Ezra 9:13

And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass,.... As famine, sword, pestilence, and captivity, for their idolatries and other heinous sins: seeing that our God

After all our sore sufferings for our sins, and after all thy favour showed to us in the mitigation of thy judgments. Such deliverance as this; so full, so sudden, and unexpected, and amazing, not only to our enemies, but also to ourselves.

Ezra 9:13 And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities [deserve], and hast given us [such] deliverance as this;Ver. 13. And after all that is come upon us] Affliction, like foul weather, cometh before it is sent for; yet not but of God’ s sending; and then it is ever either probational, as Job’ s; or cautional, as Paul’ s prick in the flesh; or penal, for chastisement of some way of wickedness, as here. For our evil deeds] These he thanketh (as well be might) for all their sufferings: sin is the mother of misery, and hales hell at the heels of it. Seeing that thou our God] Our God still, and this is the sixth time that he hath so styled him in this holy prayer, besides three times My God. These are speeches of faith, and refer to the covenant, that pabulum fidei, food of faith. When ye stand and pray, believe; when ye humble and tremble before God, keep up your faith still. Nihil retinet qui fidem amisit, lose that and lose all (Seneca). Take away the iniquity of thy servants, saith David, 2 Samuel 24:10. It is as if he should say, I am thy servant, Lord, still, though an unworthy one. And to prove himself so, he addeth, for I have done very foolishly. I confess it, Lord, that thou mayest cover it. Homo agnoscit, Deus ignoscit. This he believes, and speeds: when Judas confessing (but in addition despairing) misses of mercy. Hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve] Heb. Hast withheld beneath our iniquities. The just hire of the least sin is death in the largest sense, Romans 6:23. What then might God do to us for our many and mighty sins, or rather, what might he not do, and that most justly! How great is his mercy which maketh him say, Jerusalem hath received at God’ s hand double for all her sins, Isaiah 40:1-2. Too much, saith God there; too little, saith Ezra here; and yet how sweetly and beautifully doth this kind of contradiction become both! And hast given us such deliverance as this] A fruit of free mercy, and calls hard for duty. God’ s blessings are binders; and every new deliverance calls for new obedience, Servati sumus ut serviamus. We have been served so that we may serve.

(5-15) Ezra’s prayer of confession and deprecation. (5) And at the evening sacrifice I arose up.—Until the afternoon Ezra had sat silent and in grief before the Temple, and in presence of the people. Then, amidst the solemnities of the sacrifice, he uttered the prayer which he had been meditating. (6) And said, O my God.—The confession begins with “O my God;” but Ezra is the representative of the people, and it proceeds “O our God” (Ezra 9:10), without once returning to the first person. (7) Since the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass.—In these Common Prayers of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel, the race of Israel is regarded as one, and national sins as one “great trespass.” The repetition of “this day” at the beginning and at the end of the verse is to be observed: in the former place in reference to the sin; in the latter in reference to the punishment. (8) A little space.—The “little” here and at the close of the sentence are emphatic. All the present tokens of mercy are said at the conclusion of the prayer (Ezra 9:14) to be conditional in their continuance. The little space from the time of Cyrus was nearly two generations; but it was a moment only in relation to the past and the possible future. The idea is inverted in Isaiah 54:7 : “For a small moment have I forsaken thee.” Nail in his holy place.—The Temple was itself the sure nail on which all their hopes hung. A little reviving.—Literally, make us a little life. The present revival was but the beginning, and still by manifold tokens precarious. (9) We were bondmen.—Better, we are bondmen. In this lies the emphasis of the appeal. A wall.—Like “the nail,” a figurative expression for security. The literal wall was not yet rebuilt. This completes the description of Divine mercy: first, the people were a delivered remnant; the Temple was a sure nail for the future of religion; and their civil estate was made secure. (10) After this.—But all was a mercy for which there had been no adequate return. (11) Saying.—In the later Old Testament Scriptures the quotation of the earlier is often of this character, giving the substance of many passages. The same style is observable in the New Testament. (12) Give not your daughters.—See Deuteronomy 7:3, the only place where the interdict includes both daughters and sons. It is observable that the giving of daughters in marriage to heathens is not mentioned either in Ezra or in Nehemiah. Nor seek their peace.—An evident echo of that most stern injunction in Deuteronomy 23:6. (15) O Lord God of Israel, thou art righteous.—The solemn invocation shows that this is a summary of the whole prayer: God’s righteousness is magnified, as accompanied by the grace which had preserved them, although as only a remnant; and as such covered with their trespasses; and especially with “this” the present trespass, the guilt of which underlies all.

Verse 13. Hast punished us less than our iniquities] Great, numerous, and oppressive as our calamities have been, yet merely as temporal punishments, they have been much less than our provocations have deserved.

6–15. Ezra’s PrayerEzra’s prayer, as a confession of national sin, should be compared with the prayer of the Levites (Nehemiah 9:6-38), and more especially with the prayer of Daniel (Daniel 9:4-19). As in the confession of Daniel, the personality of the speaker is merged in that of the nation, The sin of the race no less than its shame and its punishment is acknowledged in the ‘we’, ‘our’, and ‘us’. The self-abnegation and love of Ezra as of Moses (Exodus 32:32), and of Paul (Romans 9:3), accept the obligations of nationality as the source of guilt as well as on privilege to the individual. The general plan of the confession resembles that of Daniel. It consists of (1) general confession, Ezra 9:6 (cf. Daniel 9:4-6), (2) the sins of former time, Ezra 9:7 (Daniel 9:7-8); (3) God’s mercy and goodness, Ezra 9:7-8 (Daniel 9:9); (4) Israel’s sin in the face of the Divine warning, Ezra 9:10-12 (Daniel 9:10-14); (5) the fresh guilt and final appeal, Ezra 9:13-15 (Daniel 9:15-19).

Deliverance - Or, “remnant,” as in Ezra 9:8.