6 For how is it possible for me to see the evil which is to overtake my nation? how may I see the destruction of my people?
For we are given up, I and my people, to destruction and death and to be cut off. If we had been taken as men-servants and women-servants for a price, I would have said nothing, for our trouble is little in comparison with the king's loss.
That I am full of sorrow and pain without end. For I have a desire to take on myself the curse for my brothers, my family in the flesh:
For how may I go back to my father without the boy, and see the evil which will come on my father?
And said to the king, May the king be living for ever: is it not natural for my face to be sad, when the town, the place where the bodies of my fathers are at rest, has been made waste and its doorways burned with fire?
Now on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, when the time came for the king's order to be put into effect, on the very day when the haters of the Jews had been hoping to have rule over them; though the opposite had come about, and the Jews had rule over their haters;
My soul, my soul! I am pained to my inmost heart; my heart is troubled in me; I am not able to be quiet, because the sound of the horn, the note of war, has come to my ears.
If only my head was a stream of waters and my eyes fountains of weeping, so that I might go on weeping day and night for the dead of the daughter of my people!
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Esther 8
Commentary on Esther 8 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 8
We left the plotter hanging, and are now to see what becomes of his plot.
Est 8:1-2
It was but lately that we had Esther and Mordecai in tears and in fears, but fasting and praying; now let us see how to them there arose light in darkness. Here is,
Est 8:3-14
Haman, the chief enemy of the Jews, was hanged, Mordecai and Esther, their chief friends, were sufficiently protected; but many others there were in the king's dominions that hated the Jews and desired their ruin, and to their rage and malice all the rest of that people lay exposed; for the edict against them was still in force, and, in pursuance of it, their enemies would on the day appointed fall upon them, and they would be deemed as rebels against the king and his government if they should offer to resist and take up arms in their own defence. For the preventing of this,
Est 8:15-17
It was but a few days ago that we had Mordecai in sackcloth and all the Jews in sorrow; but here is a blessed change, Mordecai in purple and all the Jews in joy. See Ps. 30:5, 11, 12.