Esther 9:27

27 the Jews ordained and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves to them, so that it should not fail, that they would observe these two days according to their writing and according to their fixed time, every year;

Esther 9:27 Meaning and Commentary

Esther 9:27

The Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed,
and upon all such that joined themselves unto them
Who became proselytes to their religion; that is, they appointed the above two days as festivals, and engaged for themselves, for their children, and all proselytes, to observe them as such; and one of their canons F19 runs thus,

``all are obliged to read the Megillah (the book of Esther, which they always read on those days), priests, Levites, Nethinims, Israelites, men, women, and proselytes, and servants made free, and they train up little ones to read it:''

so as it should not fail;
of being observed, so as no man should transgress it, or pass it over:

that they should keep these two days;
the fourteenth and fifteenth of the month Adar or February:

according to their writing;
in this book, the book of Esther, which was to be read, as Aben Ezra; written in the Hebrew character, as the Targum; that is, in the Assyrian character, as Jarchi; the square character, as they call it:

and according to their appointed time every year;
whether simple or intercalated, as Aben Ezra observes: in an intercalary year the Jews have two Adars, and, though they keep the feast of Purim on the fourteenth of the first Adar, yet not with so much mirth, and call it the lesser Purim; but in the second Adar they observe it with all its ceremonies F20; so, in their canon, they do not keep Purim but in Adar that is next to Nisan or March, that redemption might be near redemption; the redemption of Mordecai near the redemption of Moses {u}.


FOOTNOTES:

F19 Lebush & Schulchan, ib. (par. 1.) c. 689. sect. 1.
F20 Vid. Buxtorf. Synagog. Jud. c. 29. p. 563.
F21 Lebush, par. 1. c. 6, 7. sect. 1.

Esther 9:27 In-Context

25 and when [Esther] came before the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked device, which he had devised against the Jews, should return upon his own head; and they hanged him and his sons on the gallows.
26 Therefore they called these days Purim after the name of Pur. Therefore, according to all the words of this letter, and for what they had seen concerning this matter and what had happened to them,
27 the Jews ordained and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves to them, so that it should not fail, that they would observe these two days according to their writing and according to their fixed time, every year;
28 and that these days should be remembered and observed throughout every generation, in every family, every province, and every city, and that these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them cease from among their seed.
29 And queen Esther the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with all authority to confirm this second letter of Purim.
The Darby Translation is in the public domain.