06/04/2025 – Day 329 – Nehemiah – Chapters 5 – 9 / Chapter 9 commentary – “A Time to Mourn”
Let’s get started with J.G. McConville’s commentary on Chapter 9:
“It was right to celebrate God’s goodness to the returned exiles in enabling Jerusalem to be built. Their leaders however — and Ezra is still in the forefront (v. 6) — know that the story is not over. The remainder of the Book of Nehemiah, consequently is take up with the need for the people to extricate themselves from their mediocrity in devotion to God, which is reflected in their status as a vassal-people (v. 36). Chapter 9 must be seen in the wider context. It belongs particularly close with Chapter 10. It was common in the ancient world to cement relationships (normally political ones) by agreements (or treaties) between the parties, which were characterized (a) by a rehearsal of past relations between them and (b) by formal commitments about the future. The Old Testament often adopts this practice, somewhat loosely, for the relationship between God and Israel. Nehemiah 9 and 10 together are a case in point. Nehemiah 9 rehearses the past in the form of a prayer of confession (vv 6-37), and prepares for the new commitment to God in 9:38 – 10:39. The form in its entirety is one which commends itself for Christian prayer in general, and solemn acts of renewal in particular. We look first, however, at the great commission.
The atmosphere is far different from that which prevailed during the Feast of Booths. Once again outward manifestations betoken the condition of the worshippers’ hearts (v. 1). The sackcloth and the earth on the worshippers’ heads are signs of humility and mortality. The note of praise which prefaces the confession (v. 5) heralds what will in fact be the tone of the prayers, namely that despite the sin of Israel, the relationship with Israel’s God is a continuing one, and that praise and confession belong intimately together, both appropriate because of the greatness of God. It is important to notice that the confession – like the earlier joy — has been engendered by the reading of God’s word (v. 3). The Levites have a prominent place again, showing that Ezra’s prayer speaks for the community in the totality of its religious authority structure.
The confession itself encompasses the whole history of the people of Israel, from creation (v. 6) through the election of Abraham and promises to him (vv. 7-8) to the fulfillment of those promises in the miraculous exodus of the earlier Israelites from Egypt by the division of the Red Sea (v. 11)., their guidance and sustenance in the wilderness (vv. 12, 15), the giving of commandments at Sinai (v. 13), and the ultimate possession of the rich land of Canaan as a numerous and victorious people (vv. 22-25). (The reader who wishes to follow the story in detail will need to read large parts of the Pentateuch and beyond. The events that are expressly alluded to here occur in Genesis 1; 12; 17:15; Exodus 2: 23-25; 7-12; 13:21; 14; 16; 19-24; 32; Numbers 21: 21-35; Joshua 1 – 12.)
Ezra thus claims a solidarity between the people of his day and their ancestors in the faith. This is two-edged. On the one hand it is to claim the mercies of God all down the ages for the contemporary community. On the other hand, it means that the people of the present have a share in the guilt of the past. The ‘sins of the fathers’ are in no way minimized in Ezra’s prayer. Indeed, the prayer oscillates between statements of God’s goodness (vv. 9-15, 17b, 19-25, 27, 28b, 31) and statements of the poeople’s sinfulness (vv. 16-17a, 18, 26, 28a, 29-30) in such a way as to throw their ingratitude into sharp relief. The high point of their sin was the manufacture of the golden calf (v. 18; cf. Exodus 32), an act of idolatry at the very moment when Yahweh was setting his seal to the election of Israel as his own at Sinai. Yet this was merely typical of what was to come. Every act of love on God’s part was met and matched by one of disloyalty on the part of his people (e.g. v. 26). Ezra is in no sense exonerating his own generation by this catalogue. Rather, he is allowing the character of former generations to reflect upon it.
There is an obvious point here for the faithful of today as we reflect upon our own failures. Our confessions can be very individualistic. In relation to the Church in other times and places we even tend to distance ourselves from its inadequacies and lean towards self-congratulation. How much better to try to see with God’s eye the failures of the Church in all ages, to admit that we are made of similar stuff, and to admire far more his graciousness! This is not blame-shifting. It is entirely to accept that the sins of the past are our own heritage, and is a sure defense against self-justification or the feeling that one has nothing to confess.
Yet at the heart of Ezra’s prayer is the mercy of God. It is instructive to notice how often the word ‘but’ occurs in it. Whole sermons have been preached on the words ‘But now…’ in Romans 3:21, representing the great turning point of the gospel. Men are chronically sinful, but God has shown in Jesus Christ that he justifies the sinful, to because of any price they pay, but as a free gift (Romans 3: 22-26). The same principle is present here, even if its final exhibition (in Christ) was yet withheld. ‘But thou art a God ready to forgive’ (v. 17); ‘Even when they had made [a calf] … thou in thy great mercies … (vv 18-19); ‘yet when they turned… thou didst hear (v. 28). There is, of course, a corresponding succession of ‘buts’ and ‘neverthelesses’, showing the people’s ingratitude. This only serves, however, to bring out more forcefully the Lord’s determination to be gracious.
Notice the terms that describe his character, especially in v. 17b. He is a God, literally, ‘of forgiveness’; more than simply being ‘ready to forgive’ (RSV), he has forgiven and goes on doing so times without number. He is gracious, i.e. he is fundamentally disposed to be kind, giving, favorable to his people. He is merciful. The word has overtones of the warm, passionate feeling a mother has for her child. He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. That is, he is slow to apply the terms of the covenant strictly to Israel (by punishing them), but is more than ready to fulfill all the obligations which it imposes upon himself. It is thus that he has not forsaken them. By all natural justice he should have done. It is only because his love goes far deeper than any duty could demand that he has borne with his people still.’
The extent of his favor to them emerges from a comparison of verse 10 and 20. The Egyptians ‘insolence’ becomes a ground for their judgment. Israel is no better – she too is ‘presumptuous’. (The word is the same in v. 29 as in v. 10 and connotes high-handed defiance.). Yet because it is through Israel that God desires ultimately to manifest his salvation to the whole world, he did not ‘make an end of them or forsake them’ (v. 31). If we seek evidence that is purely by God’s goodwill that any experience his salvation, the history of his dealings with Israel furnishes it (Cf. also Ephesians 2:8.). And a prayer like Ezra’s teaches us to make a sober evaluation of our own need of God’s mercy.
The prayer of Ezra is one of a number of places in the Old Testament where we are given a potted version of Israel’s inglorious history. Others are Deuteronomy 1: Jeremiah 2; Ezekiel 20; Psalm 78, 105, 106, 135, 136, These all have different emphasis according to the situations they address. Thus Jer. 2 speaks to the nation while it still persists in the worst excesses of its idolatry, before the axe that is Nebuchadnezzar has fallen, and stresses the justness of God’s anger. Ezra’s prayer stands close to Psalm 106. In it, as in the Psalm, a balance is kept between the rightness of God’s periodic chastisement of the people (vv. 17a, 30b) and the ultimately merciful intentions which we have seen to be the real keynote of the prayer.
Ezra is careful, therefore, to avoid giving wrong impressions. In his praying he is aware that the assembled people are listening, and that this lends to the activity – inevitably – a didactic dimension. (it is in this respect similar in character to the prayers in certain Christian liturgies which precede the sacrament of Holy Communion.). The grace of God which is so inexhaustible. is not therefore indifferent to Israel’s faithfulness or lack of it. The urgency of this point for Ezra’s generation is that, while, they have so signally experienced God’s goodness, there is a clear sense in which they nevertheless continue to suffer. Ezra refers to ‘hardship’ that has been the lot of Israel for generation (v. 32), and more particularly a ‘slavery’ in which they labour here and now (vv. 36-37; note the bitter irony here). All this is attributable to sin (vv. 33-34, 35b). Resistance to grace is still the problem of Israel, and explains their rather ambiguous situation, in which they remain a subject people despite the new fortifications of their city.
The balance of the prayer is intended, therefore, both to point to the open-ended possibilities of future blessings from God, and to call the people to set their house in order, so that it might be realized. This call is not to compromise what we have said already about God’s grace, nor to lead into ideas of merited salvation. Rather it calls God’s people to take seriously their status as such, and the fact that God’s purposes for them are that they should be holy (cf. Leviticus 20:26, echoed in v. 2 of our chapter). The right goal of Israel is faithfulness. Her history has furnished at least one example of the quality, in a sea of disobedience, namely Abraham (vv 7-8). This she should emulate, so that there might be a grander fulfillment than there has yet been of the promises to him. In this way the prayer leads into the affirmations of chapter 10. The word for ‘covenant’ in 9:38 is not the usual word (berth) but amana, meaning an act of faithfulness. It is closely related, therefore, to the quality shown by Abraham (v. 8). Israel is thus exhorted to become, by their faithfulness, Abraham’s children. Galatians 3: 6 – 14 guards against any wrong interpretation of what that implies.”
Soli Deo Gloria!