Esther 9:31

31 The letters established the days of Purim at their appointed times. They spoke about what the Jew Mordecai and Queen Esther had ordered the people to do. Everything should be done in keeping with the directions the Jews had set up for themselves and their children after them. The directions applied to their times of fasting and sadness.

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 So Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, wrote a second letter. She wrote it together with the Jew Mordecai. They wanted to give their full authority to this second letter about Purim.

30 Mordecai sent letters to all of the Jews in the 127 territories of the kingdom of Xerxes. The letters had messages of kindness and hope in them.

31 The letters established the days of Purim at their appointed times. They spoke about what the Jew Mordecai and Queen Esther had ordered the people to do. Everything should be done in keeping with the directions the Jews had set up for themselves and their children after them. The directions applied to their times of fasting and sadness.

32 Esther's order established the rules about Purim. It was written down in the records.