As the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day: that they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor.
Ver. 22. As the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies] And therefore they in thankfulness would consecrate the same as a holy rest unto the Lord, calling the fourteenth day, Festurn sortium minus, the lesser festivity of lots; and the fifteenth day, Festum sortium maius, the greater festivity of lots, as Drusins telleth us.
And the month] They thought the better ever after of the month Adar, that magnificent month, wherein was that golden day of their deliverance. O dieculam illam, &c., dexter sane prae laetitia mihi salit oculus, said he. Oh that joyful day! Oh that the calendar of my life might be filled with such festivals!
Which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy] As God remembered poor Joseph, and turned his fetters into a chain of gold, his rags into robes, his stocks into a chariot, his prison into a palace, his brown bread and water into fine bread and wine; and as he had turned again the captivity of his people as the streams in the south, Psalms 146:4; so here he had made a great alteration, bringing them from the jaws of death to the joys of a glorious deliverance; turning their sadness into gladness, their sighing into singing, their musing into music, their tears into triumph, luctum in laetitiam, saccum in sericum, ieiunium in epulum, manuum retortionem in applausum, &c. And this is no new thing in the Church.