Then Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer,
Then Esther bade them return answer unto Mordecai,
And Esther speaketh to send back unto Mordecai:
And Esther bade to answer Mordecai:
Esther — A Jewish orphan becomes queen of Persia; Haman plots genocide; Mordecai and Esther intervene; deliverance comes by providence — and God's name never once appears in the book.
Voices4
Many women, fortified by the grace of God, have accomplished many heroic actions. The blessed Judith, when the city was besieged, asked permission of the elders to be allowed to go into the foreigners' camp. By exposing herself to danger she went out for love of her country and of the people who were besieged, and the Lord delivered Holophernes into the hand of a woman. To no less danger did Esther, who was perfect in faith, expose herself, in order to save the twelve tribes of Israel that were to be destroyed.
Clement of Rome· 1 CLEMENT 55.3-6, 99patristic
Mordecai prays with the Jews on behalf of Queen Esther, and the queen likewise prays for Mordecai and the Jews, because a teacher ought to offer prayers to the Lord on behalf of his students, and students on behalf of their teachers, that the entire …
Rabanus Maurus· Commentary on Esther, 856patristic
Then Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer. Which follows, and was sent by the messengers she sent the above to him.
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)reformed
She believed that God's favour was to be obtained by prayer, that his people are a praying people, and he a prayer-hearing God. She knew it was the practice of good people, in extraordinary cases, to join fasting with prayer, and many of them to join together in both.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710puritan
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread — the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The verses this one reaches1
urging them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his friends would not be killed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
