The People Confess Their Sins
“Stand up and bless the Lord your God
Forever and ever!
“Blessed be aYour glorious name,
Which is exalted above all blessing and praise!
bYou have made heaven,
cThe heaven of heavens, with dall their host,
The earth and everything on it,
The seas and all that is in them,
And You epreserve them all.
The host of heaven worships You.
Who chose aAbram,
And brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans,
And gave him the name bAbraham;
And made a bcovenant with him
To give the land of the Canaanites,
The Hittites, the Amorites,
The Perizzites, the Jebusites,
And the Girgashites—
To give it to his descendants.
You chave performed Your words,
For You are righteous.
Against all his servants,
And against all the people of his land.
For You knew that they bacted proudly against them.
So You cmade a name for Yourself, as it is this day.
So that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land;
And their persecutors You threw into the deep,
bAs a stone into the mighty waters.
And by night with a pillar of fire,
To give them light on the road
Which they should travel.
And spoke with them from heaven,
And gave them bjust ordinances and true laws,
Good statutes and commandments.
And commanded them precepts, statutes and laws,
By the hand of Moses Your servant.
And bbrought them water out of the rock for their thirst,
And told them to cgo in to possess the land
Which You had1 sworn to give them.
bHardened1 their necks,
And did not heed Your commandments.
And1 athey were not mindful of Your wonders
That You did among them.
But they hardened their necks,
And in their rebellion
They appointed ba leader
To return to their bondage.
But You are God,
Ready to pardon,
cGracious and merciful,
Slow to anger,
Abundant in kindness,
And did not forsake them.
And said, ‘This is your god
That brought you up out of Egypt,’
And worked great provocations,
You did not forsake them in the wilderness.
The bpillar of the cloud did not depart from them by day,
To lead them on the road;
Nor the pillar of fire by night,
To show them light,
And the way they should go.
And did not withhold Your bmanna from their mouth,
And gave them cwater for their thirst.
They lacked nothing;
Their bclothes did not wear out
And their feet did not swell.
And divided them into1 districts.
So they took possession of the land of aSihon,
1The land of the king of Heshbon,
And the land of Og king of Bashan.
And brought them into the land
Which You had told their fathers
To go in and possess.
And possessed the land;
bYou subdued before them the inhabitants of the land,
The Canaanites,
And gave them into their hands,
With their kings
And the people of the land,
That they might do with them as they wished.
And possessed bhouses full of all goods,
Cisterns already dug, vineyards, olive groves,
And fruit trees in abundance.
So they ate and were filled and cgrew fat,
And delighted themselves in Your great dgoodness.
And rebelled against You,
bCast Your law behind their backs
And killed Your cprophets, who testified against them
To turn them to Yourself;
And they worked great provocations.
Who oppressed them;
And in the time of their trouble,
When they cried to You,
You bheard from heaven;
And according to Your abundant mercies
cYou gave them deliverers who saved them
From the hand of their enemies.
aThey again did evil before You.
Therefore You left them in the hand of their enemies,
So that they had dominion over them;
Yet when they returned and cried out to You,
You heard from heaven;
And bmany times You delivered them according to Your mercies,
That You might bring them back to Your law.
Yet they acted1 proudly,
And did not heed Your commandments,
But sinned against Your judgments,
a‘Which if a man does, he shall live by them.’
And they shrugged their shoulders,
1Stiffened their necks,
And would not hear.
And1 testified aagainst them by Your Spirit bin Your prophets.
Yet they would not listen;
cTherefore You gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.
aYou did not utterly consume them nor forsake them;
For You are God, gracious and merciful.
The great, the amighty, and awesome God,
Who keeps covenant and mercy:
Do not let all the1 trouble seem small before You
That has come upon us,
Our kings and our princes,
Our priests and our prophets,
Our fathers and on all Your people,
bFrom the days of the kings of Assyria until this day.
For You have dealt faithfully,
But bwe have done wickedly.
Our priests nor our fathers,
Have kept Your law,
Nor heeded Your commandments and Your testimonies,
With which You testified against them.
Or in the many good things that You gave them,
Or in the large and rich land which You set before them;
Nor did they turn from their wicked works.
And the land that You gave to our fathers,
To eat its fruit and its bounty,
Here we are, servants in it!
You have set over us,
Because of our sins;
Also they have bdominion over our bodies and our cattle
At their pleasure;
And we are in great distress.
We amake a sure covenant and write it;
Our leaders, our Levites, and our priests bseal it.”
Introduction to Nehemiah
In the earliest form of the Hebrew canon known to us the books of Ezra and Nehemiah were united in one, under the name of "The Book of Ezra." After a while, a division was made, and the two books which we now recognize were distinguished as "the First Book of Ezra" and "the Second Book of Ezra" Later still - probably not until toward the close of the fourth century - the Second Book of Ezra came to be known as "the Book of Nehemiah."
The Book of Nehemiah is composed of four quite distinct sections:
(1) Neh. 1-7 containing the record of the 20th year of Artaxerxes (or 445-444 BC), but composed by Nehemiah at least twelve years later Nehemiah 5:14.
(2) the second section of the work consists of Neh. 8-10, and contains a narrative of some events belonging to the autumn of 444 BC In this portion Nehemiah is spoken of in the third person; he is called the Tirshatha," whereas in the earlier chapters his title is always pechâh ("governor" ); and Ezra holds the first and most prominent position. The style of this portion of the book is markedly different from that of the earlier and later chapters; and critics are generally agreed that it is NOT from the hand of Nehemiah. Some assign it to Ezra; others conjecture Zadok (or Zidkijah), Nehemiah' s scribe or secretary Nehemiah 13:13, to have been the author.
(3) Neh. 11-12:26, which consists of six important lists.
List 1 Neh. 11:1-24 and List 2 Nehemiah 11:25-36 are probably either the work of Nehemiah himself or documents drawn up by his orders.
Of the other lists Neh. 12:1-26 some may have been drawn up in the time (or even by the hand) of Nehemiah, and incorporated by him into his work as documents having an intrinsic value, though not connected very closely with the subject matter of his history. But the list in Nehemiah 12:10-11 cannot, in its present shape, have proceeded from his hand, or from that of a contemporary, since it mentions Jaddua, who lived about a century LATER THAN Nehemiah. Neither can Nehemiah 12:22-23 intruded between the 5th and 6th lists - lists closely interconnected - belong to Nehemiah' s time, since they contain a mention of both Jaddua and Darius Codomannus, his contemporary. Possibly, the list in question and the intruded verses may have proceeded from the same hand.
The section may therefore be regarded as the compilation of Nehemiah himself, with the exception of Nehemiah 12:11, Nehemiah 12:22-23, which must have been added a century later. Or, it was first added at that period. In either case, the writer must be equally considered to have drawn the lists from contemporary state archives (see Nehemiah 12:23).
(4) Nehemiah 12:27 to the end. This section contains an account of the dedication of the wall, and of certain reforms which Nehemiah effected after his return from Babylon in 432-431 BC. It is allowed on all hands to be, in the main, the work of Nehemiah, and written soon after the events - probably in 431 BC or 430 BC
It is perhaps, on the whole, more probable that the various sections composing the "Book of Nehemiah" were collected by Nehemiah himself, who had written, at any rate, two of them Neh. 1-7:5; Nehemiah 12:27; Nehemiah 13:31. Having composed these two separate memoirs, and having perhaps drawn up also certain lists, he adopted from without an account of some religious transactions belonging to his first period, and, inserting this in its proper place, prefixed to the whole work the title, "The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hachaliah," as fitly designating its main contents. His work, thus formed, was subsequently added to by Jaddua, or a writer of that time, who inserted into it Nehemiah 12:11, Nehemiah 12:22-23. Or, possibly, this late writer may first have formed the book into a whole. The date of the compilation would, in the former case, be about 430 BC; in the latter, about one century later.
The authenticity of the history contained in the Book of Nehemiah is generally admitted: and the condition of the text is generally good.
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