Esther 9:31

31 To confirm these yemei HaPurim in their times appointed, according as Mordechai HaYehudi and Ester HaMalkah had enjoined them, and as they had decreed for themselves and for their zera, the matters of the tzomot (fasts) and their ze’akah (lamentation).

Esther 9:31 Meaning and Commentary

Esther 9:31

To confirm these days of Purim in their times appointed
The fourteenth and fifteenth of Adar:

according as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had enjoined them;
in the letters written and signed by them both:

and as they had decreed for themselves, and for their seed;
see ( Esther 9:27 ) ,

the matters of their fastings and their cry;
in commemoration of their deliverance from those distresses and calamities which occasioned fastings and prayers during the time of them; and to this sense is the former Targum; though it is certain the Jews observe the thirteenth day, the day before the two days, as a fast, and which they call the fast of Esther ^F25, and have prayers on the festival days peculiar to them; but the sense Aben Ezra gives seems best, that as the Jews had decreed to keep the fasts, mentioned in ( Zechariah 7:5 ) , so they now decreed to rejoice in the days of Purim.

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FOOTNOTES:

F25 Lebush & Schulchan, ut supra, (par. 1.) c. 686. sect. 1.

Esther 9:31 In-Context

29 Then Ester HaMalkah, the bat Avichayil, and Mordechai HaYehudi, wrote with kol tokef (all authority, see Yn 1:12-13), to confirm this second iggeret (letter of) Purim.

30 And he sent seferim unto all the Yehudim, to the hundred twenty and seven provinces of the malchut of Achashverosh, with words of shalom and emes,

31 To confirm these yemei HaPurim in their times appointed, according as Mordechai HaYehudi and Ester HaMalkah had enjoined them, and as they had decreed for themselves and for their zera, the matters of the tzomot (fasts) and their ze’akah (lamentation).

32 And the decree of Ester confirmed these matters of Purim; and it was written in the sefer.