Esther 4:16

all the Jews that are present in Shushan We are to suppose them to be a considerable number, if they were subsequently able to dispose of three hundred of their foes (Esther 9:15).

fast ye for me in connexion with intercession on my behalf. Prayer and fasting went together in time of sorrow or anxiety or penitence. So David (2 Samuel 12:16), Ahab (1 Kings 21:27), Daniel (Daniel 9:3).

neither eat nor drink three days, night or day This sounds a very explicit direction to abstain from all food for seventy-two hours. It is, however, possible that for the general body of the Jews here referred to it may not have really meant more than two nights and the intervening day, a part of the twenty-four hour day being for certain purposes reckoned as a whole one. Cp. Matthew 12:40 with Matthew 28:1. Nevertheless to fast for the longer period is not beyond the limits of Oriental abstemiousness.

I also and my maidens will fast in like manner Esther herself cannot have carried out this abstinence in its most rigid form. The appearance which she must in that case have presented before the king would have militated strongly against her chances of success, slender as those chances were in any case.

if I perish, I perish She accepts the risk, acknowledging the necessity. For form of expression cp. Jacob's words in Genesis 43:14.