And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserved and have given us such a remnant as this,
Ezra has just heard that the exiles who returned have married into the nations around them, and he tears his clothes and kneels to pray. His prayer asks God for nothing; it weighs the guilt, the captivity and the return, and says what they show about God.
The order of Ezra's confession
The verse sits at a hinge in the prayer. Before Ezra names the present sin, he retells God's kindness. One writer explains why he takes that order.
Edward DennettThe order of Ezra's confessions is most instructive. He first owns the sins of his brothers and declares God right in His ways with His people. Then he magnifies the grace that visited them in their low estate, brought them — a remnant — back to the land, and let them set up the house of their God once again. But why does he recite this proof of the Lord's grace and mercy? It was to show the character of His people's sin... and he confesses that they had sinned against both light and grace. He conceals nothing, and excuses nothing, but spreads it all out before God.
Punished less than they deserved
The heart of the verse is Ezra's verdict on the exile itself. He does not call the punishment harsh. He calls it restrained. One writer explains what it was aiming at.
Leslie M. GrantAfter all Israel's disobedience and guilt, Ezra considered that God had punished them less than their iniquities deserved (v. 13). God had indeed punished them. But His purpose was to drive them back to Himself, not merely to punish them. Then He wonderfully delivered them from the harshness of that punishment by restoring them to their land.
The remnant God gave
The verse ends with what God gave: "such a remnant as this." One writer explains the picture behind that gift.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe remnant through His mercy had escaped, and God had given them "a nail in His holy place" (Isaiah 22:23). Like a nail in the wall, fixed and immovable, so God had established them in Jerusalem.
Sin after mercy weighs heavier
Ezra is not confessing a new failure. He is confessing the return of an old one, and mercy makes the repeat worse.
F. B. HoleOne remarkable feature of the whole confession is that he identified himself with the people, and confessed the evils as though they were his own. From beginning to end he uses "we" and "us," where we might have expected "they" and "them." He also acknowledged that the evils confronting him were a revival of the sins that had defiled his people from the start — or, as he put it, "since the days of our fathers." But they were made worse because they were being repeated after God had shown such mercy in relieving them of the governmental consequences of their former sins.
The next verse spells out the fear behind this one. What if such mercy meets the same sin again? Ezra asks whether God would then consume them and leave no remnant at all — the very thing verse 13 says He had not done (H. L. Rossier).
No prayer for forgiveness
One detail is easy to miss: Ezra never asks God to forgive them. One writer draws a principle from that silence.
Edward DennettIt should also be observed that Ezra does not once pray for forgiveness. With any understanding of the mind of God, it was impossible that he should do so. Suppose there is known evil in our hearts or among God's people. Our first responsibility is to judge it, not to pray for forgiveness. So when Joshua lay on his face before the Lord after Israel's defeat by the men of Ai, the Lord said, "Get up! Why have you fallen on your face? Israel has sinned."
The pattern still fits today. Hole applies it to any time of revival that has drifted back. He says believers now would do well to kneel with words like Ezra's — usually confessing as people caught up in the failure themselves, not only as people standing with those who failed (F. B. Hole).
Summary
- Deserved. Ezra weighs the exile and calls it mild. God punished them less than their iniquities deserved.
- Given. What followed the punishment was pure gift: a remnant brought home, fixed in place like a nail driven into a wall.
- Weighed. He recalls that mercy not to comfort himself, but to show what his people's sin really is.
- Owned. He says "we" and "us" throughout, confessing his people's evils as though they were his own.
- Judged. He asks for no forgiveness. Where evil is known, the first duty is to judge it, not to pray about it.