the standing army which kept the Empire in subjection, and were at the disposal of the various governors of provinces, took the Jews’ side. The enemies of the Jews (e. g. Est 9:16) were almost entirely to be found among the idolatrous people of the subject nations, for whose lives neither the Persians generally, nor their monarchs, cared greatly.”
Esther 9:3
“They all saw it their interest to help Mordecai's friends because he was not only great in the king's house, and caressed by the courtiers (as many are who have no intrinsic worth to support their reputation), but his fame for wisdom and virtue went out thence throughout all the provinces: in all places he was extolled as a great man.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 5-10)
a.with the stroke of the sword: The defense authorized at 8:11 is executed: five hundred in Shushan the palace, and the ten sons of Haman the Agagite slain and named one by one, the enemy's house ended in a list. Then the clause the chapter will repeat three times in varying words: BUT ON THE SPOIL LAID THEY NOT THEIR HAND. Saul lost the kingdom flying upon the spoil of Amalek at 1 Sam 15:19; the generation of Kish's house that refuses the plunder three times over finishes the war he forfeited, and the narrator trusts the reader to hear it.
Esther 9:5, 2 voices
Esther 9:5
“Thus the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and slaughter, and destruction,.... Some with swords, and others with clubs, and staves; as the Targum; and such like slaughtering weapons of destruction: and did what they would unto those that hated them; being then entirely at their will, and under their power.”
Esther 9:5
“Thus the Jews smote all their enemies--The effect of the two antagonistic decrees was, in the meantime, to raise a fierce and bloody war between the Jews and their enemies throughout the Persian empire; but through the dread of Esther and Mordecai, the provincial governors universally favored their cause, so that their enemies fell in great numbers.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Esther 9:6, 1 voice
Esther 9:6
“And in Shushan - It is strange that in this city, where the king’s mind must have been so well known, there should be found five hundred persons to rise up in hostility against those whom they knew the king befriended!”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Esther 9:7, 1 voice
Esther 9:7
“Most of these names are Persian, and readily traceable to Old Persian roots. Est 9:10 On the spoil laid they not their hand - As they might have done (see the margin reference).”
Esther 9:10, 4 voices
Esther 9:10
“The ten sons of Haman - Their names are given above. And it is remarked here, and in Est 9:16, where the account is given of the number slain in the provinces, that the Jews laid no hands on the spoil. They stood for their lives, and gave full proof that they sought their own personal safety, and not the property of their enemies, though the decree in their favor gave them authority to take the property of all those who were their adversaries, Est 8:11.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Esther 9:10
“But, &c. - Because they would leave it to their children, that it might appear what they did was not done out of malice, or covetousness, but out of mere necessity, and by that great law of self-preservation.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Esther 9:10
“The Chaldee paraphrase says that, when these ten were slain, Zeresh, with seventy more of his children, escaped, and afterwards begged their bread from door to door.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Esther 9:10
“But their humanity forbade them to do that, though that was designed against them. They slew none but those they found in arms; and therefore they did not take the spoil, but left it to the women and little ones, whom they spared, for their subsistence; otherwise as good slay them as starve them, take away their lives as take away their livelihoods.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
B. A second day granted in Shushan, and ten sons hanged
1. (vv. 11-14)
a.the number of those that were slain: The count comes to the king, and his open-ended offer to Esther returns a hard request: a second day for Shushan, and Haman's ten sons, already dead, hanged upon the gallows. The public exposure of slain enemies was Persian practice for deterrence, and the readings on the request's severity are named: a queen securing her people against a still-hostile capital, so the commentators generally; the rabbinic Purim readings built on the ten sons are tradition, named as such where a row carries them. The text records the petition without praising or blaming it, and the exposition does the same.
Esther 9:11, 1 voice
Esther 9:11
“On that day the number of those that were slain in Shushan the palace was brought before the king. Either by order of the king, that he might know how many enemies the Jews had in the city, and how many of subjects had been slain; or officiously by others, with an intention to irritate the king against the Jews.”
Esther 9:13, 2 voices
Esther 9:13
“Let Haman’s ten sons be hanged - They had been slain the preceding day, and now she requests that they may be exposed on posts or gibbets, as a terror to those who sought the destruction of the Jews.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Esther 9:13
“Let it, &c. - To kill their implacable enemies. For it is not improbable that the greatest and worst of them had hidden themselves for that day; after which, the commission granted to the Jews being expired, they confidently returned to their homes.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Esther 9:14, 2 voices
Esther 9:14
“And the king commanded it so to be done: and the decree was given at Shushan,.... That the Jews might have leave to seek out and slay the rest of their enemies in Shushan, on the fourteenth day, in like manner as they had on the thirteenth: and they hanged Haman's ten sons; on the same gallows very probably their father was hanged; the Targum gives us the distance between each person hanged thereon.”
Esther 9:14
“It is supposed that they were hanged in chains and left hanging for some time. (3.) The Jews in the country kept to their orders, and slew no more of their enemies than what were slain the thirteenth day, which were in all, among all the provinces, 75,000,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 15-19)
a.gathered themselves together on the fourteenth day also: Shushan's second day, three hundred more, and the provinces' one day, seventy and five thousand of those that hated them, and twice more the refusal: on the prey they laid not their hand; they laid not their hands on the prey. The text calls it standing for their lives, defense under the decree's exact terms, and the two calendars fall out of the two campaigns: the villages rest and feast on the fourteenth, walled Shushan on the fifteenth, which is why Purim is kept on two days to this hour. The chapter's arithmetic of dates is the feast's founding charter.
Esther 9:15, 2 voices
Esther 9:15
“For the Jews that were in Shushan gathered themselves together on the fourteenth day also of the month Adar,.... As they had on the thirteenth: and slew three hundred men at Shushan; the Targum adds, of the family of Amalek: but there is no reason to confine it to them; it respects all such as were the enemies of the Jews, and rose up against them; so that the whole number slain in Shushan were eight hundred persons, besides the sons of Human: but on the prey they laid not their hand; See Gill on Est 9:7.”
Esther 9:15
“Shushan - Here probably the lower town, which lay east of the upper one, and was of about the same size (compare the Est 9:6 note).”
Esther 9:16, 2 voices
Esther 9:16
“Seventy and five thousand - The Septuagint gives the number as 15,000; and this amount seems more in proportion to the 800 slain in Susa.”
Esther 9:16
“If all these were Amalekites (as the Jews say), surely now it was that the remembrance of Amalek was utterly put out, Exod. xvii. However, that which justifies them in the execution of so many is that they did it in their own just and necessary defence; they stood for their lives, authorized to do so by the law of self-preservation, as well as by the king's decree.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Esther 9:18, 3 voices
Esther 9:18
“But the Jews that were at Shushan assembled together on the thirteenth day thereof, and on the fourteenth day thereof,.... Of the month Adar; that is, they gathered together to defend themselves, and destroy their enemies, on both these days, having the decree renewed for the fourteenth as they had for the thirteenth: and on the fifteenth day of the same they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness; as the Jews in the provinces did on the fourteenth.”
Esther 9:18
“The Jews - assembled - on the thirteenth - and on the fourteenth - These two days they were employed in slaying their enemies; and they rested on the fifteenth.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Esther 9:18
“Both of them celebrated their festival the very day after they had finished their work and gained their point. When we have received signal mercies from God we ought to be quick and speedy in making our thankful returns to him, while the mercy is fresh and the impressions of it are most sensible.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Esther 9:19, 1 voice
Esther 9:19
“The Jews of the villages ... - Rather, “the Jews of the country districts, that dwelt in the country towns,” as distinguished from those who dwelt in the metropolis.”
C. Purim named for the lot Haman cast, kept in every generation
1. (vv. 20-23)
a.Mordecai wrote these things: The founding letters go to all the provinces, both nigh and far: keep the fourteenth and fifteenth of Adar yearly, as the days the month was TURNED unto them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day. The feast's own statute builds charity into the celebration, sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor, joy that distributes itself as it did at Neh 8:10-12. The Jews undertook to do as they had begun: the practice precedes the statute, and the statute confirms the practice.
Esther 9:20, 3 voices
Esther 9:20
“Mordecai wrote these things - It has been supposed that thus far that part of the book of Esther, which was written by Mordecai extends: what follows to the end, was probably added either by Ezra, or the men of the Great Synagogue; though what is said here may refer only to the letters sent by Mordecai to the Jews of the provinces.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Esther 9:20
“Mordecai wrote these things--Commentators are not agreed what is particularly meant by "these things"; whether the letters following, or an account of these marvellous events to be preserved in the families of the Jewish people, and transmitted from one generation to another.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Esther 9:20
“But, because there is so little of the language of Canaan in this book, many think it was not written by Mordecai, but was an extract out of the journals of the kings of Persia, giving an account of the matter of fact, which the Jews themselves knew how to comment upon.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Esther 9:21, 1 voice
Esther 9:21
“Let us not be niggardly in our returns of praise to him who bestows his favours so liberally upon us. Observe, They did not keep the day when they fought, but the days when they rested, and on the fifteenth those in Shushan, and both those days they kept. The sabbath was appointed not on the day that God finished his work, but on the day that he rested from it.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Esther 9:23, 1 voice
Esther 9:23
“The Jews undertook to do as they had begun - They had already kept the fifteenth day, and some of them in the country the fourteenth also, as a day of rejoicing: Mordecai wrote to them to bind themselves and their successors, and all their proselytes, to celebrate this as an annual feast throughout all their generations; and this they undertook to do. And it has been observed among them, in all places of their dispersion, from that day to the present time, without any interruption.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 24-28)
a.had cast Pur, that is, the lot: The recap names the feast: Haman cast Pur, the lot, to consume them, and the days are called PURIM after the very instrument of the plot, chance enthroned as a calendar of deliverance, the mockery built into the name itself. The ordinance binds their seed and all such as joined themselves unto them, the proselyte door open in the feast's own charter, and 9:28 reaches as far as any verse in the book: these days should not fail from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their seed. It has not; Purim is kept to this day with this book read aloud, and the page says so under the site's honoring rule.
Esther 9:24, 1 voice
Esther 9:24
“Very often people's evil schemes turn out differently than they had hoped and the trap they had placed to capture others ensnares them, as the Scripture confirms, "The wicked are ensnared in their traps. And whoever digs a pit will fall into it." Therefore also …”
Rabanus Maurus· written before 856· EXPLANATION ON THE BOOK OF ESTHER 13patristic
Esther 9:26, 2 voices
Esther 9:26
“They called these days Purim - That is from pari, the lot; because, as we have seen, Haman cast lots to find what month, and what day of the month, would be the most favorable for the accomplishment of his bloody designs against the Jews. See on Est 3:7 (note). And of that which they had seen - The first letter to which this second refers, must be that sent by Mordecai himself. See Est 9:20.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Esther 9:26
“But this was remedied by authority, which fixed the fourteenth and fifteenth of Adar. It became a season of sunny memories to the universal body of the Jews; and, by the letters of Mordecai, dispersed through all parts of the Persian empire, it was established as an annual feast, the celebration of which is kept up still.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Esther 9:27, 1 voice
Esther 9:27
“The observance of this feast was to be both universal and perpetual; the proselytes must observe it, in token of their sincere affection to the Jewish nation and their having united interests with them. A concurrence in joys and praises is one branch of the communion of saints.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
D. Esther's letter confirming the fasting and the crying
1. (vv. 29-32)
a.the daughter of Abihail: Esther the queen writes WITH ALL AUTHORITY to confirm the second letter, the orphan of 2:7 now legislating for an empire's Jews, and the letters go out with words of peace and truth. The confirmation remembers the dark side by statute, the matters of the fastings and their cry, so the feast carries its own fast (kept as the fast of Esther on Adar's thirteenth) and the joy never forgets what it cost. The decree of Esther confirmed these matters of Purim; and it was written in the book: the chapter ends, like the book, in an archive.
Esther 9:29, 1 voice
Esther 9:29
“This second letter of Purim - Mordecai’s first letter Est 9:20 was to some extent tentative, a recommendation. The Jews generally having accepted the recommendation Est 9:23, Est 9:27, he and Esther now wrote a second letter which was mandatory.”
Esther 9:31, 1 voice
Esther 9:31
“The matters of the fastings and their cry - The Jews of the provinces had added to the form of commemoration proposed by Mordecai certain observances with respect to fasting and wailing, and Mordecai’s second letter sanctioned these.”
Esther 9:32, 2 voices
Esther 9:32
“And the decree of Esther confirmed these matters of Purim,.... As a festival to be observed by the Jews in future generations: and it was written in the book; either in this book of Esther; or in the public acts and chronicles of the kings of Persia; or in a book by itself, now lost, as Aben Ezra thinks, as many others are we read of in Scripture, as the books of the chronicles of the kings of Israel and Judah, &c.”
Esther 9:32
“The decree of Esther confirmed these matters - It was received by the Jews universally with all respect, and they bound themselves to abide by it. The Vulgate gives a strange turn to this verse: Et omnia quae libri hujus, qui vocatur Esther, historia continentur; “And all things which are contained in the history of this book, which is called Esther.” The Targum says, And by the word of Esther all these things relative to Purim were confirmed; and the roll was transcribed in this book.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Threads running through this chapter
- Turned to the contraryPattern, vv. 1 to 22
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Esther 9. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 12 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826); Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Alfred Edersheim, Bible History: Old Testament; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1201: “Providence—as Seen in the Book of Esther” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) (1874); Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765); Keil, The Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther; Matthew Henry; Rabanus Maurus, EXPLANATION ON THE BOOK OF ESTHER 13 and W. F. Adeney, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther (Expositor's Bible).
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