While Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children, gathered to him out of Israel, for the people wept bitterly.
Ezra had just learned that the returned exiles had married into the nations around them. He gave no orders. He broke down and prayed in front of the house of God. What happens next is one of Scripture's clearest pictures of how the grief of one man can move a whole people.
A grief unlike any other
Ezra's distress shows itself in four ways at once. One writer weighs what that told the people.
Edward DennettThe Lord used the sorrow of His servant to reach the consciences of His people. They had been guilty of breaking His commandments. Ezra's sorrow was no common sorrow. Everything here shows how intense his grief was... By his prayer, his confessions, his tears, and his falling to the ground before God, he had poured out his grief for the sins of Israel. And he did it in the open, "before the house of God." So it became known to those he had been pleading for.
Owning sins he had not committed
Ezra confessed the sin as if it were his own. One reference work notes who else prayed that way.
Morrish Bible DictionaryIt is beautiful to see how Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel confessed the sins of the people as if they had been their own. Ezra 9:1-15; Ezra 10:1; Neh. 1:6; Neh. 9:2-3; Dan. 9:4-20.
Not telling others — doing it himself
Ezra could have ordered the people to repent. One writer points to what he did instead.
William KellyEzra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God — not merely telling other people to do so, but doing it himself.
How one man's humbling spreads
The crowd in this verse did not appear from nowhere. One writer traces how such a gathering grows.
H. L. RossierWe cannot stress enough how much the blessing of the people of God may depend on one or a few faithful people. Here one man humbles himself. A few then join him. And this leads to a general humbling. And once again a single man steps forward to put it into words.
Behind the people's tears
Men, women and children came to Ezra. The remedy would break up their homes. So why were they weeping? One writer weighs two answers.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe people saw his great sorrow and his tears, they heard his words confessing the nation's sins. It produced a wonderful effect among the people... Was this great weeping real contrition over their disobedience? Or did they weep because they saw the coming separation from the wives they had taken? No doubt they thought of what that separation would mean for them. Yet it was an awakened conscience that produced the tears of repentance.
Deep conviction shows
Some people are uneasy with strong feeling in religion. One writer meets that discomfort head on.
F. B. HoleIn verse one, we see Ezra on his knees, and as he confessed, moved by deep emotion that revealed itself in weeping. Some of us are made in such a way that we dislike anything emotional. But we must recognise this: conviction that goes deep, whether about things good or things evil, is bound to produce emotion... Paul was not a mere theologian, setting out Christian doctrine in a philosophical way. He was an eager servant of Christ, moved in his spirit by what he preached and by the needs of both saints and sinners.
The question the chapter puts to us
The chapter is not just history. One writer turns it into a question for us.
An Outline of Sound WordsFirst, like the godly among the returned remnant, let us own our failure and humble ourselves in the dust before God. Let us judge the low moral condition that has led to confusion and division. As we have seen, Ezra confessed the failure with weeping... Let us challenge ourselves! Have we ever wept before the Lord, with broken hearts, over our own failures and the failures we share?
Summary
- Grief first. Ezra's sorrow was no common sorrow. Prayer, confession, tears and falling to the ground — all four, and all in the open before the house of God.
- Grief owned. He confessed the nation's sin as if it were his own, standing with Nehemiah and Daniel in that rare habit.
- Grief lived, not ordered. He did not tell others to humble themselves; he did it himself, and the crowd gathered to him.
- Grief spreads. The blessing of God's people can hang on one or a few faithful people. One man's humbling drew a few, then the whole nation, then a single voice to speak for them all.
- Grief that feels. Deep conviction is bound to show itself in emotion. The honest question: have we ever wept over the failure we share?