וּבְכָל־מְדִינָ֣ה וּמְדִינָ֗ה מְקוֹם֙ אֲשֶׁ֨ר דְּבַר־הַמֶּ֤לֶךְ וְדָתוֹ֙ מַגִּ֔יעַ אֵ֤בֶל גָּדוֹל֙ לַיְּהוּדִ֔ים וְצ֥וֹם וּבְכִ֖י וּמִסְפֵּ֑ד שַׂ֣ק וָאֵ֔פֶר יֻצַּ֖ע לָֽרַבִּֽים׃
3In every province, wherever the king’s command and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and most of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.
The Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin and Greek that is translated as “fast” in English is translated in Isthmus Mixe as “going without food to worship God” and in Lacandon as “leaving eating in order to talk to God.” (Source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)
In Vidunda it is translated as “resting to eat.” (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
The Hebrew or Greek which are translated into English as “sackcloth” are rendered into Chamula Tzotzil as “sad-heart clothes.” (Source: Robert Bascom)
Pohnpeian and Chuukese translate it as “clothing-of sadness,” Eastern Highland Otomi uses “clothing that hurts,” Central Mazahua “that which is scratchy,” Tae’ and Zarma “rags” (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel), and Tangale as “torn clothes that show contrition on the body” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin).
“In Turkana, a woman removes her normal everyday skin clothes and ornaments and wears rather poor skins during the time of mourning. The whole custom is known as ngiboro. It is very difficult to translate putting on sackcloth because even material like sacking is unfamiliar. The Haya, on the other hand, have a mourning cloth made out of the bark of a tree; and the use of this cloth is similar to the Jewish use of sackcloth. It was found that in both the Turkana and Ruhaya common language translations, their traditional mourning ceremonies were used.” (Source: Rachel Konyoro in The Bible Translator 1985, p. 221ff. )
See also mourning clothes and you have loosed my sackcloth.
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Faye Edgerton retells how the term in Navajo was determined:
“[This term was] easily expressed in the language of Biblical culture, which had kings and noblemen with their brilliant trappings and their position of honor and praise. But leadership among the Navajos is not accompanied by any such titles or distinctions of dress. Those most respected, especially in earlier days, were their headmen, who were the leaders in raids, and the shaman, who was able to serve the people by appealing for them to the gods, or by exorcising evil spirits. Neither of these made any outward show. Neither held his position by political intrigue or heredity. If the headman failed consistently in raids, he was superceded by a better warrior. If the shaman failed many times in his healing ceremonies, it was considered that he was making mistakes in the chants, or had lost favor with the gods, and another was sought. The term Navajos use for headman is derived from a verb meaning ‘to move the head from side to side as in making an oration.’ The headman must be a good orator, able to move the people to go to war, or to follow him in any important decision. This word is naat’áanii which now means ‘one who rules or bosses.’ It is employed now for a foreman or boss of any kind of labor, as well as for the chairman of the tribal council. So in order to show that the king is not just a common boss but the highest ruler, the word ‘aláahgo, which expresses the superlative degree, was put before naat’áanii, and so ‘aláahgo naat’áanii ‘anyone-more-than-being around-he-moves-his-head-the-one-who’ means ‘the highest ruler.’ Naat’áanii was used for governor as the context usually shows that the person was a ruler of a country or associated with kings.”
(Source: Faye Edgerton in The Bible Translator 1962, p. 25ff. )
See also king (Japanese honorifics).
Although both the Hebrew and the Greek versions of this verse begin with the conjunction And, this verse provides parenthetical or explanatory information. It is really a continuation of the event recounted in 3.15a above. It is for this reason that Good News Translation begins a new sentence. The translator may need to introduce discourse markers or adverbs to make clear the change in location from where the action in the preceding and following verses takes place. In English a change of this kind can be indicated by expressions like “Meanwhile” or “At the same time.”
The king’s command and his decree refer to the decree of 3.12-13. No real distinction seems to exist between command davar and decree dat, so translators may choose to use one term only, as in Good News Translation (“proclamation”). At the same time the author’s use of two terms, including the formal dat, may serve to emphasize the legality of the decree (see New American Bible “the king’s legal enactment”).
The Jews: see 2.5 and comment.
This verse introduces the element of fasting as an additional sign of sorrow. Fasting is more than merely not eating. It is a deliberate act of denying oneself food because of a particular reason or for a specific purpose. That it is a sign of distress in this context is shown by the three verbs that stand before and after it, namely, mourning, weeping, and lamenting. Note, however, that another purpose will appear in the context of verse 16.
Most of them lay in sackcloth and ashes: the Hebrew is literally “the many.” The use of the definite article seems to require the translation most (Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, Revised English Bible) rather than “many” (New Jerusalem Bible, New International Version, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible). Since “the many” in Hebrew may sometimes mean “all,” New American Bible says that “they all slept on sackcloth and ashes” (so also New Jerusalem Bible). It is impossible to know which translation correctly represents the intended meaning. Translators must simply choose one of the three possible meanings.
Most of them lay is literally “sackcloth with ashes was spread out for the many of them.” The image seems to be that the people lay on sackcloth covered with ashes. Though most translations say that the people lay on sackcloth, New American Bible says that they “slept” on sackcloth, which may well be the sense of the words. Similarly Revised English Bible (also Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente) says that they “lay down on beds of sackcloth and ashes” (compare 2 Sam 21.10; Isa 58.5).
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Noss, Philip A. A Handbook on Esther (The Hebrew Text). (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .