Esther 9:17

17 [This was] on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar. [They] rested on the fourteenth [day] and made it a day of feasting and joy.

Esther 9:17 Meaning and Commentary

Esther 9:17

On the thirteenth day of the month Adar
This belongs to the preceding verse; and the meaning is, that on this day the Jews gathered together and slew so many thousand of their enemies as before related:

and on the fourteenth day of the same rested they, and made it a feast
of gladness:
rejoicing that they were delivered out of the hand of their enemies, who hoped and expected on that day to have made an utter end of them; according to the Jewish canons ^F12, mourning and fasting on this day were forbidden, but feasting and gladness were to be multiplied.

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FOOTNOTES:

F12 Lebush, c. 697. Schulchan Aruch, par. 1. c. 697.

Esther 9:17 In-Context

15 And the Jews were gathered who [were] in Susa, and on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and they killed in Susa three hundred men, but they did not {touch} the plunder.

16 The rest of the Jews who [were] in the king's provinces gathered and {defended their lives} and {found repose} from their enemies. And they killed seventy-five thousand of those that hated them, but they did not {touch} the plunder.

17 [This was] on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar. [They] rested on the fourteenth [day] and made it a day of feasting and joy.

18 But the Jews who [were] in Susa gathered on the thirteenth and on the fourteenth day, and rested on the fifteenth day. And they made it a day of feasting and joy.

19 Therefore the Jews in the rural [areas], living in the rural towns, made the fourteenth month of Adar a day of joy and feasting, a festive day of giving gifts to each other.