Esther 9:27

27 the Jews firmly obligated themselves and their offspring and ¹all who joined them, that without fail they would keep ²these two days according to what was written and at the time appointed 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}.

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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 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.

26 Therefore they called these days Purim, after the term Pur. Therefore, because of all that was written in this letter, and of what they had faced in this matter, and of what had happened to them,

27 the Jews firmly obligated themselves and their offspring and all who joined them, that without fail they would keep these two days according to what was written and at the time appointed every year,

28 that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, in every clan, province, and city, and that these days of Purim should never fall into disuse among the Jews, nor should the commemoration of these days cease among their descendants.

29 Then Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew gave full written authority, confirming this second letter about Purim.

Cross References

• 1. [Isaiah 56:3, 6; Zechariah 2:11]
• 2. ver. 21