How privileged the remnant was to have a spiritual leader like Ezra! He had been given special authority by the king (7:25–26), so you can see how serious it was for him to know what these men had done. Depending on the offense, Ezra could banish people from the community, confiscate their wealth, or even order their execution! But Ezra was first of all a man of God who sought God’s best for his people, and he identified with them and made their burdens his burdens. He was supremely a man of prayer.
He didn’t preach a sermon, although they needed to be reminded of what the law said, nor did he immediately seek out the sinners and call them to confession and repentance, as important as that was. The first thing he did was to go to the temple, sit on the ground and express his grief before the people and before the Lord. As though he were mourning the dead, he tore his tunic and his cloak (9:5; see Gen. 37:29, 34; Josh. 7:6), and in further expression of sorrow, he plucked out hair from his head and his beard. The people saw this and it reached their hearts.
Ezra was “appalled” (Ezra 9: niv). The Hebrew word means “to be shocked, horrified, astonished, desolate.” How could these men who were sons of the covenant commit such heinous sins? They had been so wonderfully helped by God in being freed from bondage and allowed to return to their land, and now they had rebelled against the Lord who had blessed them so much! And some of the offenders were priests and Levites who certainly knew the law!
One of the maladies of society today is that people are no longer shocked by sin and willing to do something about it. Political leaders can flagrantly break the law and not only get away with it but be admired by the public and be elected to office again. Polls indicate that many Americans don’t consider “character” to be an important factor when it comes to choosing leaders. In spite of all the noise about “religious revival” and “mega-churches,” God’s people don’t seem to be functioning well as salt and light in society. The salt has lost its flavor and no longer stings and prevents corruption, and the light is hidden under a bushel (Matt. 5:13–16).
During the time that Ezra sat fasting and mourning, a crowd gathered around him made up of people who “trembled at the words of the God of Israel” (Ezra 9:4; see 10:9). The Jews had trembled greatly at Sinai when God spoke the Word (Ex. 19:16; Heb. 12:21), but later generations simply took God’s Word for granted and didn’t worry if they disregarded it. Too many Christians today are willing to read the Bible, study it, outline it, and even defend it, but they don’t fear God and seek to obey what the Bible says. “But on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word” (Isa. 66: nkjv). Until God’s people show respect for God and His Word, the Spirit of God can’t work in mighty power as He longs to do.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, when the priests offered the daily evening sacrifice (Num. 28:1–4) and the people were assembling for prayer (Acts 3:1; Ps. 55:17; Dan. 6:10), Ezra began to call out to God and intercede for his people. As he wept (Ezra 10:1) and prayed, perhaps he was thinking of God’s promise in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (nkjv).
“We have sinned” (Ezra 9:5–7). Like both Nehemiah (Neh. 1:4–10) and Daniel (Dan. 9), Ezra identified himself with the people and their sins and spoke to God about “our iniquities” and not “their iniquities.” Israel was one covenant nation before God, and the sins of one person affected all the people. For example, when Achan disobeyed God at Jericho, God said to Joshua, “Israel has sinned” (Josh. 7: nkjv, italics mine). The same principle applies to the local church (1 Cor. 5:6–8). Unless sin is dealt with, the whole assembly becomes defiled.
Like the publican in our Lord’s parable (Luke 18:9–14), Ezra was too ashamed to look up to heaven as he prayed. The inability to blush because of sin is a mark of hypocrisy and superficial spiritual experience (Jer. 6:13–15). “Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush” (Jer. 8: niv). Words and actions that would have made earlier generations blush in shame are today part of the normal “entertainment” diet of the average TV viewer. When a nation turns sin into entertainment and laughs at what ought to make us weep, we are in desperate need of revival.
Why was Ezra so ashamed? Because his people hadn’t learned their lesson from all the trials that the nation had experienced (Ezra 9:7). The new generation had grown up in Babylon and become so accustomed to the evil around them that they had no true fear of God. They should have been like Paul in Athens, who grieved over the wickedness that he saw (Acts 17:16), but instead, they first accepted Babylon’s sinful way of life, then approved of it, and then enjoyed it. This compromising attitude went with them to Jerusalem and eventually revealed itself in their disobedience.
When you read the messages of the prophet Malachi, you see how backslidden the priests were as they “served God” in the restored temple, and worldly spiritual leaders will produce worldly worshippers. While the older generation of Jews may have learned obedience through the chastening God sent them, the younger generation didn’t learn the lessons their elders tried to teach them. The spiritual history of Israel, summarized in Ezra 9:7, is living proof that privileges bring responsibilities, and that much is required from those to whom much is given (Luke 12:48).
“We are unworthy of your blessings” (Ezra 9:8–9). Ezra used five different images to picture what God’s grace had done for the people who had returned to the land. In His grace, God had preserved a remnant, like a piece of cloth torn from a robe and kept safe (see 1 Kings 11:26–40). Throughout Jewish history, even when the nation turned from God, He always preserved a remnant that remained faithful to Him (1 Kings 19:18; Isa. 1:9; Mal. 3:16–17; Luke 2:38), and from that remnant, He made a new beginning.
Ezra then spoke about the “nail in his holy place.” The image here is that of a nail pounded into the sanctuary wall or a tent peg driven into the ground, and it depicts security and stability, the foothold the Jews now had in their land. God had brought the remnant back to their land and given them favor with the king and the local officials, and had they trusted Him and obeyed His Word, He would have blessed them abundantly. But they chose to go their own way; so He had to chasten them with poor crops, bad weather, and serious economic problems (Hag. 1).
Third, God gave light to their eyes, by taking them out of Babylonian captivity and returning them to their own land. To have your “eyes lightened” speaks of new life, new joy, and the dawning of a new day (Ps. 13:3; 34:5). It’s similar to the next image, “to give us a little reviving in our bondage.” The presence of the remnant in the land was like a resurrection from the dead! Their departure from Babylon was like the resurrection of a corpse from the grave.
Ezra’s final image is that of “a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem” (Ezra 9:10), and it speaks of the protection God had given His people. He had worked in the hearts of kings—Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes I—to gain them release from bondage and security in their own land. These were proud powerful rulers, but the Lord in His sovereignty used them to fulfill His purposes.
No wonder Ezra was ashamed. After all God had done for His people, they responded by disobeying His Word. “We are speechless” (Ezra 9:10–12). A knowledge of God’s Word is indispensable for effective praying (John 15:7), and Ezra knew the Old Testament Scriptures thoroughly. In these verses, he refers to a number of passages from Moses and the prophets, including Leviticus 18:24–26; Deuteronomy 7:1–6 and 11:8–9; Isaiah 1:19; 2 Kings 23:8–16; Ezekiel 5: and 37:25. It’s obvious that these Jewish men were sinning against a flood of light.
The religious practices of the Canaanites were unspeakably vile and the stench reached to heaven. God had patiently held back His wrath, but the time of their judgment came when Israel invaded the land (Gen. 15:16). Wiping out the Canaanite civilization was like a surgeon removing a cancerous tumor or an engineer stopping a flood of poisonous sewage. Note the words that Ezra used in his prayer: unclean, filthiness, uncleanness, abominations.
God’s law made it clear that Israel was to have no association with these nations, and now over 100 Jewish men had taken the first step by marrying into their families (Ezra 9:12). This could, of course, lead to peaceful relations and perhaps even wealth, but what about the future? What would happen to the children of these mixed marriages when it came time to obey God and become a part of the covenant? These men were sacrificing the future and paying a great price to do it. It wasn’t worth it. No wonder Ezra was speechless and asked, “What shall we say after this?”
“We are guilty” (vv. 13–15). Guilt always shuts a person’s mouth before God (Rom. 3:19). Sinners can give Him no logical reason for their sins and no acceptable excuses. Ezra not only confessed their sins but admitted that God had treated them far better than they deserved. He knew that God could easily destroy the remnant and start again with another people (Ex. 32:10; Num. 14:11–12), but, like Moses, he asked God to be gracious and forgiving.
Nobody could stand in His presence; nobody could speak in His presence. They were a guilty people, some of them because they deliberately broke God’s law, and others because they allowed the offenders to get away with their sins. But God is righteous, and a righteous God must punish sin.
Before we try to untangle the problems of life, we must take time to seek God’s face in prayer. This is not a long prayer. It can be read aloud very deliberately in only a few minutes, but it has tremendous depth. Charles Spurgeon used to say that it was the strength of our prayers, not the length of our prayers, that was important, and he was right. When you pray from a burdened heart, with a mind that’s saturated with God’s Word, then God will hear and answer.