Ester 4:1-3

Esther Decides to Risk Everything in order to Help Her People

4:1 Now when Mordecai became aware of all that had been done, he ¹  tore his garments and put on sackcloth and ashes. He went out into the city, crying out in a loud ²  and bitter voice. 4:2 But he went no further than the king’s gate, for no one was permitted to enter the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth. 4:3 Throughout each and every province where the king’s edict and law were announced ³  there was considerable ⁴  mourning among the Jews, along with fasting, weeping, and sorrow. ⁵  Sackcloth and ashes were characteristic ⁶  of many.

Ayub 2:8

2:8 Job took a shard of broken pottery to scrape ⁷  himself ⁸  with while he was sitting ⁹  among the ashes. ¹⁰ 

Ayub 2:13

2:13 Then they sat down with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, yet no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his pain ¹¹  was very great. ¹² 

Yehezkiel 27:30-31

27:30 They will lament loudly ¹³  over you and cry bitterly.

They will throw dust on their heads and roll in the ashes; ¹⁴ 

27:31 they will tear out their hair because of you and put on sackcloth,

and they will weep bitterly over you with intense mourning. ¹⁵ 

[4:1]  ¹ tn Heb “Mordecai.” The pronoun (“he”) was used in the translation for stylistic reasons. A repetition of the proper name here is redundant in terms of contemporary English style.

[4:1]  ² tn Heb “great.”

[4:3]  ³ tn Heb “reached” (so NAB, NLT); KJV, NASB, NIV “came”; TEV “wherever the king’s proclamation was made known.”

[4:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “great” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the Jews went into deep mourning.”

[4:3]  ⁵ sn Although prayer is not specifically mentioned here, it is highly unlikely that appeals to God for help were not a part of this reaction to devastating news. As elsewhere in the book of Esther, the writer seems deliberately to keep religious actions in the background.

[4:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “were spread to many”; KJV, NIV “many (+ people NLT) lay in sackcloth and ashes.”

[2:8]  ⁷ tn The verb גָּרַד (garad) is a hapax legomenon (only occurring here). Modern Hebrew has retained a meaning “to scrape,” which is what the cognate Syriac and Arabic indicate. In the Hitpael it would mean “scrape himself.”

[2:8]  ⁸ sn The disease required constant attention. The infection and pus had to be scraped away with a piece of broken pottery in order to prevent the spread of the infection. The skin was so disfigured that even his friends did not recognize him (2:12). The book will add that the disease afflicted him inwardly, giving him a foul breath and a loathsome smell (19:17, 20). The sores bred worms; they opened and ran, and closed and tightened (16:8). He was tormented with dreams (7:14). He felt like he was choking (7:14). His bones were racked with burning pain (30:30). And he was not able to rise from his place (19:18). The disease was incurable; but it would last for years, leaving the patient longing for death.

[2:8]  ⁹ tn The construction uses the disjunctive vav (ו) with the independent pronoun with the active participle. The construction connects this clause with what has just been said, making this a circumstantial clause.

[2:8]  ¹⁰ sn Among the ashes. It is likely that the “ashes” refers to the place outside the city where the rubbish was collected and burnt, i.e., the ash-heap (cf. CEV). This is the understanding of the LXX, which reads “dung-hill outside the city.”

[2:13]  ¹¹ tn The word כְּאֵב (kÿ’ev) means “pain” – both mental and physical pain. The translation of “grief” captures only part of its emphasis.

[2:13]  ¹² sn The three friends went into a more severe form of mourning, one that is usually reserved for a death. E. Dhorme says it is a display of grief in its most intense form (Job, 23); for one of them to speak before the sufferer spoke would have been wrong.

[27:30]  ¹³ tn Heb “make heard over you with their voice.”

[27:30]  ¹⁴ tn Note a similar expression to “roll in the ashes” in Mic 1:10.

[27:31]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and they will weep concerning you with bitterness of soul, (with) bitter mourning.”