The cry of a doomed people.
The decree against the Jews was not yet known in the palace; Esther herself was not yet informed of it. And the signs of sorrow and mourning were prohibited within the royal precincts; nothing of ill omen was suffered to come before the king and his household. But in the city evil tidings (which ever travel fast) soon came abroad.
1. THE FIRST NOTE OF LAMENTATION WAS UTTERED BY MORDECAI. The rending of clothes in grief was practised by the Persians as well as by the Jews. The Ninevites in their penitence sat in sackcloth and ashes. It was and is the custom of Orientals to weep aloud in times of mourning. All these expressions of sorrow and lamentation were in the circumstances natural and proper. It was the woe of a patriot. Mordecai was not thinking so much of himself as of his people; he made their sorrows and alarms his own. It was the sorrow of a godly man. He did not simply mourn; he evidently humbled himself before God, and implored Divine pity and help.
II. THE CRY WAS COMMUNICATED TO AND TAKEN UP BY THE JEWS THROUGHOUT THE EMPIRE. The news of a great victory flies and flashes through a land, awakens the universal joy, and the land is filled with gladness and song.. And the tidings of the impending calamity spread far and wide through the provinces of Persia, and created consternation in thousands of hearts. They mourned as they thought of the land of their fathers, and of all the privileges enjoyed in that sacred and fertile territory—their proper home and inheritance. For now they were not only doomed to exile; they were marked for destruction. They fasted, doubtless, as a religious exercise, accompanying their fasting with repentance and with prayers. They wept and wailed, knowing that though their cry could not pierce the walls of the palace at Shushan, it would penetrate the gates of heaven, and reach the ear of the King of kings. They lay in sackcloth and ashes, as permitting themselves no comfort or ease in prospect of their own and their brethren's ruin. Thus they prepared a way for the tender mercy of God to visit them from on high.
Practical lesson:—Sinners against whom a sentence of Divine wrath might rightfully be issued should lose no time in humbling themselves before the Lord, and confessing their sins with contrition and repentance, that they may partake in the mercy of heaven, and, through the redemption of Christ Jesus, be saved from the wrath to come.