Nehemiah 9

On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads. Nehemiah 9:1

The people had been greatly touched by the reading of the law. It brought them to tears of repentance in 8:9, but since it was a holy day they were not allowed to be sad and were restrained by the leaders. Now, two days after the end of the feast, the great repentance they felt began to burst out. They came together with fasting and dust on their heads. They were also wearing sackcloth. Anders says, “Sackcloth was a dark, coarse material associated with sorrow and repentance. Throwing dust, or putting it on one’s head, symbolized humiliation.” [1] Perhaps sackcloth today could be compared to a rough burlap bag. The sackcloth and dirt must have left them with a good deal of discomfort. However, it seems that most of their discomfort was on the inside. The Bible says, “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret…” (2 Cor. 7:10).

It is interesting that the law came to make the trespass increase. The law is like an x-ray or a magnifying glass regarding our sins. In days gone by the law was preached and people repented in droves. Today the law is not preached and there is little repentance. Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God,” and sermons like that helped bring about the Great Awakening in America. “The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more…” (Rom. 5:20).

“Times occur in the life of the faith community when public sorrow and confession of sin are appropriate. These occasions bind together believers and reinforce their humble state before God, they also result in praise for God’s great mercy and grace.” [2]

“Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the sins of their ancestors” (9:2). The great Feast of Tabernacles was always open to all people but when God’s covenant people came together to pray and seek the Lord’s face Gentiles were not allowed (Lev. 20:26). The people were still in a penitent mood so they continued to stand and confess the sins of themselves and of their ancestors. Somehow, we have the idea that repentance is for the unredeemed only. However, there are many places in scripture where the elect are called upon to repent. This was one of those places.

Years ago I heard it said best by a Christian football player. He said that when he was saved he became a “repenting type person.” God wants us to keep on repenting. Redpath says, “God will never plant the seed of his life upon the soil of a hard, unbroken spirit. He will only plant that seed where the conviction of his Spirit has brought brokenness, where the soil has been watered with the tears of repentance as well as the tears of joy.” [3]

“They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshiping the LORD their God” (9:3). This was the third reading of the law (cf. the first was in 8:4-8; the second was in 8:13-15). They listened to the law for three hours and then confessed their sins and worshipped for three hours. We can imagine that such a service would not go over too well in our day of 30-second sound bites and short attention spans. Lord help us!

“Standing on the stairs of the Levites were Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani and Kenani. They cried out with loud voices to the LORD their God. And the Levites – Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah and Pethahiah – said: ‘Stand up and praise the LORD your God, who is from everlasting to everlasting’” (9:4-5a). Coffman says something interesting about this service: “A very important revelation of this chapter is that it was the Levites, and not the priests, who led Israel in this penitential prayer of confession and praise of God. From the Book of Malachi, we learn of the near total apostasy of the Jewish priesthood; and in Zechariah, they are clearly revealed as the false shepherds who destroyed the nation. There is not a word in this chapter that even hints of any priestly participation in this great repentance, confession and prayer.” [4] Of course, some generations later it was the priesthood that was very much involved in having Jesus crucified.

The Levites could have stood on the stairs of the wooden platform that we mentioned earlier or they could have stood on the stairs of the temple that was close by. Guzik says: “The following prayer is thought to be the longest prayer in the Bible – and yet takes only six and one-half minutes to say. Prayer does not need to be long to be glorious and effective.” [5] Regarding our own sometimes pitiful efforts at praying Anders says: “If people feel that prayer is necessary, yet they often find their minds wandering and their resolve waning…Many people use the acrostic P-R-A-Y to guide them through their praying and keep them focused… P=Praise…R=Repentance…A=Ask…Y=Yield.” [6]

Israel’s Praise And Repentance Session

Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. Nehemiah 9:5b

In the first part of this verse, the Levites had charged the people to stand up and praise the Lord. Clarke says, “It is the shameless custom of many congregations of people to sit still while they profess to bless and praise God…” [7] There is something about sitting too long that dulls our spiritual senses anyway. We need more Levite types today to get us on our feet in worship. We seem to have no problem standing to our feet and cheering for our favorite football teams. If we wonder how this worship was taking place, Jamieson and his team shed this light: “If this prayer was uttered by all these Levites in common, it must have been prepared and adopted beforehand, perhaps, by Ezra.” [8]

“You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you” (9:6). Ancient people got to see the majesty of the heavenly creation most nights. There was no smog or bright city lights to dim this vast display. Today millions of folks hardly get to glimpse these heavenly wonders because most people now live in cities. We need to at least try to see the sunrise or the sunset and be careful to praise God for such wonders.

“You are the LORD God, who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and named him Abraham. You found his heart faithful to you, and you made a covenant with him to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Jebusites and Girgashites. You have kept your promise because you are righteous” (9:7-8). The people of Israel on many occasions recited their holy history (e.g. Psa. 78 in the OT and Hebrews 11 in the NT). This is something we desperately need in this postmodern era. Although we have Bibles everywhere in the Western world we do not seem to read them, even if they are handy on our cell phones. Many Christian young people today have little knowledge of their holy history.

Michael Holmes says: “A significant weakness of contemporary Christianity; its lack of knowledge of the Bible…Gallup and Barna have revealed, the level of Bible literacy in America is abysmal. Details of the polls’ findings have been widely reported: Only half of the Christians polled correctly identified Jesus as the person who delivered the Sermon on the Mount; barely three of five could recall the names of the first four books of the New Testament. When asked to quote a Bible verse, the most frequent response was “God helps those who help themselves” – a line written by Benjamin Franklin.” [9]

In a 2015 interview on the 700 Club by Paul Strand, with George Barna and historian David Barton, it was revealed that “only 30 percent of Christians read the Bible and less than 10 percent have read it from cover-to-cover.” [10] Our faith heritage through Jesus also goes back to Father Abraham (Rom. 4:16-17), but a lot of Christians may not know that.

“ You saw the suffering of our ancestors in Egypt; you heard their cry at the Red Sea. You sent signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his officials and all the people of his land, for you knew how arrogantly the Egyptians treated them. You made a name for yourself, which remains to this day. You divided the sea before them, so that they passed through it on dry ground, but you hurled their pursuers into the depths, like a stone into mighty waters. By day you led them with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take” (9:9-12). The deliverance of Israel from Egypt is one of the most astounding stories in the history of the world. We can read about this great deliverance in Exodus chapters 7 through 14. In this drama, God brought awful plagues upon Egypt until Pharaoh decided to let Israel go. This account climaxed when the sea swallowed the whole army of Pharaoh and Israel escaped through it on dry ground. It is a classic drama of all times and gains God more eternal fame. It also became the type and pattern of our salvation in Jesus.

The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night were incredible signs. There was not a time in all the forty years of wilderness wandering that the least Israelites could not peek out of their tents and see the glory of God hovering over them. There was never another time when the that glory was so clearly and steadily revealed.

“You came down on Mount Sinai; you spoke to them from heaven. You gave them regulations and laws that are just and right, and decrees and commands that are good. You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees and laws through your servant Moses. In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock; you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them” (9:13-15). Never before in the history of the world did God come down in person and give people his laws of life. Never before did a people have statutes that would endure forever (Deut. 4:40). God’s people were fed with manna from heaven for the whole duration of their journey. Their thirst was quenched with water from the rock. I remember some years ago I was with my son Yoni, who is a licensed tour guide in Israel. We were at the Wilderness of Zin nature preserve in Israel and he called my attention to water seeping out of the face of a high sheer cliff. It was something to see water still coming out of a rock. Two times are recorded when water came out of a rock to bless Israel (Exod. 17:6; Num. 20:7-13). It likely happened several more times. Israel’s forty years in the wilderness proved that God is a really good and merciful God.

Israel’s Sin And Rebellion

But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and they did not obey your commands. They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, “This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,” or when they “committed awful blasphemies” (9:16-18).

Breneman comments: “Stiff-necked is a common biblical expression for stubbornness (cf. Exod. 32:9; Jer. 7:26; 17:23). The imagery is that of an animal that struggles against having a yoke placed on its neck.” [11] They even appointed a leader to take them back to slavery in Egypt (Num. 14:4). What a terrible and unthankful response to God’s great goodness.

The worst sin of Israel was to cast a molten calf (Exodus chapter 32). They bowed down to worship it, then they ate and rose up to indulge in sexual revelry. They did all this while Moses was receiving the holy law directly from God. Today Israel has many kinds of shofars (ram’s horns) which are made from various animals. However, they never make a shofar from a cow’s horn. They are too embarrassed to do that and feel it would be an offense to God, because of their golden calf.

Still, God put up with them just as he puts up with us Christians today. Redpath says, “God’s mercy with a sinner is only equaled and perhaps outmatched by his patience with the saints, with you and me.” [12]

“Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen” (9:19-21). God’s loving care of Israel for those forty years in the wilderness is an account that boggles our materialistic minds. God was faithful to feed heavenly manna to some two million Israelites daily for all that time. Dare we doubt that our Heavenly Father can take care of us today? To top all stories of the wilderness, even their clothes and shoes did not wear out or get too small. That loving act of God is far beyond our imagination and certainly beyond our explanation. It assures us that our God can do anything!

“You gave them kingdoms and nations, allotting to them even the remotest frontiers. They took over the country of Sihon king of Heshbon and the country of Og king of Bashan. You made their children as numerous as the stars in the sky, and you brought them into the land that you told their parents to enter and possess. Their children went in and took possession of the land. You subdued before them the Canaanites, who lived in the land; you gave the Canaanites into their hands, along with their kings and the peoples of the land, to deal with them as they pleased. They captured fortified cities and fertile land; they took possession of houses filled with all kinds of good things, wells already dug, vineyards, olive groves and fruit trees in abundance. They ate to the full and were well-nourished; they reveled in your great goodness” (9:22-25). This section focuses again on the goodness of God but it makes the wickedness of Israel stand out in bold relief. Long before Moses had said: “When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you – a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant – then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery ” (Deut. 6:10-12).

Thomas Carlyle once said; “For every one hundred men who can stand adversity there is only one who can stand prosperity.” Novelist John Steinbeck wrote, “If you want to destroy a nation, give it too much – make it greedy, miserable, and sick.” [13] “Jeshurun [upright one or Israel] grew fat and kicked; filled with food, they became heavy and sleek. They abandoned the God who made them and rejected the Rock their Savior” (Deut. 32:15). No doubt this is why the author of Proverbs could say: “…give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread” (Prov. 30:8). It normally would take a couple of generations of hard work to make a land really livable but God gave them houses ready to move into and farms ready to cultivate.

“But they were disobedient and rebelled against you; they turned their backs on your law. They killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you; they committed awful blasphemies. So you delivered them into the hands of their enemies, who oppressed them. But when they were oppressed they cried out to you. From heaven you heard them, and in your great compassion you gave them deliverers, who rescued them from the hand of their enemies. But as soon as they were at rest, they again did what was evil in your sight. Then you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies so that they ruled over them. And when they cried out to you again, you heard from heaven, and in your compassion you delivered them time after time” (9:26-28). Breneman says of these scriptures: “This section presents a threefold repetition of the same four-step historical cycle evident in the Book of Judges (see Jud. 2:10-20). (1) the people were disobedient; (2) God handed them over to their enemies, who oppressed them; (3) they cried to God for help; (4) God heard and delivered them.” [14]

We have to ask, “What did they think they would get from rebelling against God?” “The first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer.” [15] We must rephrase the question. What do we think we will get from rebelling against God?

Their fathers had been guilty of the grossest sins. They even had killed the prophets that God sent to them (cf. 1 Kings 18:4; 19:10; 2 Chron. 24:20-22; Jer. 26:20-23). Barnes says: “Jewish tradition further affirms that more than one of the great prophets (e. g., Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel) were martyred by their countrymen.” [16] It seems that somehow that guilt had trickled down to the present generation. Pett comments: “Over a thousand years had passed since the covenant had been given, and yet they were even now not in full possession of the land. And the reason was because they and their fathers had sinned.” [17]

“You warned them in order to turn them back to your law, but they became arrogant and disobeyed your commands. They sinned against your ordinances, of which you said, ‘The person who obeys them will live by them.’ Stubbornly they turned their backs on you, became stiff-necked and refused to listen. For many years you were patient with them. By your Spirit you warned them through your prophets. Yet they paid no attention, so you gave them into the hands of the neighboring peoples. But in your great mercy you did not put an end to them or abandon them, for you are a gracious and merciful God” (9:29-31). The great C. S. Lewis once wrote, “there are only two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘Thy will be done.’” [18] Despite God’s help and pleading, they lived by their own will. They turned their backs on God and his ordinances. They persecuted his prophets. They became so stiff-necked that God gave them over to their Gentile enemies. However, because of his great covenant love, he did not desert them entirely.

The Confession And Binding Agreement

Now therefore, our God, the great God, mighty and awesome, who keeps his covenant of love, do not let all this hardship seem trifling in your eyes – the hardship that has come on us, on our kings and leaders, on our priests and prophets, on our ancestors and all your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today. In all that has happened to us, you have remained righteous; you have acted faithfully, while we acted wickedly. Our kings, our leaders, our priests and our ancestors did not follow your law; they did not pay attention to your commands or the statutes you warned them to keep. Even while they were in their kingdom, enjoying your great goodness to them in the spacious and fertile land you gave them, they did not serve you or turn from their evil ways. Nehemiah 9:32-35

This confession turns from “our father’s sins” to “our sins.” They could now say, “we acted wickedly.” Confession is agreeing with what God says about us. In spite of their sins God remained faithful to them just as he does for us. It is amazing how God continues to pursue his people in love despite their rebellion. Francis Thompson wrote the beautiful poem entitled The Hound of Heaven. In it he says:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears

I hid from Him… [19]

“The recurring theme of flight from God could be written across the entire history of humankind. None understood this better than God’s own people, Israel.” [20]

“But see, we are slaves today, slaves in the land you gave our ancestors so they could eat its fruit and the other good things it produces. Because of our sins, its abundant harvest goes to the kings you have placed over us. They rule over our bodies and our cattle as they please. We are in great distress. In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals to it” (9:36-38). They were not yet in the best position but they were in a far better position than those who had remained exiles in Babylon and Persia. Because of their own sins, they were still ruled by the foreign power of Persia. Because of their own sins, much of their harvest had to be given over to that Gentile nation. Because of their own sins, they remained in great distress. All this brought them to the point of making a solemn covenant with the Almighty God.

Footnotes

1. Anders, g. ed. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Holman Old Testament Commentary, p. 229.

2. Ibid., p. 228.

3. Quoted in Guzik, Enduring Word Bible Commentary, Ezra, v. 9:2.

4. Coffman, Commentary on Nehemiah, Coffman Commentaries on the Bible, v. 9:1.

5. Guzik, Enduring Word Bible Commentary, Ezra, vs. 9:4-5.

6. Anders, g. ed. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Holman Old Testament Commentary, pp. 227-228.

7. Clarke, Commentary on Nehemiah, The Adam Clarke Commentary, v. 9:5.

8. Jamieson, et. al., Commentary on Nehemiah, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, v. 9:5.

9. Michael W. Holmes, The NIV Application Commentary 1 And 2 Thessalonians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), p. 207.

10. CBN 700 Club, July 7, 2015, Paul Strand interviewed George Barna and historian David Barton about their book U-Turn: Restoring America to the Strength of Its Roots

11. Breneman, Ezra, Nehemiah & Esther, The New American Commentary, p. 239.

12. Quoted in Guzik, Enduring Word Bible Commentary, Ezra, vs. 9:17-21.

13. Quoted in Wiersbe, The Wiersbe Bible Commentary, OT, p. 781.

14. Breneman, Ezra, Nehemiah & Esther, The New American Commentary, p. 240.

15. David Kupelian, How Evil Works: Understanding and Overcoming the Destructive Forces That Are Transforming America (Nashville: WND Books, 2005), p.241.

16. Barnes, Commentary on Nehemiah, Barnes’ Notes on the Whole Bible, v. 9:26.

17. Pett, Commentary on Nehemiah, Peter Pett’s Commentary on the Bible, v. 9:5.

18. Paul Copan, How Do You Know You’re Not Wrong?, p. 214.

19. Francis Thompson: http://www.houndofheaven.com/poem

20. Anders, g. ed. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Holman Old Testament Commentary, p. 235.