Mordechai's response
When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly. 2 But he went only as far as the king’s gate, because no one clothed in sackcloth was allowed to enter it. 3 In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
The Jews were shocked when they heard of Haman’s plot to destroy them. Mordecai joined in their mourning and displayed the traditional signs of mourning—torn clothes, rough sackcloth garments, and ashes on his face. We do not know whether this indicated a deep religious faith on the part of Mordecai or his actions were only traditional customs of mourning that had lost their spiritual significance for many of the exiles. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, these customs were outward signs of inner repentance and the turning to God for deliverance. For example, Daniel describes how he prayed to the Lord: “I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes” (Daniel 9:3). But, as is so often the case in the book of Esther, we receive a bare statement of a person’s actions without any analysis of his motives.