Thou art the Same, Jehovah Elohim, who didst choose Abram and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham;
Nehemiah 9 records a long public confession, and the Levites open it with God Himself rather than with Israel's sins. Verse 7 names three acts of God — He chose, He brought out, He named — and each one presses the question: why Abram?
Two strands run side by side through the prayer this verse belongs to:
The reader will notice that this outpouring of their hearts before God retells God's ways of grace with His people. With it goes the confession of their own continual sin and hardness of heart. On God's part there had been nothing but grace, mercy, and patience, and on their part nothing but sinful ingratitude and rebellion. So they justified Him and condemned themselves. That is the sure mark of a work of grace in repentance, whether in the hearts of saints or sinners.
The Levites list what they acknowledge in God, and this verse supplies one item on that list:
God is owned as Sovereign. He chooses whom He will. He calls Abram out of Ur, and He changes his name (7).
Readers naturally ask why Abram and not someone else:
Why should God have called Abram? The only answer that can be given is that God chose to do so in His sovereign will.
Ur was no neutral starting point. Even the family line God had marked out for blessing had turned to idols:
God had already marked off a certain part of the sons of Noah as preserved for blessing, and Shem in particular. Yet here too was the solemn fact that the family of Shem had gone into idolatry no less than others. Despite the purpose God had foretold, Shem's sons had proved unfaithful. What could be done next? Was there no way of securing God's honour? This was the way: the call of God goes out in sovereign grace. It separates to Himself a man no better than his fellows, a man openly caught up in the idolatries of his fathers.
Genesis introduces Abram when he is already on the move. So when did God first speak to him? This verse helps answer that:
To Abraham He spoke directly. He spoke first in Ur of the Chaldees, as Stephen says (Acts 7:2), and Genesis 15:7 and Nehemiah 9:7 support that. He spoke again in Haran (Genesis 12:1), telling him to go to a land which He would show him. Abraham obeyed, and went out, not knowing where he was going (Hebrews 11:8). God's word was, however, enough.
God gave the new name when He made His covenant with Abraham. The name carried a promise that nothing in his circumstances yet backed up:
In confirmation of this covenant God changed Abram's name to Abraham, which means "Father of a multitude." From this point on the new name is used, though as yet the promise contained in the name had received no fulfilment. So God pledged Himself to bring it to pass in His own way.
The act of naming carries its own weight in Scripture:
There is another element here, one that carries the same sense elsewhere in Scripture: God gives a name to Abram, and to Sarai also. A name given this way marks the right of direct authority, and entering into relationship on that ground.
The people reciting this verse had a history with idols of their own:
Verse 6 has insisted that God is Creator. That is a very real reason for Israel to judge their sins before Him, but verses 7 and 8 give a further serious reason. God had chosen their father Abram and called him from Ur of the Chaldees. He changed his name to Abraham, to make him the father of a special nation, Israel, the nation God set apart. God had called him out from a land of idol worshippers. So even a partial return to idols on Israel's part was an insult to God.
- Chose — Abram was no better than his neighbours; the reason for the call lies in God's sovereign will alone, not in the man.
- Brought out — the call separated him from a family and a city given over to false gods. God spoke first in Ur, and His word alone was enough to move him.
- Gave the name — "father of a multitude," given while the promise was still unfulfilled. The new name was God pledging Himself to make it true.
- Confessed — the Levites justify God and condemn themselves, the sure mark of real repentance.
- Applied — God called their father out of idolatry, so Israel's every drift back to idols insulted Him.
and foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest the covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, -- to give it to his seed; and thou hast performed thy words, for thou art righteous.
In Nehemiah 9 the people gather to confess their sins, and verse 8 rests on Abraham: a heart found faithful, a covenant to give the land, and a word God carried out. Why would people confessing failure start with what God gave to one man centuries earlier?
The praise of verses 5–8 is not a warm-up to the confession that follows. It is what makes the confession possible.
As the remnant stand up to bless the Lord "with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads," God leads them to express a wonderful sevenfold praise. That praise brings God before the soul in the majesty of His being and the greatness of His ways. And it is clear that such a view of God in His glory and grace is necessary for true confession. For only as we have God before our souls can we truly weigh how serious our failure is.
The verse says God found Abraham's heart faithful before Him, and only then made the covenant.
In fact, God had found Abraham's heart faithful and made a covenant with him (v. 8). Notice, this covenant did not depend on Abraham's future faithfulness. It rested on what was already true: Abraham had proven faithful. So the promise was unconditional. This should have spoken deeply to the hearts and consciences of Israel. It should have produced in them real concern for the honour of the Lord — a willing faithfulness, not obedience forced by the rules of law.
The covenant names what God will do: give the land. He asks nothing in return.
And as to His "covenant," it was one of unmixed grace. It proposed no condition — it made no demands — it put no yoke on the neck — no burden on the shoulder. When "the God of glory appeared to Abraham" in Ur of the Chaldeans, He certainly did not address him with words like "you shall do this" and "you shall not do that." No; such language was not according to the heart of God. … His word to Abraham was, "I WILL GIVE." The land of Canaan was not to be bought by man's doing, but given by God's grace. … It is clear that He had not promised the land of Canaan to Abraham's seed on the ground of anything He foresaw in them. That would have destroyed the very nature of a promise. It would have made it a bargain and not a promise; "but God gave it to Abraham by a promise," not by bargain.
The six peoples named held the land when God made the promise.
This covenant involved God's giving to Israel the land that was held by the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Jebusites and Girgashites. God had proven true to His Word, "for," as the Jews now say, "You are righteous." God had given Israel such blessing. That was certainly a good reason for them to obey, and now a reason for their humble confession that they had disobeyed.
The prayer gives one reason why God kept His word: He is righteous.
They then move on to God's action in grace in calling out Abram, and in making the covenant with him "to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite." Then they add, "You have kept Your promise, for You are righteous" (vv. 7, 8). What a resting place they had found for their souls — the faithfulness and righteousness of their God! They had learned that though they were faithless, "He remains faithful — for He cannot deny Himself" (2 Tim. 2:13). … There is nothing a sinner fears more than the righteousness of God. But for the believer it is the unchanging foundation on which his soul rests in perfect peace, now that through the death and resurrection of Christ grace reigns through righteousness. And so he can also rejoice in the faithfulness of God, knowing that what He has promised He will also perform.
Having recited the covenant, the prayer moves on to Sinai. One writer notes what ground the people stood on.
Notice that they do not rest on the ground of promise, though they recount the covenant made with Abraham. They take their stand on the legal conditions of Sinai, as their fathers did before them. … As yet, all was only temporary. Yet God is always God, and good to all who call upon Him.
- Sight first. Confession has no weight until God is in view. The praise of verses 5–8 lets the people measure their own failure.
- Heart found. God found Abraham's heart faithful first. Only then did He make the covenant, so the promise never rested on Abraham's later record.
- Gift, not bargain. The covenant's language is "I will give" — no conditions, no demands, no yoke; a promise, not a deal.
- Word performed. The nations named were still holding the land when God spoke; naming them proves He did what He said.
- Righteous, therefore restful. God keeps His promise because He is righteous. The very thing a sinner dreads becomes the believer's ground of peace.
And thou sawest the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red Sea;
In Nehemiah 9 the people stand up in fasting and sackcloth to confess their sin, and here their prayer turns from Abraham to Egypt. Two verbs carry it — God saw, and God heard — and everything the nation ever received flows from them.
The prayer blesses God in stages, and each stage names Him by what He has done:
In verses 5 to 7, the people bless God as the Creator and Preserver of all things, the One who is the Same, Jehovah. In verses 7 and 8, they acknowledge Him as the God of the promises who called and chose Abraham. In verses 9 to 11, they celebrate Him as God, the Redeemer and Victor over the enemy: the One who saved His people from Egypt.
The Levites do not begin the Egypt story with Moses. They begin further back, with what God noticed — and they borrow their words from God Himself:
Redemption is their next theme (vv. 9-11). And notice how they trace it down from the heart of God. Where do they begin? It is, "You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt." These are almost the very words God Himself used when He first commissioned Moses. In Exodus 3:7 He said, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt." They reached the source from which the blessed streams of grace had flowed. Then they add, "and heard their cry at the Red Sea" — another display of the heart of God.
To say God saw and heard is to say He came near. The slaves in Egypt had nothing to offer but a cry:
As to the condition grace found them in — what of it? Hard slavery in the land of Egypt. Working among the brick kilns, under the cruel whip of Pharaoh's taskmasters. But then, "We cried to the LORD." Here was their sure and blessed resource. It was all they could do, but it was enough. That cry of helplessness went straight up to the throne and to the heart of God. It brought Him down into the very middle of the brick kilns of Egypt.
The second half of the verse is harder than the first. At the sea, Israel complained instead of praying — and yet God counts it as a cry:
See in what way the immense goodness of the Lord regards the conduct of Israel. Israel had murmured (Exodus 14:11) and complained bitterly, but they had never cried to the Lord. Yet in the intercession of Moses it all became their cry. Their sorrow was a cry. How wonderful this goodness!
It may seem strange that a prayer of repentance spends so long on God's kindness before naming a single sin. The order is deliberate:
As the remnant stand up to bless the Lord "with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads," God leads them to utter a wonderful sevenfold praise. It brings God before the soul in the majesty of His Being and the greatness of His ways. And that such a view of God in His glory and grace is necessary for true confession is clear. For only as we have God before our souls can we truly measure the seriousness of our failure.
After this praise, the same writer notes, the people find nothing good to say about themselves. Their history in the wilderness, in the land, and in captivity shows one failure repeated: disobedience to the word of God.
What God did once at the brick kilns and at the sea, He has not stopped doing:
Long ago He said to Moses, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters." So now, blessed be His name, He sees, knows, and hears all the groans, sorrows, and tears of an awakened, troubled sinner. And in His own time and way He loves to deliver.
- Saw — the prayer starts not with Israel's suffering but with God noticing it. They borrow God's own words to Moses, and every later mercy flows from there.
- Heard — a cry of helplessness was all the slaves could offer. It was enough, and it brought God down into the brick kilns.
- Counted — at the sea Israel murmured instead of praying. God's goodness still counted their sorrow as a cry.
- Rescued — verses 9 to 11 present God as Redeemer and Victor over the enemy, the One who saved His people out of Egypt.
- Confessed — only after this sight of God's majesty and grace do the people measure their own failure. A right view of God is what makes real confession possible.
and didst shew signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and upon all his servants, and upon all the people of his land; for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them, and thou didst make thee a name, as it is this day.
This chapter is a prayer of confession. In it a returned remnant looks back to Egypt and tells God His own history with them. The verse holds three things at once. It names what God did: signs and wonders. It names why: Egypt's pride. And it names the result — a name that still stands, "as it is to this day."
The praise in this prayer moves in stages, and this verse sits inside one of them.
Their blessing of God consists in this. In verses 5 to 7, the people bless God as the Creator and Preserver of all things, who is the Same, Jehovah. In verses 7 and 8, they acknowledge Him as the God of the promises who called and chose Abraham. In verses 9 to 11, he celebrates Him as God, the Redeemer and Victor over the enemy: the One who saved His people from Egypt.
The signs and wonders are not where the account begins. The prayer starts further back, with God seeing His people's affliction.
Redemption is their next theme (vv. 9-11). Notice how they trace it down from the heart of God. Where do they begin? Here: "You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt." God Himself used almost these very words when He first commissioned Moses: "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt" (Exodus 3:7). They reached the source from which the blessed streams of grace had flowed.
The same events wore two faces, depending on who watched them.
In relation to Egypt, God's dealings were plagues. Each one displayed the wrath and power of God. By them His Name became known throughout all the earth. By them God overthrew Pharaoh, whose resistance was stubborn and futile. His spirit, however, still remained unchanged. But to the people of God these "great judgments" were signs and wonders. By these God would bring His people out of the adversary's power, out of the house of slaves.
Judgment was not God's first approach to Egypt. Egypt had already met Him another way, long before Moses came.
In some way or another He will and must make Himself known, for that is His glory. But He seeks to be known in goodness rather than in judgment, if men will listen. Take Egypt, for instance. The Lord made Himself known there in Joseph, the witness of His goodness. Through Joseph He filled Egypt's storehouses with all kinds of wealth. But Egypt forgot Joseph. Then a king arose who persecuted Joseph's people. He said of his God, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey Him?" Then the Lord had to publish His name in that land in judgment.
Older translations of the verse say Egypt "dealt proudly" — the same words Jethro used of them. One writer carries that line all the way to the cross.
God's love sees no good in us. The cross showed the brightest proof of God's love and man's hatred. They met there, and God's love proved the greater; as Jethro says, "In the thing in which they dealt proudly, He was above them."
"And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day." God aimed the deliverance outward, at an audience far wider than Israel.
God separated a people to Himself from these corrupting influences. In doing so He made Himself known in a decisive public testimony that would reach far and wide. Egypt was both the chief centre of civilization and the country fullest of animal gods. There God showed Himself in judgments that humbled their king and their many gods together. "Truly I have raised you up for this," He says to Pharaoh, "to show My power through you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth."
The name was not something God happened to gain. He had staked it on a promise.
In wonderful grace, God had committed Himself to deliver His people out of the land where their captors held them. The honour of His great Name was bound up with what He had said He would do.
- Heart — it starts with God seeing His people's affliction, in the same words He used to Moses. Every act that follows flows from there.
- Pride — Egypt knew God's goodness in Joseph, then forgot Him. When a king asked "Who is the Lord?", God published His name there in judgment.
- Power — one set of events, two readings: plagues to Egypt, signs to the people He was bringing out of the house of slaves.
- Above — God proved Himself greater at the very point where pride rose highest. One writer carries that pattern to the cross.
- Name — His honour was bound up with His promise. So the rescue made Him known far beyond Israel, "as it is to this day."
And thou didst divide the sea before them, and they went through the midst of the sea on dry [ground]; and their pursuers thou threwest into the depths, as a stone into the mighty waters.
Nehemiah 9:11 is not history for its own sake. It is prayer. A people confessing their sins look back at the Red Sea and tell God what He did there.
The confession does not begin with the sea. It begins earlier, with God seeing a suffering people. The prayer almost repeats what God said to Moses.
Redemption is their next theme (vv. 9-11). Notice how they trace it back to the heart of God. Where do they start? "You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt." These are almost the words God Himself used when He first sent Moses: "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt" (Exodus 3:7). They reached back to the source from which the blessed streams of grace had flowed... They recall in this way their redemption by power out of the land of Egypt.
The verse stresses the ground under their feet. One commentator asks why it was dry, and points to Christ.
God opened a way through death for His people. On one side He shielded them from Satan's power. On the other He used death itself to free them from death. As a picture, the Red Sea means death, and also resurrection, because the people came through to the other side... They "went into the midst of the sea on dry ground." Why? Because — we are speaking of the picture it gives — Christ had gone down into death and used up its power. All the force and power of death fell on Christ, and so believers pass through on dry ground.
The blood in Egypt and the crossing of the sea did two different things, and this commentator keeps them apart.
The blood shelters us from the judgment of God. Then His power acts for us and frees us from the power of Satan, the prince of this world... God brought His people through the Red Sea, and it delivered them from Egypt for ever. That sea was a picture of the death and resurrection of Christ. In it He met the whole force of death and judgment, and the power of the enemy too, on His people's behalf. That is why redemption is not named until they stand on the other side of the sea of death and judgment. On its shore they also saw their enemies dead.
A stone dropped into deep water does not come back up. One writer carries that finality over to sin.
All the resources of the enemy went down in complete defeat — Pharaoh's chariots and his army, including his best officers. The sea covered them. They sank like a stone, never to be a threat again. By faith believers today see that the Lord Jesus has completely defeated the power of sin. The same is true of our sins: "You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea" (Micah 7:19).
Two groups walked into the same sea. Only one came out, and the difference was not courage.
"By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned" (Hebrews 11:29). The solemn lesson is this: to face the power of death in human confidence is certain destruction. Only the blood-bought people can pass through safely. Everyone else will be overwhelmed. Yet how many people dare to meet death and judgment in their own strength! There is no escape apart from Christ. He alone is the way of safety, because He alone has met and overcome death.
Reciting the sea crossing was not nostalgia. It was how they built a case they could stand on, once they had admitted they had no case of their own.
Their review of the past can be called the foundation of their special request. They have grounded themselves on the unchanging character of their God as "gracious and merciful"... They admitted they deserved nothing but judgment. So they confessed that they had no hope except in God Himself. They had reached an immovable foundation on which to rest their plea — the heart of their God.
- Sight. The prayer starts where redemption started. God saw the affliction in Egypt, and the prayer borrows His own words to Moses.
- Shelter. In Egypt the blood sheltered them from judgment. At the sea God's power set them free. The sea itself pictures Christ's death and resurrection.
- Steps. They walked on dry ground because, in the picture, Christ went down into death first and used up all its power.
- Stone. Cast down like a stone into deep water, the enemy never rises again. Christ has done the same with the power of sin.
- Stand. They admitted they deserved only judgment. So they rested their plea on the one foundation that cannot move: the heart of God.
And thou leddest them in the day by a pillar of cloud, and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go.
Nehemiah 9:12 is one line in a long recital by the Levites, spoken while the people stood in sackcloth and confessed their sins. Before a word about their own failure, they retell what God did — and after the Red Sea comes the pillar.
The whole chapter is confession, but it opens with praise. Praise is what makes true confession possible.
As the remnant stand up to bless the Lord "with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads," God leads them to express a wonderful sevenfold praise. That praise brings God before the soul in the majesty of His Being and the greatness of His ways. And that such a view of God in His glory and grace is necessary for true confession is clear. For only as we have God before our souls can we truly estimate how serious our failure is.
Verse 12 also begins a new section. From here the recital moves on to Sinai, the law, and what God asked of the people.
In verses 12 to 15, they mention their responsibility. God had given them the law, which they were responsible to obey. First He had led them by His grace to the foot of Mount Sinai. But even after Sinai He lavished His resources on them, to feed them and give them drink in the wilderness, and He urged them to take possession of Canaan.
In the recital the pillar comes right after the sea. The God who broke Pharaoh's power is the God who then led His people on.
They recall their redemption by power out of the land of Egypt, and then speak of the cloudy pillar and the pillar of fire by which the Lord had led them through the wilderness. In truth, He who had redeemed His people out of the hand of Pharaoh led them forth in His mercy, and guided them in His strength to His holy dwelling place.
The pillar gave them light in "the way in which they should go." But there was no such way there.
The blood on the doorpost had redeemed Israel. As soon as they started on their journey, this Pillar meets them and sets itself before them to be their Guide. They are about to enter a trackless waste. No one lived where Israel was soon to travel. There were no landmarks, no signposts there. Its barrenness would call for bread from heaven, its drought for water from the Rock, but its pathlessness would need a Leader just as much. And so they would be as independent of highways and signposts in the trackless desert as they were of cornfields and vineyards in the barren desert.
Neither in Egypt nor in Canaan was there a pillar. God gave this guidance for the stretch in between.
It is interesting to notice that there was no such guidance in Egypt or in the land. This brings out the important truth that only in the wilderness does anyone need a way pointed out. And there, in His tenderness and mercy, the Lord takes the lead of His own. He shows them the way they should walk, where they should rest, and when they should march. He leaves nothing to them, but undertakes everything for them Himself. He asks only one thing: that they keep their eyes fixed on their Guide.
Choosing the route was only half of it. He came down and travelled with them.
The Lord not only selected a path for His people, He also came down to walk with them in it, and to make Himself known to them according to their need. He not only led them safely outside the borders of Egypt. He also came down, so to speak, in His travelling chariot, to be their companion through all the ups and downs of their wilderness journey. This was divine grace. They were not merely delivered out of the furnace of Egypt and then left to make the best of their own way to Canaan.
Israel had a guide they could see. What believers have now is no less constant.
In the pillar of cloud He was their guide by day. In the pillar of fire He was their light by night. And what He was, He was always. What they had in this visible way we have in His word today and in the presence of His Holy Spirit.
- Redeemed — the pillar follows the Red Sea; the God who rescued by power then took charge of the route.
- Led — He did not just mark the way. He walked in it as their companion, day and night without a break.
- Trackless — God gave this guidance for the wilderness only, never for Egypt or the land. The pathless stretch is what needs a Guide.
- Owned — the Levites praise this leading before they confess anything. You can only measure failure against who God is.
- Followed — what Israel saw in cloud and fire, believers now have in God's word and in His Spirit. God asks one thing: keep your eyes fixed on the Guide.
And thou camest down on mount Sinai, and didst speak with them from the heavens, and gavest them right judgments and true laws, good statutes and commandments.
In the Levites' long prayer of confession, the people retrace God's dealings — creation, the call of Abraham, the rescue from Egypt. This line stops at Sinai: if the law God gave there was good, why does the rest of the chapter confess failure?
The verse does not open the story. The law arrives only after God has carried them out of Egypt:
In verses 12 to 15, they mention their responsibility. God had given them the law, which they were responsible to obey. He gave it after He had led them by His grace to the foot of Mount Sinai. But even after Sinai, He lavished His resources on them (v. 15). He fed them and gave them drink in the wilderness, and urged them to take possession of Canaan.
Read alongside what comes before it, the whole section has one subject — God giving:
So far, it is a tale of grace — of a giving God. He had chosen Abraham, redeemed His people, guided, spoken to, and sustained them. All had been given from the heart of God, in His own pure and sovereign grace.
The Levites describe that descent in a few words. Here is what it involved:
On the morning of the third day the Lord came down on Mount Sinai, with all that belonged to His awesome and terrible majesty. There were thunders and lightnings. They expressed the power of a judge — the necessary attitude of God in His holiness when He comes into contact with sinners. There was also a thick cloud on the mountain, showing His distance and His hiddenness... Every possible solemnity surrounded God's approach. All the people in the camp trembled, despite the preparations they had gone through... Why then did they tremble at the signs of His presence? Because in their folly they had undertaken to meet Him on the ground of what they were in themselves, of their own doings, instead of casting themselves on His mercy, His grace and love.
The confession calls what God gave right, true and good. It never blames the law. Paul says the same of it:
Nehemiah in his confession (Neh. 9:13) acknowledged that they were "right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments." "The law is holy," says Paul the Apostle (Rom. 7:12). What a different world it would have been if Israel's kings and all the nations had obeyed its every command!
If what God gave was good, the failure must lie somewhere else — in the people, not in the statutes:
We are sinners and the law is holy. It demands strength, and we are weak. It demands life to keep it, and we are dead. It demands perfection in all things, and we are perfect in nothing. It is holy and just and good, and we are unholy, unjust and bad... It tells him what he ought to do for God, and since he has not done it, it curses him: it cannot do anything else.
The prayer names both the covenant with Abraham and the law of Sinai. Which one did the people stand on?
Notice that they do not take the higher ground of promise, though they recount the covenant made with Abraham. They take their stand on the legal conditions of Sinai, as their fathers did before them. It will be different for the generation to come. They will have Messiah and the new covenant, and subjection to Gentile power will pass forever. As yet, all was only temporary; yet God is always God, and good to all who call on Him.
The people have just recited how their ancestors broke these commandments. Then they sign a fresh covenant to keep them:
They were not ignorant of the past (Neh. 9:13-14), and they had confessed the earlier sins of their people. Yet now they make another covenant. The excitement of the moment blinds them to one thing: as their fathers were, so were they... The flesh is drawn by nature to law-keeping, and making a covenant seems an easy way to guard against failure. God's people have often tried this method, only to discover their own utter helplessness. In many cases it has taught them to look to Another for the power they needed, instead of to themselves.
- Order — God redeemed them first, then gave the law. Grace brought them to the foot of the mountain; responsibility began there.
- Gift — God came down and spoke. Thunder, lightning and thick cloud surrounded the descent, and the whole camp trembled.
- Good — This confession calls the statutes right, true and good; Paul calls the law holy. Nothing in this confession faults what God gave.
- Gap — The law demands strength, life and perfection. The people brought weakness, death and sin. The fault was in them, not in it.
- Ground — The people had promise and law before them. They chose law and sealed a new covenant. Discovering you cannot keep it is the road to looking to Another for power.
And thou madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and prescribedst for them commandments and statutes and a law, through Moses thy servant.
This long prayer of confession reaches Sinai. Among all that God gave there, the Levites name one gift on its own — His holy sabbath — beside the commandments and statutes given through Moses. Two questions sit inside the wording. Why is a day of rest named apart from the laws? And why is it made known instead of first made?
The verb matters. One writer notes that God did not invent the sabbath at the foot of the mountain. He revealed it there to one people.
The Lord declared that the sabbath was made not for Israel only, but for man. It was true that the sabbath was a special sign that Israel was the nation of Jehovah; but it was also true that it existed before Israel's day, though the responsibility for keeping the seventh day holy was placed on them. At Sinai, then, Israel received what had existed as the sabbath of Jehovah from the beginning, and what in its original scope embraced all mankind.
The order in the prayer matters. Redemption comes first, the sabbath second — and one writer builds his argument on that order.
Now, had God made known His Sabbath to all men, and given it to them, this wonderful connection with a complete redemption would have had no meaning in it. But He did not, as Nehemiah bears witness (Neh. 9:9-14). There we have first God's redemption, and then, "and you made known to them your holy Sabbath." How striking this picture is! Only those who have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins, can know the real rest of God.
Commentators differ on how wide the sabbath's reach was. The writer above ties it to the redeemed. Another goes further: no other nation carried this sign.
It must be said again that the sabbath formed part of the law, and it was in a special way a sign between God and Israel. God never gave the sabbath to the Gentile as such, whatever men may argue. If a Gentile came and put himself under the wing of Israel, of course he kept the sabbath; but as a Gentile he had nothing to do with it. How could it be a sign to one people if it was the common duty of all?
The verse ties the sabbath to commandments given "by Moses your servant." Read in context, these are not burdens. They are mercies.
Israel's consciences could well bear witness that God's law for them was perfectly righteous. And not only this — He provided the Sabbath day to be kept. It was for God's honour, but also for Israel's blessing, to relieve the people of hard labour for at least one day a week. It is always true that when God's name is honoured the people will be blessed (v. 14). God gave these commandments through Moses as mediator, whom Israel has always revered, at least since his death! So in the law itself God had shown wonderful kindness to Israel.
Verse 14 belongs to the first half of the prayer, where everything is on God's side of the ledger. The turn comes two verses later.
So far, it is a tale of grace — of a giving God. He had chosen Abraham, redeemed His people, guided, spoken to, and sustained them. All had been given from the heart of God, in His own pure and sovereign grace. They turn next to their side of the picture. And what a contrast, as it always is, when the heart of man is put side by side with the heart of God!
Their response to this history was honest as far as it went. They did not argue that the standard was too high.
They owned that the law, with its right judgments and good statutes, was perfect in its place. And they did not try to justify their ancestors or themselves in their repeated sins and failures.
In chapter 10 the people at once bound themselves by a fresh covenant. One writer treats the move as a lesson, not a scandal.
They were not ignorant of the past (Neh. 9:13-14), and they had confessed the former sins of their people. Yet now they make another covenant. The excitement of the moment blinded them to this: as their fathers were, so were they. Few people cannot understand this. The flesh is legal by nature, and making a covenant seems an easy way to guard against failure. God's people have often tried this method, only to discover their own complete weakness. In many cases that has taught them to look to Another for the power they needed, instead of to themselves.
- Given, not invented. God made known the sabbath at Sinai; He did not create it there. It had existed from the beginning, and its first scope reached all mankind.
- Redemption first. God delivered them first, then revealed His rest. Only those who have redemption through His blood know the real rest of God.
- A sign, not a burden. It marked the bond between God and that one nation. Commentators differ on whether it ever bound the Gentile.
- Kindness in the law. The commandments came through Moses as mediator. The rest day served Israel's blessing as well as God's honour. The law itself shows His kindness.
- The flesh stays legal. Those who confessed this history still made a new covenant of their own. Such efforts teach us to look to Another for power, not to ourselves.
And thou gavest them bread from the heavens for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and didst say to them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.