Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezra 9:5 - 9:5

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezra 9:5 - 9:5


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Ezra's prayer and confession for the congregation. - Ezr 9:5 And at the time of the evening sacrifice, I rose up from my mortification (תַּעֲנִית, humiliation, generally through fasting, here through sitting motionless in deep affliction of soul), and rending my garment and my mantle. These words contribute a second particular to קַמְתִּי, and do not mean that Ezra arose with his garments torn, but state that, on arising, he rent his clothing, and therefore again manifested his sorrow in this manner. He then fell on his knees, and spread out his hands to God (comp. 1Ki 8:22), to make a confession of the heavy guilt of the congregation before God, and thus impressively to set their sins before all who heard his prayer.

Ezr 9:6

9:6, etc. The train of thought in this prayer is as follows: I scarcely dare to lift up my fact to God, through shame for the greatness of our misdeeds (Ezr 9:6). From the days of our fathers, God has sorely punished us for our sins by delivering us into the power of our enemies; but has now again turned His pity towards us, and revived us in the place of His sanctuary, through the favour of the king of Persia (Ezr 9:7). But we have again transgressed His commands, with the keeping of which God has connected our possession of the good land given unto us (Ezr 9:10). Should we then, after God has spared us more than we through our trespasses have deserved, bring His wrath upon us, till we are wholly consumed? God is just; He has preserved us; but we stand before Him with heavy guilt upon us, such guilt that we cannot endure God's presence (Ezr 9:13). Ezra does not pray for the pardon of their sin, for he desires only to bring the congregation to the knowledge of the greatness of their transgression, and so to invite them to do all that in them lies to atone for their guilt, and to appease God's wrath.

“I am ashamed, and am covered with shame, to lift up my face to Thee, my God.” וְנִכְלַמְתִּי בֹּשְׁתִּי united, as in Jer 31:19, comp. Isa 45:16, and other passages. נִכְלַם, to be covered with shame, is stronger than בֹּושׁ. “For our iniquities are increased over our head,” i.e., have grown above our head. רֹאשׁ לְמַעֲלָה, to or over the head. לְמַעֲלָה serves to enhance the meaning of רָבוּ, like 1Ch 23:17. “And our guiltiness is great, (reaching) unto the heavens;” comp. 2Ch 28:9.

Ezr 9:7

“Since the days of our fathers, have we, our kings, our priests, been delivered into the hands of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to shame of face.” The words from בַּחֶרֶב onwards serve to explain what is meant by being delivered into the hand of strange kings. On the expression פָּנִים בֹּשֶׁת, comp. Dan 9:7, etc., 2Ch 32:21. הַזֶּה כְּהַיֹּום, as it is this day, as is to-day the case; see remarks on Dan 9:7. The thought is: We are still sorely suffering for our sins, by being yet under the yoke of foreign sovereigns.

Ezr 9:8-9

“And now for a little moment there has been mercy from the Lord our God, to leave us a rescued remnant, and to give us a nail in His holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage.” He calls the short interval between their release from captivity by Cyrus, and the time when he is speaking, רֶגַע כִּמְעַט, a little moment (comp. Isa 26:20), in comparison with the long period of suffering from the times of the Assyrians (comp. Neh 9:32) till the reign of Cyrus. פְּלֵיטָה, a rescued remnant, is the new community delivered from Babylon, and returned to the land of their fathers. In proportion to the numerous population of former days, it was but a remnant that escaped destruction; but a remnant which, according to the predictions of the prophets, was again to grow into a large nation. A foundation for this hope was given by the fact that God had given them “a nail in the place of His sanctuary.” The expression is figurative. יָתֵד is a nail or peg struck into the wall, to hang any kind of domestic utensils upon; comp. Isa 22:23, etc. Such a nail was the place of God's sanctuary, the temple, to the rescued community. This was to them a firm nail, by which they were borne and upheld; and this nail God had given them as a support to which they might cling, and gain new life and vigour. The infinitive clauses following, לְהָאִיר and לְתִתֵּנוּ, are dependent upon the preceding infinitives לְהַשְׁאִיר and וְלָתֵת, and state the purpose for which God has given a nail in His house to this remnant. That our God may enlighten our eyes, i.e., may bestow upon us new vitality; comp. Psa 13:4. Suffering and misfortune make the eyes dim, and their light is quenched in death: the enlightened or beaming eye is an image of vital power; comp. 1Sa 14:27, 1Sa 14:29. מִחְיָה לְתִתֵּנוּ is not to be translated, ut daret nobis vivificationem, the suffix to לְתִתֵּנוּ being not dative, but accusative. The literal rendering is: that He may make us a slight reviving. מִחְיָה, the means of supporting life, restoration to life; see on 2Ch 14:13. Ezra adds מְעַט; for the life to which the community had attained was but feeble, in comparison with a vigorous social life. Their deliverance from Babylon and return to the land of their fathers was, so to speak, a revival from death; compare the embodiment of this figure in Ezekiel's vision, Eze 37:1-14 : they were, however, still in a state of vassalage, and had not yet regained their independence. This thought is further carried out in Ezr 9:9 : “For we are bondmen, yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy to us before the kings of Persia; so that they have given us a reviving to build up the house of our God, and to repair its ruins, and have given us a wall about us in Judah and Jerusalem.” They who have returned to Jerusalem and Judah are still bondmen, for they are yet under the Persian yoke; but God has disposed the kings of Persia so to favour them as to give them a reviving, to enable them to rebuild the house of God. Cyrus and Darius had not merely permitted and commanded the building of the temple, but had also furnished them with considerable assistance towards the carrying out of this work; comp. Ezr 1:3, etc. Ezr 6:7-9. The suffix in חָרְבֹתָיו alludes to אֱלֹהִים בֵּית. The words of the last sentence are figurative. גָּדֵר means the wall of a vineyard, the wall or fence built for its protection (Isa 5:2, Isa 5:5). Hence the wall, or enclosure, is an image of protection from the incursions and attacks of enemies. Such a wall has been given them in Judah and Jerusalem by the kings of Persia. “The meaning is not that they possess a place defended by walls (perhaps, therefore, the temple) in Jerusalem and Judah, but that the Persian kings have given to the new community a safe dwelling-place (or the means of existence), because the power of the Persian empire secures to the returned Israelites continued and undisturbed possession of the city and the land.” (Bertheau.)

After this statement concerning the divine favour, Ezra next sets himself to describe the conduct of his countrymen with respect to the mercy extended to them.

Ezr 9:10

“And now, O our God, what can we say after this? That we have forsaken Thy commandments,” זֹאת, i.e., such proofs of the divine compassion as have just been mentioned. The answer which follows commences with כִּי, before which נֹאמַר is mentally repeated: “we can only say that we have forsaken Thy commandments, requited Thy kindness with sins.”

Ezr 9:11-12

Namely, the commandments “which Thou hast commanded by Thy servants the prophets, saying, The land unto which ye go to possess it is an unclean land through the uncleanness of the people of the lands, through their abominations, wherewith they have filled it from one end to another through their impurity. And now give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons (for wives), nor seek their peace nor their wealth for ever; that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever.” The words of the prophets introduced by לֵאמֹר are found in these terms neither in the prophetical books nor the Pentateuch. They are not, therefore, to be regarded as a verbal quotation, but only as a declaration that the prohibition of intermarriage with the heathen had been inculcated by the prophets. The introduction of this prohibition by the words: the land unto which ye go to possess it, refers to the Mosaic age, and in using it Ezra had chiefly in view Deu 7:1-3. He interweaves, however, with this passage other sayings from the Pentateuch, e.g., Deu 23:7, and from the prophetic writings, without designing to make a verbal quotation. He says quite generally, by His servants the prophets, as the author of the books of Kings does in similar cases, e.g., 2Ki 17:23; 2Ki 21:10; 2Ki 24:2, where the leading idea is, not to give the saying of some one prophet, but to represent the truth in question as one frequently reiterated. The sayings of Moses in Deuteronomy also bear a prophetical character; for in this book he, after the manner of the prophets, seeks to make the people lay to heart the duty of obeying the law. It is true that we do not meet in the other books of Scripture a special prohibition of marriages with Canaanites, though in the prophetical remarks, Jdg 3:6, such marriages are reproved as occasions of seducing the Israelites to idolatry, and in the prophetic descriptions of the whoredoms of Israel with Baalim, and the general animadversions upon apostasy from the Lord, the transgression of this prohibition is implicitly included; thus justifying the general expression, that God had forbidden the Israelites to contract such marriages, by His servants the prophets. Besides, we must here take into consideration the threatening of the prophets, that the Lord would thrust Israel out of the land for their sins, among which intermarriage with the Canaanites was by no means the least. Ezra, moreover, makes use of the general expression, “by the prophets,” because he desired to say that God had not merely forbidden these marriages one or twice in the law, but had also repeatedly inculcated this prohibition by the prophets. The law was preached by the prophets when they reiterated what was the will of God as revealed in the law of Moses. In this respect Ezra might well designate the prohibition of the law as the saying of the prophets, and cite it as pronounced according to the circumstances of the Mosaic period.

(Note: It is hence evident that these words of Ezra afford no evidence against the single authorship of the Pentateuch. The inference that a saying of the law, uttered during the wanderings in the wilderness, is here cited as a saying of the prophets the servants of Jahve, is, according to the just remark of Bertheau, entirely refuted even by the fact that the words cited are nowhere found in the Pentateuch in this exact form, and that hence Ezra did not intend to make a verbal quotation.)

The words: the land into which ye go, etc., recall the introduction of the law in Deu 7:1, etc.; but the description of the land as a land of uncleanness through the uncleanness of the people, etc., does not read thus either in the Pentateuch or in the prophets. נִדָּה, the uncleanness of women, is first applied to moral impurity by the prophets: comp. Lam 1:17; Eze 7:20; Eze 36:17, comp. Isa 64:5. The expression מִפֶּה אֶל־פֶּה, from edge to edge, i.e., from one end to the other, like לָפֶה פֶּה, 2Ki 10:21; 2Ki 21:16, is taken from vessels filled to their upper rim. וְעַתָּה introduces the consequence: and now, this being the case. The prohibition וגו תִּתְּנוּ אַל is worded after Deu 7:3. The addition: nor seek their peace, etc., is taken almost verbally from Deu 23:7, where this is said in respect of the Ammonites and Moabites. תֶּחֶזְקוּ לְמַאַן recalls Deu 11:8, and the promise: that ye may eat the good of the land for ever, Isa 1:19. לִבְנֵיכֶם וְהֹורַשְׁתֶּם, and leave it for an inheritance to your children, does not occur in this form in the Pentateuch, but only the promise: that they and their children should possess the land for ever. On הֹורֹישׁ in this sense comp. Jdg 11:24; 2Ch 20:11.

Ezr 9:13-14

And after all, continues Ezra, taking up again the אַחֲרֵי־זֹאת of Ezr 9:10, - “after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass - yea, Thou our God has spared us more than our iniquity deserved, and hast given us this escaped remnant - can we again break Thy commandments, and join in affinity with the people of these abominations? Wilt Thou not be angry with us even to extirpation, so that no residue and no escaped remnant should be left?” The premiss in Ezr 9:13 is followed in Ezr 9:14 by the conclusion in the form of a question, while the second clause of Ezr 9:13 is an explanatory parenthesis. Bertheau construes the passage otherwise. He finds the continuation of the sentence: and after all this ... in the words וגו אַתָּה כִּי, which, calmly spoken, would read: Thou, O God, hast not wholly destroyed us, but hast preserved to us an escaped remnant; while instead of such a continuation we have an exclamation of grateful wonder, emphatically introduced by כִּי in the sense of כִּי אָמְנָם. With this construction of the clauses, however, no advance is made, and Ezra, in this prayer, does but repeat what he had already said, Ezr 9:8 and Ezr 9:9; although the introductory אַהֲרֵי leads us to expect a new thought to close the confession. Then, too, the logical connection between the question Ezr 9:14 and what precedes it would be wanting, i.e., a foundation of fact for the question Ezr 9:14. Bertheau remarks on Ezr 9:14, that the question: should we return to break (i.e., break again) the commands of God? is an antithesis to the exclamation. But neither does this question, to judge by its matter, stand in contrast to the exclamation, nor is any such contrast indicated by its form. The discourse advances in regular progression only when Ezr 9:14 forms the conclusion arrived at from Ezr 9:13, and the thought in the premiss (13a) is limited by the thoughts introduced with כִּי. What had come upon Israel for their sins was, according to Ezr 9:7, deliverance into the hand of heathen kings, to the sword, to captivity, etc. God had not, however, merely chastened and punished His people for their sins, He had also extended mercy to them, Ezr 9:8, etc. This, therefore, is also mentioned by Ezra in Ezr 9:13, to justify, or rather to limit, the כֹּל in כָּל־הַבָּא. The כִּי is properly confirmatory: for Thou, our God, hast indeed punished us, but not in such measure as our sins had deserved; and receives through the tenor of the clause the adversative meaning of imo, yea (comp. Ewald, §330, b). לְמַטָּה מ חָשַׂכְתָּ, Thou hast checked, hast stopped, beneath our iniquities. חָשַׂךְ is not used intransitively, but actively; the missing object must be supplied from the context: Thou hast withheld that, all of which should have come upon us, i.e., the punishment we deserved, or, as older expositors completed the sense, iram tuam. מֵעֲוֹנֵנוּ לְמַטָּה, infra delicta nostra, i.e., Thou hast punished us less than our iniquities deserved. For their iniquities they had merited extirpation; but God had given them a rescued remnant. כָּזֹאת, as this, viz., this which exists in the community now returned from Babylon to Judaea. This is the circumstance which justifies the question: should we, or can we, again (נָשׁוּב is used adverbially) break Thy commandments, and become related by marriage? (חִתְחַתֵּן like Deu 7:3.) הַתֹּעֵבֹות עַמֵּי, people who live in abominations. The answer to this question is found in the subsequent question: will He not - if, after the sparing mercy we have experienced, we again transgress the commands of God - by angry with us till He have consumed us? כַּלֵּה עַד (comp. 2Ki 13:17, 2Ki 13:19) is strengthened by the addition: so that there will be no remnant and no escaping. The question introduced by הֲלֹוא is an expression of certain assurance: He will most certainly consume us.

Ezr 9:15

“Jahve, God of Israel, Thou art righteous; for we remain an escaped remnant, as (it is) this day. Behold, we are before Thee in our trespass; for no one can stand before Thy face, because of this.” Ezra appeals to the righteousness of God, not to supplicate pardon, as Neh 9:33, for the righteousness of God would impel Him to extirpate the sinful nation, but to rouse the conscience of the community, to point out to them what, after this relapse into their old abominations, they had to expect from the justice of God. נִשְׁאַרְנוּ כִּי is confirmatory. God has shown Himself to be just by so sorely punishing this once numerous nation, that only a small remnant which has escaped destruction now exists. And this remnant has again most grievously offended: we lie before Thee in our trespass; what can we expect from Thy justice? Nothing but destruction; for there is no standing before Thee, i.e., no one can stand before Thee, עַל־זֹאת, because of this (comp. Ezr 8:23; Ezr 10:2), i.e., because of the fresh guilt which we have incurred.