Ezra 9:5 - Meaning and Application

We can guess what Ezra was thinking during those hours when he sat there stunned by his sorrow. When he finally spoke, his words showed a deeply moving prayer to God in this crisis. He made this appeal at the evening sacrifice (Ezra 9:5). At that time, devout people likely came to the temple courts to honor the sacrifice and pray with it.

Ezra chose to make his confession in front of them, so they would feel the seriousness of their people’s sin. Some had not noticed it, and others had treated it lightly. In that sense, prayer can also preach. The sacrifice, especially the evening sacrifice, pointed forward to the great propitiation, meaning the sacrifice that turns away God’s wrath, the blessed Lamb of God who would take away sin by giving himself. Ezra seems to have looked by faith to that sacrifice as he confessed his people’s sin to God.

He likely also remembered the message the angel Gabriel had given Daniel years before, at the time of the evening sacrifice, about Messiah the Prince (Daniel 9:21, 24). That may have helped guide his choice of time. His actions before praying also show deep humility. He rose from his grief enough to lift his heart to God, and he settled his troubled spirit for communion with him.

Then he knelt, taking the posture of a penitent, someone humbling himself before God, and of a petitioner asking for mercy. He stood there as a representative of the people he was interceding for, meaning he was pleading on their behalf. He also spread out his hands, showing both his deep feeling and his earnest offering to God. It was as if he was waiting expectantly to receive a gracious answer from the Lord, his powerful and gracious God.

This was not really a prayer in the narrow sense, because Ezra did not ask for anything. Yet if prayer is understood more broadly, it was the offering of holy and devout affections to God. Those affections were very sincere and deeply moving. Ezra’s words were a penitential confession of sin, not his own personal sin, but the sin of his people. He spoke from concern for God’s honor and for Israel’s good, and his words give a vivid picture of true repentance.

He first confessed the sin itself and then dwelt on its seriousness, so that his own heart and the hearts of those with him might feel holy sorrow, shame, and fear. Even though he was personally free from this guilt, he included himself among the sinners, because he belonged to the same community: “our sins” and “our trespass.” He may even have thought of his own fault in staying so long after his brothers in Babylon, instead of separating himself sooner from the people of those lands.

When we mourn the evil of others, we may also find that something like it exists in us, though in a smaller way. At the very least, Ezra spoke what was, or ought to have been, the common complaint. He said their sins had become very great: “Our iniquities are increased over our heads” (Ezra 9:6). They were, as it were, drowning in them. Sin had become widespread, powerful, and full of danger for them.

Their guilt had grown so high that it reached to the heavens. It was bold enough to challenge heaven, and, like Sodom’s sin, it cried out for judgment. Yet this is comfort for true repenters, because even if their sins reach to the heavens, God’s mercy is in the heavens (Psalm 36:5). Where sin becomes great, grace can become greater still.

Their sin was also old and long continued: “Since the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass” (Ezra 9:7). Ezra did not see their ancestors’ example as an excuse. He saw it as making their guilt worse. They should have learned caution from the failures of the past, not repeated them. Sin becomes even more serious when it has taken deep root and begins to seem normal.

God’s severe judgments had also made their guilt worse. Because of their sins, they had been handed over to the sword and to captivity (Ezra 9:7), and yet they had not changed. They had been beaten down, but not corrected. Like grain crushed in a mortar, their folly had not left them (Proverbs 27:22).

Their recent mercy also made their sin worse. Ezra explains this at length in Ezra 9:8, 9. It had only been a short time since they had regained some freedom, and that freedom was not likely to last long. The fact that they had come so recently out of hardship made their disobedience more shocking. Could they still feel secure?

He says this mercy came from the Lord’s grace. The kings of Persia were the tools God used, but Ezra gives the credit to God and to his free grace, not to anything the people had earned. God had not abandoned them in exile. Even in Babylon, they had signs of his presence. They were a surviving remnant, a small group left out of many, and they had escaped from their enemies through the favor of the Persian kings.

Most of all, God had given them “a nail in his holy place,” that is, a secure place for his worship, explained in Ezra 9:9 as the setting up of the house of God. Their temple service was now established in an orderly way. It is a great comfort and blessing to have regular times to worship God. Happy are those who dwell in God’s house, like Anna, who did not depart from the temple. The gracious soul can truly say, “This is my rest forever.”

These mercies had brightened their eyes and revived their hearts. In other words, they had brought comfort, especially because they came while the people were still in bondage. It was like life returning from the dead. Though the revival was only small, it was still a great kindness, because they deserved none of it, and even a little mercy was a sign of greater mercy to come.

Ezra says, in effect, “How ungrateful we are to offend a God who has been so kind to us. How false it is to join our sin with those nations from whom he has wonderfully delivered us. How foolish it is to put ourselves under God’s displeasure when we have just received his favor and are being tested to see whether we will keep it.” The sin was worse because it broke an express command. Ezra says, “We have ignored your commands” (Ezra 9:10).

It seems there had long been a family rule among Jacob’s descendants, the nation of Israel, not to marry into the families of the uncircumcised, that is, those outside God’s covenant people (Genesis 34:14). But God had also plainly forbidden it. Ezra repeats the command in Ezra 9:11-12: “Do not give your daughters to their sons, and do not take their daughters for your sons.” Sin looks especially sinful when we set it beside the law it breaks. God’s reason was clear: if Israel mixed with those nations, they would become polluted. The land was unclean, and Israel was a holy people. Keeping themselves separate would protect their honor, their safety, and their continuing prosperity. To break such a clear command, with such strong reasons behind it, was deeply offensive to the God of heaven.

Ezra also sees that God had already punished them less than they deserved. In his eyes, they still owed a debt from past sin. It was as if he were saying, “God has already dealt gently with us, so why should we begin a new record of guilt?” In grace, God had said about Zion’s captivity, “She has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins” (Isaiah 40:2). But Ezra, with a deeply penitent heart, still says that even their severe suffering was less than their true guilt deserved.

As Ezra makes this confession, he shows strong feelings of repentance. First, he speaks with deep shame. He begins, “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to you” (Ezra 9:6). Sin is shameful, and when our first parents ate the forbidden fruit, they were ashamed right away. Holy shame is as necessary to true repentance as holy sorrow. We should even feel shame over the sins of others when they do not blush for themselves. It is right to be ashamed that we belong to a people so ungrateful to God and so foolish for their own good. This is part of sincere self-examination (2 Corinthians 7:11).

Penitent sinners never see more reason to blush than when they come before God. A natural concern for our own honor may make us ashamed to face people after doing wrong. But a stronger concern for God’s honor should make us much more ashamed to face him. The tax collector in the temple stood with his head bowed, as one ashamed (Luke 18:13). Ezra’s way of speaking also shows the help that comes from remembering God as our own God. He says, “O my God,” and again, “my God.” Thinking about our covenant relationship with God can humble us, break our hearts over sin, and also give us hope for pardon. He is still “my God,” even after this sin, and not every covenant failure throws us out of the covenant.

Second, Ezra speaks as one filled with astonishment. In Ezra 9:10 he says, “What shall we say after this?” In other words, “I do not know what to say unless God himself helps us.” Seeing our guilt should amaze us, because the more we think about sin, the worse it looks. The hard part of the situation should also amaze us. How can we recover? How can we make peace with God?

True repentance leaves a person at a loss for words. Shall we say we have not sinned, or that God will not hold it against us? That would be self-deception. Shall we say, “Be patient with us, and we will pay you everything,” as if we could repay God with thousands of rams or even our firstborn children? God will not be mocked like that, because he knows we have nothing to offer that would settle the debt. Shall we say there is no hope and let whatever happens happen? That only makes things worse. True penitents stop trying to defend themselves and instead ask God to teach them what to say. Their prayer becomes something like, “I have sinned. I have done foolishly. God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Hosea 14:2).

Third, Ezra speaks as one full of fear, in Ezra 9:13-14. He says that after all the judgments God had sent to turn them from sin, and all the deliverances he had worked to draw them back to himself and to duty, it would be disastrous if they again broke God’s commands. If they joined themselves in marriage to the children of disobedience and learned their ways, what could they expect except God’s anger until they were destroyed, leaving no remnant and no escape? There is no clearer, and no sadder, sign of coming ruin for any people than returning to the same sins after great judgments and great rescues. Those who will not be changed by either warning or mercy are like worthless silver, rejected because the furnace has tried it in vain.

Fourth, Ezra speaks as one firmly convinced of God’s righteousness, and he is ready to accept God’s judgment as right. In Ezra 9:15 he says, “You are righteous.” God is wise, just, and good. He will not wrong them, and he will not be harsh without cause. So Ezra says, “We are before you, and we lie at your feet, waiting for your judgment. We cannot stand before you and argue for our own righteousness, because we have no defense to offer. So we fall before you in our trespass and cast ourselves on your mercy. Do with us whatever seems good to you” (Judges 10:15). They have nothing left to say, nothing left to do, except to plead with their Judge (Job 9:15). Ezra lays his grief before God, and then leaves it with him.