Ezra 9:13

Ezr 9:13 And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities [deserve], and hast given us [such] deliverance as this;

Ver. 13. And after all that is come upon us] Affliction, like foul weather, cometh before it is sent for; yet not but of God’s sending; and then it is ever either probational, as Job’s; or cautional, as Paul’s prick in the flesh; or penal, for chastisement of some way of wickedness, as here.

For our evil deeds] These he thanketh (as well be might) for all their sufferings: sin is the mother of misery, and hales hell at the heels of it.

Seeing that thou our God] Our God still, and this is the sixth time that he hath so styled him in this holy prayer, besides three times My God. These are speeches of faith, and refer to the covenant, that pabulum fidei, food of faith. When ye stand and pray, believe; when ye humble and tremble before God, keep up your faith still. Nihil retinet qui fidem amisit, lose that and lose all (Seneca). Take away the iniquity of thy servants, saith David, 2Sa 24:10. It is as if he should say, I am thy servant, Lord, still, though an unworthy one. And to prove himself so, he addeth, for I have done very foolishly. I confess it, Lord, that thou mayest cover it. Homo agnoscit, Deus ignoscit. This he believes, and speeds: when Judas confessing (but in addition despairing) misses of mercy.

Hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve] Heb. Hast withheld beneath our iniquities. The just hire of the least sin is death in the largest sense, Rom 6:23. What then might God do to us for our many and mighty sins, or rather, what might he not do, and that most justly! How great is his mercy which maketh him say, Jerusalem hath received at God’s hand double for all her sins, Isa 40:1-2. Too much, saith God there; too little, saith Ezra here; and yet how sweetly and beautifully doth this kind of contradiction become both!

And hast given us such deliverance as this] A fruit of free mercy, and calls hard for duty. God’s blessings are binders; and every new deliverance calls for new obedience, Servati sumus ut serviamus. We have been served so that we may serve.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ezr 9:13-14. After all that is come upon us for our evil deeds — After all our sore sufferings for our sins. Seeing thou hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve — After all thy favours shown us in the mitigation of thy judgments. And hast given us such deliverance as this — So full, so sudden, so unexpected and amazing, not only to our enemies, but also to ourselves. Should we again break thy commandments, &c. — Was this a fit and just requital of all thy kindnesses? Was this thy end and design in these actions? Wilt thou take this well at our hands? That there should be no remnant nor escaping — Can we reasonably expect any thing from thee less than utter ruin?

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Hast not utterly cast us down and destroyed us for our sins, Deut. 28:13.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 13. Hast punished us less than our iniquities] Great, numerous, and oppressive as our calamities have been, yet merely as temporal punishments, they have been much less than our provocations have deserved.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

13. great trespass] R.V. great guilt. Cf. on Ezr_9:7. Not an isolated offence, but the condition of deep obligation for sin.

seeing that thou … hast, &c.] According to this rendering, Ezra asks as it were in grief and dismay, ‘After all that is past, shall we take advantage of God’s mercy to sin yet once more and offend against His majesty?’ Another rendering, more difficult but quite admissible, translates the conjunction ‘seeing that’ (ki), as the mark of an exclamation. ‘After all that has happened, to think that God should have so spared us!—shall we then provoke Him again by our disobedience?’

hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve] The words in the original are difficult. Literally, ‘hast kept back, downward, from our sins’. Some have rendered ‘hast as it were held back, and kept down from rising to view, many of (partitive) our sins’. Others, ‘hast spared beneath our sins’, i.e. thy mercy has been out of all proportion greater than our sins, has as it were gone deeper than our iniquities. The R.V. gives the general sense. The LXX. ἐκούφισας ἡμῶν τὰς ἀνομίας and Vulg. ‘liberasti nos de iniquitate nostra’ are paraphrastic.

such deliverance as this] R.V. such a remnant. The same word as in Ezr_9:8.

13–14. Great as have been our punishments in the past, they have been less than we deserved. Now that we have sinned yet again, what do we deserve but extermination?

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 to Aben Ezra,"thou hast refrained from writing some of our sins in the book of remembrance, and thou hast let them down below in the earth, according to the sense of thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea;''but Jarchi better,"thou hast refrained thyself from exacting of us all our sins, and hast exacted of us beneath our sins (or less than they deserve), and hast not taken vengeance on us according to all our sins:"

and hast given us such deliverance as this; from captivity, which they now enjoyed.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Deliverance - Or, “remnant,” as in Ezr 9:8.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Saved us. Protestants, "hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve and hast given us such deliverance as this." Septuagint, "hast made our transgressions light," (Haydock) not weighing them with rigid severity. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

After all our sore sufferings for our sins, and after all thy favour showed to us in the mitigation of thy judgments.

Such deliverance as this; so full, so sudden, and unexpected, and amazing, not only to our enemies, but also to ourselves.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vers. 13, 14. After all that is come upon us, etc. After the punishments that we have suffered, the loss of our independence, of our temple, and our city, the long and weary period of captivity and servitude in a foreign land, which should have bent our stubborn spirits to obedience; and after the mercy shown us in the fact that thou hast punished us less than our iniquities deserved, and given us a deliverance, or rather a residue, such as this, which should have stirred us up to gratitude and love, should we again break thy commandments, and fall away, what can we expect but final abandonment, complete and entire destruction? If neither severity nor kindness avail anything, what can God do more? must he not view our case as hopeless, and so make an end of us altogether? (Compare Isa_5:1-7; Luk_13:6-9)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

for our evil practices and our great guilt

The abstract nouns "practices" and "guilt" can be translated as a noun and an adjective, respectively. AT: "because of the bad things we did and because we were so guilty" (See: Abstract Nouns)

have held back what our iniquities deserve and left us survivors

"would be just if you killed us all, but you have not punished us and instead left some of us alive"

should we again break your commandments and make ... people?

This can be translated as a statement. AT: "it is very wrong that some of us have broken your commandments and made ... people." (See: Rhetorical Question)

Will you not be angry ... escape?

This can be translated as a statement. AT: "I am afraid that you will be angry ... escape." (See: Rhetorical Question)

translationWords

evil

guilt

command

anger

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

And after all that has come upon us after all the calamity that has befallen us because of our evil deeds.

You have punished less You have held back from our iniquities until below them [i.e., less than them], for our iniquity was lessened by the expiation effected by our exile. We may also interpret it in this manner: You held Yourself back from collecting from us all our iniquity, and You collected from us below [less than] the iniquities, and You requited us according to all our sins.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.