Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ezra · About this commentary
We Are Left a Remnant
Ezra 9:7-15
7 Since the days of our fathers we have been exceedingly guilty to this day; and for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to confusion of face, as it is this day. · WEB
The prayer confesses in the first person plural, argues that the danger is extinction, and ends without a single request.
The confession reaches back before anyone present: since the days of our fathers we have been exceedingly guilty to this day.
And it names the exile as the sentence for it — for their iniquities they have been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to confusion of face. That is the third time the book has used the hand image for the ruin Ezra 5:12 Ezra 9:7, and it is Ezra using it about himself and his contemporaries: we, not they.
Then the mercy, described as small and recent: for a little moment grace has been shown from Yahweh our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place.
A nail is a tent peg — a single point of attachment. That is the whole assessment of the restoration offered by the man who has just funded and staffed it: not a kingdom, not even a foothold, but one peg driven into holy ground. And the return itself is credited to Persian goodwill in the same breath, to give us a reviving in our bondage, with the bondage conceded rather than denied.
The logic of the alarm follows from that. A remnant this thin has no margin. Would you not be angry with us until you had consumed us, so that there would be no remnant, nor any to escape? The fear is not of displeasure but of the last of them going.
And the prayer keeps the guilt undivided. We have forsaken your commandments. No distinction is drawn between the men who married and the community that let it happen, and Ezra never once says they.
Then the closing sentence, which is the strangest thing in the chapter: Yahweh, the God of Israel, you are righteous; for we are left a remnant that has escaped, as it is today. Behold, we are before you in our guilt; for no one can stand before you because of this.
It stops there. No petition, no proposal, no plan. God is declared righteous, the guilt is laid out, and the impossibility of standing is stated as the last word. Whatever happens next in the book does not come from this prayer — the prayer asks for nothing at all.
settled What this mark means