and said, I beseech thee, Jehovah, God of the heavens, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and keep his commandments.
Bad news about Jerusalem has reached Nehemiah, and he prays. Before he asks for anything, he spends a whole verse on who God is. The titles he picks show where Israel stood in history.
This title is not a general name for God. It belongs to one stretch of history.
God gave up Judah, which had turned away from Him, to the Gentiles, as He had given up Israel before. He passed the sentence of Lo-ammi — "not My people." He stopped acting as God of the earth, the Jehovah of His people. As "God of the heavens" He gave world empire for a time to four Gentile powers, one after another.
The same phrase runs through the books written during and after the exile. It replaced an older one.
When the ark took its place in the Jordan to lead Israel into the land, they heard the words: "Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passes over before you" (Joshua 3:11). Now, in the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, and the last chapter of Chronicles, God has left the throne of His kingdom in Israel. In the mouths of His people He has become someone far off — "the God of heaven."
The Hebrew behind this verse stacks three names for God together. Each one does its own work.
In verse 5 Nehemiah uses three names of God, and they are of special importance. In Hebrew they are these. "Jehovah" is His covenant name with Israel. "Elohim" is His supremacy in the universe. "El" speaks of the might that God has ready to carry out every detail of His will. It is the "Mighty God".
Nehemiah did not invent fresh language. His opening sentence draws on books he knew well.
He reveals in the opening words of his prayer familiarity with the Word of God: "I beg you, O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God (Deuteronomy 7:21; 10:17; Daniel 9:4) who keeps covenant and mercy with those who love Him and keep His commandments (Deuteronomy 7:9; 1 Kings 8:23)." These are the words of Scripture. They show his confidence in the power and faithfulness of God. After them, Nehemiah confessed his sin and the sins of his people.
The order of the prayer matters. Verse 5 declares God faithful; only then does verse 6 admit the failure.
First, Nehemiah defends the character and ways of God. Jehovah is the "God of heaven, the great and awesome God." He is also the faithful God who "keeps covenant and mercy for those who love Him and observe His commandments" (5). Second, he confesses the sins of the children of Israel. In doing so he identifies himself with them — "We have sinned against You: both I and my father's house have sinned."
The covenant Nehemiah names comes with terms. Israel had not met them. (Where the ESV reads "steadfast love," older translations read "mercy.")
In prayer Nehemiah appealed to the God of heaven as "the great and awesome God," and as the One who keeps His covenant and mercy — though Israel had broken that covenant badly. He adds the words "and mercy," for Israel was in desperate need of mercy. Those who do not love Him and observe His commandments have forfeited all claim to His covenant, and can hardly expect His mercy. Nehemiah does not go so far as to say "keep His commandments," but "observe." He had no doubt learned that keeping all God's commandments is too hard for man, but that man must still respect and honour them.
The condition in the verse, and the way Nehemiah addresses God, point in the same direction.
"He keeps covenant and mercy for those who love Him and observe His commandments." This, together with the way he addresses God, brings out in a marked way the contrast between law and grace. Nehemiah was devoted and God-fearing, yet you cannot help sensing distance in the terms he uses — "O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God." The age he lived under made that distance necessary. How different from the place the Lord gave His disciples after His resurrection, in His words: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."
- Distance. "God of heaven" marks the age when God had left His throne in Jerusalem and given world rule to the Gentiles. His people spoke of Him as far off.
- Names. Nehemiah packs three names into one sentence: His covenant name, His supremacy over the universe, and His might to carry out every detail of His will.
- Scripture. Nehemiah drew his opening words from Deuteronomy, Kings and Daniel. He prayed the Scriptures back to God.
- Order. He clears God's character first, then confesses sin, and includes himself in it: "we have sinned."
- Mercy. The covenant carries a condition Israel had broken, so Nehemiah adds "mercy." It is the only ground left, and his whole appeal rests on it.
Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, to hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee at this time, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, confessing the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee both I and my father's house have sinned.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
We have acted very perversely against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances that thou commandedst thy servant Moses.
Nehemiah has just heard that Jerusalem lies in ruins and its survivors are in trouble. He does not blame the wreck on other people. He calls the sin his own — and that raises a hard question. How does a good man confess a failure he did not commit, and what can he ask for once obedience is gone?
Nehemiah folds himself and his family into the guilt of the whole nation. One writer ties that "we" to Nehemiah's constant prayer, and calls it a rare privilege.
Day and night he was praying for them, and that is how he had the power to confess their sins. No higher privilege could be given to a servant than the one granted to Nehemiah. That privilege was the power to identify himself with Israel so fully that he could take up and confess their sins as his own. "I," he says, "and my father's house have sinned." This is a true sign of spiritual power. Many can lament the condition of God's people; but there are few who can identify themselves with it. It is only such people who can truly intercede for them in the presence of God.
The confession is not vague regret. Nehemiah names what the people did, and one writer finds that surprising in a man like him.
In verse 6 we read, "We have sinned against You," but Nehemiah adds, "Both I and my father's house have sinned." "We have acted very corruptly against You." We might have thought it was the other way round with a man like Nehemiah. But that is what he says to God. "And have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that You commanded Your servant Moses." They had been downright disobedient to the things of God. That is where trouble always begins.
Nehemiah measures the nation by the law God gave through Moses. One writer points to this verse to show what place that law still held for the people who came back from exile.
These books describe the effort of the Jewish leaders to restore the temple and the worship as they had been before the captivity, and the law of Moses is the standard by which everything was to be done. Ezra (7:21) speaks of "the law of the God of heaven." Nehemiah (1:7) confesses the breaking of "the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that God commanded Moses."
God's mercy was for those who love Him and keep His commandments. Nehemiah admits Israel had done the opposite. That leaves them no claim on God at all.
He confesses the sins of the children of Israel, and in doing so he identifies himself with them — "We have sinned against You: both I and my father's house have sinned." They should have loved Jehovah and kept His commandments. Instead, he says, "We have acted very corruptly against You and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that You commanded Your servant Moses." So they had forfeited all claim to the mercy of God on the ground of obedience. … The first plea is God's faithfulness to His own word. He has just owned that they have not kept the commandments God gave through Moses. But there was something else God gave through Moses. Besides the rules of the law there were the promises of the law.
Taking up another person's sin as your own is not natural. One writer says only those in communion with God can do it, and points to One who did it perfectly.
It is easy enough to feel for God's people when their sinful conduct dishonours them in the eyes of the world. But some are in communion with the mind of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. They share His affections for His own, and so, first and foremost, they are filled with zeal to guard His glory. Only they can measure the sin as it touches the holy Name they bear. Only they can go down, take up the sin, make it their own, and tell it all out before God. Moses, Nehemiah, and Daniel are examples of this in their various measures, and so is Ezra. But all of them are only faint shadows of Him who so identified Himself with His people that in confessing their sins He said, "O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you."
- Pray. Nehemiah prayed for his people day and night, and that prayer gave him the power to confess their sins.
- Own. He said "we," not "they," and made the nation's sin his own. Few can do that, and only they can truly intercede.
- Name. He names the sin instead of softening it. Israel did not keep the commandments, statutes and rules given through Moses, and that disobedience is where trouble begins.
- Forfeit. By that confession he gives up every claim on God based on obedience — nothing is left to bargain with.
- Plead. Empty-handed, he turns to the promises God also gave through Moses. His way of bearing another's sin is only a faint shadow of Christ.