---
title: "Esther 4 - Study King James Bible with trapps complete commentary"
description: "Read Esther 4 with trapps complete commentary commentary. 1 When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and crie"
image: "/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/trapps-complete-commentary/esther/4"
---

[ Read](/kjv/esther/4)[ Commentary](/study/esther/4)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/esther/4) Audio

 1 When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry;

 2 And came even before the king’s gate: for none *might* enter into the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth.

 3 And in every province, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, *there was* great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.*

 4 ¶ So Esther’s maids and her chamberlains came and told *it* her. Then was the queen exceedingly grieved; and she sent raiment to clothe Mordecai, and to take away his sackcloth from him: but he received *it* not.*

 5 Then called Esther for Hatach, *one* of the king’s chamberlains, whom he had appointed to attend upon her, and gave him a commandment to Mordecai, to know what it *was*, and why it *was*.*

 6 So Hatach went forth to Mordecai unto the street of the city, which *was* before the king’s gate.

 7 And Mordecai told him of all that had happened unto him, and of the sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king’s treasuries for the Jews, to destroy them.

 8 Also he gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given at Shushan to destroy them, to shew *it* unto Esther, and to declare *it* unto her, and to charge her that she should go in unto the king, to make supplication unto him, and to make request before him for her people.

 9 And Hatach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai.

 10 ¶ Again Esther spake unto Hatach, and gave him commandment unto Mordecai;

 11 All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, do know, that whosoever, whether man or woman, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called, *there is* one law of his to put *him* to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that he may live: but I have not been called to come in unto the king these thirty days.

 12 And they told to Mordecai Esther’s words.

 13 Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all the Jews.

 14 For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, *then* shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for *such* a time as this?*

 15 ¶ Then Esther bade *them* return Mordecai *this answer*,

 16 Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which *is* not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.*

 17 So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him.*
 
[Esther 3](/study/esther/3) [Esther 5](/study/esther/5)

## Commentary

 To verse 1
 
[Est 4:1](/kjv/est/4/1) When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry; 

Ver. 1. **When Mordecai perceived all that was done** ] Mαθων το γινομενον , saith Josephus, when he had learned or fully informed himself, so that he knew it to be so, as the Hebrew text hath it (Jadang.). Solicitous he was of the Church’s welfare, and sat listening, as Eli did once, what would become of the ark, [1 Samuel 3:13](/kjv/1-samuel/3/13) . Now therefore, as ill news is swift of foot, saith Sophocles, αι βλαβαι ποδωκεις , and comes like ill weather, before it be sent for, Mordecai taketh knowledge of that bloody decree, though Esther and those about her had not heard of it, [Esther 4:4-5](/kjv/esther/4/4-5) . Neither sitteth he still at home, as desponding and despairing, or seeketh by sinister practices to help himself and his people, but applieth himself, first, to God, by hearty humiliation and prayer; and then to the king, by the intercession of Esther. A carnal heart would have taken other shifting courses, like as a dog that hath lost his master will follow after any other for relief. 

**** 

**Mordecai rent his clothes** ] To show that his very heart was rent with sorrow for Sion. This custom of rending their clothes in time and in token of greatest grief, was in use not among the Jews only, but Persians also, and other nations, as is noted by Herodotus and Curtius. 

**** 

**And put on sackcloth** ] The coarsest clothing he could get; as holding any clothes too good for so vile a captive, and showing that but for shame he would have worn none. So the *Nine vites* sat in sackcloth and ashes, for more humiliation. See [Exodus 33:4](/kjv/exodus/33/4) , &c. 

**** 

**And ashes** ] He put on ashes or dust, that is, a dusty garment sprinkled with ashes, saith Drusius, putting his mouth in the dust, as [Lamentations 3:29](/kjv/lamentations/3/29) , acknowledging himself to be of the earth earthy, and fit fuel for hell fire, *Non e foco, sed e terra desumptum pulverem notat* (Merlin). 

**** 

**And went out into the midst of the city** ] That he might be a pattern to others. *Si vis me flere, &c.* 

**** 

**And cried with a loud and a bitter cry** ] More barbarico, after the manner of that country; but there was more in it than so. It was not his own danger that so much affected him (how gladly could he have wished, with Ambrose, that God would please to turn all the adversaries from the Church upon himself, and let them satisfy their thirst with his blood? Oτι μηδεν αδικησον εθνος αναιρειται , Joseph.) as that so many innocent people should perish. This made him lift up his voice unto God on high.

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