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,
What the meditations of Ezra's heart were, while for some hours he sat down astonished, we may guess by the words of his mouth when at length he spoke with his tongue; and a most pathetic address he here makes to Heaven upon this occasion. Observe, I. The time when he made this address - at the evening sacrifice, Ezr 9:5.
Commenting on Ezra 9:5-15
And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass,.... As famine, sword, pestilence, and captivity, for their idolatries and other heinous sins: seeing that our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve; for they deserved eternal punishment, whereas it was temporal punishment that was inflicted, and this moderate, and now stopped; the sense is, according...
PRAYS TO GOD. (Ezr 9:5-15) I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God--The burden of his prayer, which was dictated by a deep sense of the emergency, was that he was overwhelmed at the flagrant enormity of this sin, and the bold impiety of continuing in it after having, as a people, so recently experienced the heavy marks of the divine displeasure.
Commenting on Ezra 9:5-15