Nehemiah 9:1-7

The People of Israel Confess Their Sin

1 Now on the twenty-fourth day of ¹this month the people of Israel were assembled ²with fasting ³and in sackcloth, ⁴and with earth on their heads.

2 ⁵And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.

3 ⁶And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the LORD their God.

4 On the stairs of the Levites stood ⁷Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani; and they cried with a loud voice to the LORD their God.

5 Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, "Stand up and bless the LORD your God from everlasting to everlasting. ⁸Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.

6 ^[a]⁹"You are the LORD, you alone. ¹⁰You have made heaven, ¹¹the heaven of heavens, ¹²with all their host, ¹³the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; ¹⁴and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.

7 You are the LORD, the God ¹⁵who chose Abram and brought him out of ¹⁶Ur of the Chaldeans ¹⁷and gave him the name Abraham.

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Nehemiah 9:1-7 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NEHEMIAH 9

In this chapter we have an account of a fast kept by the Jews, which was observed, as by outward acts of humiliation, so by confession of sin, reading the law, and worshipping the Lord, Ne 9:1-3 and of a long prayer that the Levites made, in which they celebrate the divine perfections, take notice of various instances of the goodness of God to the people of Israel, acknowledge their manifold transgressions, observe the Lord's correction of them for them, in which they own he was righteous, Ne 9:4-38.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 17

1. [Nehemiah 8:2]
2. [1 Samuel 7:6]
3. See 2 Samuel 3:31
4. See Joshua 7:6
5. Nehemiah 10:28; Nehemiah 13:3, 30; [Ezra 6:21; Ezra 10:11]
6. Nehemiah 8:7, 8
7. [Nehemiah 8:7]
8. [1 Chronicles 29:13]
9. See 2 Kings 19:15
10. See Genesis 1:1
11. See Deuteronomy 10:14
12. See Genesis 2:1
13. See Genesis 1:1
14. [Psalms 36:6]
15. See Genesis 11:31
16. Genesis 11:31
17. Genesis 17:5

Footnotes 1

[a]. Septuagint adds And Ezra said

The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.