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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Esther 4:4 - 4:4
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The matter was made known to Esther by her maids and eunuchs, i.e., by her attendants. The Chethiv תְּבֹו×Ö¶×™× Ö¸×” does not elsewhere occur after ו consecutive, hence the substitution of the Keri תָּבֹו×× Ö¸×”. The object of יַגִּידוּ: what they told her, is evidently, from what follows, the circumstance of Mordochai's appearance in deep mourning before the gate of the palace. On receiving this information the queen fell into convulsive grief (תִּתחַלְחַל, an intensive form of חוּל, to be seized with painful grief), and sent to Mordochai raiment to put on instead of his sackcloth, evidently for the purpose of enabling him to enter the palace and give her the particulars of what had happened. But Mordochai did not accept the raiment.
Est 4:5-7
Then Esther sent Hatach, one of the eunuchs whom the king had set before her, i.e., appointed to attend her, to Mordochai to learn â€what this, and why this,†i.e., what was the meaning and the cause of his thus going about in mourning. When Hatach came forth to him in the open place of the city before the king's gate, Mordochai told him all that had happened, and the amount of the money which Haman had promised to weigh to the king's treasures (i.e., to pay into the royal treasury) for the Jews, to destroy them, i.e., that it might be permitted him to destroy the Jews. פָּרָשָ××”, properly a determined, accurate statement, from ×¤Ö¸Ö¼×¨Ö·×©× in the sense of to determine clearly (see rem. on Lev 24:12); here, according to the context: amount, sum. This promise of Haman is here emphatically mentioned as the chief point, not so much for the purpose of raising the indignation of Esther to the highest pitch (Bertheau), as to show the resentment and eagerness with which Haman had urged the extermination of the Jews. The Chethiv ×™Ö°×”×•Ö¼×“Ö´×™Ö´Ö¼×™× is the rarer form for יְהוּדִי×, and is repeated Est 8:1, Est 8:7,Est 8:13; Est 9:15, Est 9:18.
Est 4:8
Mordochai also gave Hatach a copy of the decree published in Susa (בְּש×וּשָ×ן × Ö´×ªÖ·Ö¼×Ÿ, like Est 3:15) to show it to the queen. The לָהּ וּלְהַגִּיד following is more correctly drawn towards the subsequent וּלְצַוֹּות, as by Bertheau, than connected according to the accentuation with what precedes. Before this infinitive must be supplied from the context, especially from Est 4:7 : and Mordochai commissioned him or told him (Hatach): to declare unto her and to command her (Esther) to go in unto the king, to entreat him and to make request before him for her people. עַל בַּקֵּש×, to beg, to make request for something, like Ezr 8:23, and Est 7:7. עַמָּהּ עַל, concerning her people, i.e., in this connection: for them.