Ezra 9:15

O Lord God of Israel, thou art righteous,.... And would appear to be so, should Israel be entirely cut off, and utterly consumed for their iniquities: for we remain yet escaped, as it is this day;

Thou art righteous; a just and holy God, who dost hate, and wilt infallibly punish, sin and sinners. Or, thou art merciful, as appears from hence, that notwithstanding all our sins, thou hast not utterly destroyed us, but left a remnant of us. The Hebrew word here rendered righteous, is oft used for merciful; as is well known to all the learned. For we remain yet escaped; or, though we remain, &c., i.e. though thou hast yet spared us in part, yet thou art righteous, and therefore wilt certainly punish and destroy us according to our deserts, if we do not repent us, and reform this great wickedness. We are before thee in our trespasses; we are here in thy presence, and so are all our sins; we are arraigning ourselves before thy tribunal, acknowledging ourselves to be vile offenders, and thee to be just, if thou destroy us. We cannot stand before thee, to wit, in judgment, as that word is oft used, as ; compare ; we must needs fall and perish at thy presence, as the phrase is, . Because of this; because of this our great guilt, and the aggravations of it.

Ezra 9:15 O LORD God of Israel, thou [art] righteous: for we remain yet escaped, as [it is] this day: behold, we [are] before thee in our trespasses: for we cannot stand before thee because of this.Ver. 15. O Lord God of Israel] So called, because he is their portion, they his, Deuteronomy 32:9. He had avouched them for his; and they him interchangeably, Deuteronomy 26:17-18. Seneca could say that the basest people (meaning the Jews) gave laws unto all the world; that is, had the true God, creator of all, for their God. Thou art righteous] In all thy judgments inflicted upon us; or, thou art faithful and true in thy promises: but we have forfeited thy favour, and deserved destruction. Behold, we are before thee in our trespasses] Or guiltiness, which is that iniquity of sin (as David calleth it, Psalms 32:5) whereby the sinner is bound over to condign punishment. For we cannot stand before thee] But must needs causa cadere, drop our case, being self-condemned; and such as must needs subscribe to thy perfect justice in our own utter destruction.

(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 15. Thou art righteous] Thou art merciful; this is one of the many meanings of the word צדק tsedek; and to this meaning St. Paul refers, when he says, God declares his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, Romans 3:25. See the note there. We remain yet escaped] Because of this righteousness or mercy. In our trespasses] We have no righteousness; we are clothed and covered with our trespasses. We cannot stand before thee because of this.] The parallel place, as noted in the margin, is Psalms 130:3: If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? Every man must stand before the judgment-seat of Christ: but who shall stand there with joy? No man against whom the Lord marks iniquities. There is a reference here to the temple service: the priests and Levites stood and ministered before the Lord, but they were not permitted to do so unless pure from all legal pollution; so no man shall stand before the judgment-seat of Christ who is not washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. Reader, how dost thou expect to stand there?

15. The prayer ends in expression of complete surrender. There is no excuse to plead. The nation stands in its sin in the presence of the perfect God, and awaits the sentence of ‘righteousness’. O Lord God of Israel] R.V. O LORD, the God of Israel. See on Ezra 1:3. The prayer had begun ‘O my God’ (Ezra 9:6). It ends, O Lord the God of Israel. The thought of his nation overmastered the supplicant. thou art righteous] This must not be softened down as if it were ‘thou art gracious’. The words are an acknowledgement of the perfect justice of God’s dealings with Israel in the past. The next sentence ‘for we are left a remnant’ is not uttered in gratitude for the mercy which spared ‘a remnant’, but is added to express the greatness of the catastrophe, which had carried off the whole nation except ‘a remnant’. And yet the visitation had been just. The prayer of Ezra (?) in Nehemiah 9 has a very similar phrase, Nehemiah 9:33 ‘Howbeit thou art just (çaddîq) in all that is come upon us; for thou hast done truly, but we have done wickedly’. Thou art righteous (çaddîq), and we who are left ‘a remnant’ have failed to profit by the righteous judgement of the past. God is called ‘righteous’ in reference to the ‘fixed and unalterable rule of truth and goodness’. Cf. Nehemiah 9:8; 2 Chronicles 12:6; Psalms 119:137; Psalms 129:4; Psalms 145:7. (See Cheyne on Psalms 7:17.) as it is this day] Cf. Ezra 9:7. we are before thee] i.e. arraigned as it were before thy judgement seat. Ezra was praying ‘before the house of God’ (Ezra 10:2). in our trespasses] R.V. in our guiltiness. See on Ezra 9:7. Fresh guilt has been added to the old. There is nothing to plead in extenuation. Nor had there been in the past. Righteous as Jehovah was, He had granted ‘a remnant’: now the guiltiness of the remnant seemed to merit its extinction. for we cannot stand before thee because of this] R.V. for none can stand before thee because of this. None, for all Israelites, innocent as well as guilty, are bound up together in that responsibility for the nation’s guilt. Cf. Psalms 76:7 ‘And who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?’ Psalms 130:3 ‘If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?’ Nahum 1:6 ‘Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger?’ The Spirit alone gives the power to ‘stand before’ God and to hear His word. Ezekiel 2:1-2. because of this] See note on Ezra 8:23, Ezra 10:2 : i.e. on account of this last sin, in which the people have once more offended their God.

Some take “righteous” to mean here “kind” or “merciful.” Others give it the more usual sense of “just,” and understand the full meaning of the passage to be, “Thou art righteous, and hast punished

15. In our trespasses — Thus he leaves the case with his God, who is eminently righteous. But he does not venture to ask pardon for Israel’s enormous trespasses. It will not do to pray for that until Israel ceases to do evil.