Ready to Pardon
16 “But they and our fathers behaved proudly, hardened their neck, didn’t listen to your commandments, 17 and refused to obey. They weren’t mindful of your wonders that you did among them, but hardened their neck, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. But you are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and didn’t forsake them. 18 Yes, when they had made themselves a molded calf, and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed awful blasphemies, 19 yet you in your manifold mercies didn’t forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud didn’t depart from over them by day, to lead them in the way; neither did the pillar of fire by night, to show them light, and the way in which they should go. 20 You gave also your good Spirit to instruct them, and didn’t withhold your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst. 21 “Yes, forty years you sustained them in the wilderness. They lacked nothing. Their clothes didn’t grow old, and their feet didn’t swell. 22 Moreover you gave them kingdoms and peoples, which you allotted according to their portions. So they possessed the land of Sihon, even the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan. 23 You also multiplied their children as the stars of the sky, and brought them into the land concerning which you said to their fathers that they should go in to possess it. 24 “So the children went in and possessed the land; and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hands, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they pleased. 25 They took fortified cities and a rich land, and possessed houses full of all good things, cisterns dug out, vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate, were filled, became fat, and delighted themselves in your great goodness. 26 “Nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against you, cast your law behind their back, killed your prophets that testified against them to turn them again to you, and they committed awful blasphemies. 27 Therefore you delivered them into the hand of their adversaries, who distressed them. In the time of their trouble, when they cried to you, you heard from heaven; and according to your manifold mercies you gave them saviors who saved them out of the hands of their adversaries. 28 But after they had rest, they did evil again before you; therefore you left them in the hands of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them; yet when they returned and cried to you, you heard from heaven; and many times you delivered them according to your mercies, 29 and testified against them, that you might bring them again to your law. Yet they were arrogant, and didn’t listen to your commandments, but sinned against your ordinances (which if a man does, he shall live in them), turned their backs, stiffened their neck, and would not hear. 30 Yet many years you put up with them, and testified against them by your Spirit through your prophets. Yet they would not listen. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. 31 “Nevertheless in your manifold mercies you didn’t make a full end of them, nor forsake them; for you are a gracious and merciful God.
The history turns into a cycle told four times over, and the prayer's hinge is a description of God quoted from Sinai itself.
But they and our fathers behaved proudly, hardened their neck, didn't listen to your commandments.
The turn comes exactly where the history requires it, and the prayer's honesty is structural: the generation that saw the wonders is the generation that appointed a captain to return to their bondage — nostalgic for Egypt with the sea barely behind them.
And then the hinge on which the entire prayer swings: but you are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and didn't forsake them Nehemiah 9:17.
That is Sinai's own self-description — the words proclaimed to Moses in the cleft of the rock — quoted back to their speaker by the descendants of every generation that tested them. The phrase ready to pardon is this prayer's own addition to the formula: pardon not as concession but as readiness, God leaning toward the verdict before it is asked for. Even the golden calf — this is your God who brought you up out of Egypt, quoted in full — could not cancel the pillar of cloud, the Spirit given to instruct, the manna, the water. The prayer's accounting of the wilderness ends in a line of astonishing tenderness: forty years you sustained them... their clothes didn't grow old, and their feet didn't swell.
Then the land — cities taken, houses full, cisterns dug by other hands, so they ate, were filled, became fat — and the cycle the judges' era ran on, told in a single breathless loop: disobedience, cast your law behind their back, prophets killed; deliverance into enemies' hands; a cry; you heard from heaven; saviors sent. But after they had rest, they did evil again — and the loop runs again, many times, the prayer says, declining to count.
The summary verdict on centuries of prophetic ministry is one clause: yet they would not listen. And the exile follows as the cycle's last turn: you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.
But the paragraph will not end there, because the history did not: nevertheless in your manifold mercies you didn't make a full end of them, nor forsake them; for you are a gracious and merciful God Nehemiah 9:31.
The formula returns at the close. Between its two occurrences stands the whole national record — and the prayer's argument is that the formula outlasted the record.
settled What this mark means