Esther 9:23

23 So the Jews accepted what they had started to do, and what Mordecai had written to them.

Esther 9:23 Meaning and Commentary

Esther 9:23

And the Jews undertook to do as they had begun, and as
Mordecai had written unto them.
] They engaged to keep these two days as festivals annually, as they had at this time done; not in a religious but in a civil way, not as parts of religious worship, and as additions to and innovations of the law, but by way of commemoration of a civil benefit which they had received; and yet we find in later times that this was scrupled by some as an innovation; for we are told ^F18 that there were eighty five elders, and more than thirty of them prophets, who were distressed about this matter, fearing it was an innovation.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F18 T. Hieros. Megillah. fol. 70. 4.

Esther 9:23 In-Context

21 obliging them to keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same, year by year,

22 as the days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor.

23 So the Jews accepted what they had started to do, and what Mordecai had written to them.

24 For Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur (that is, cast lots), to crush and to destroy them.

25 But when it came before the king, he gave orders in writing that his evil plan that he had devised against the Jews should return on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.