Nehemiah 9:13-23

13 Thou didst come down upon Mount Sinai and didst speak with them from heaven and didst give them right judgments and true laws, good statutes and commandments,

14 and didst make known unto them the sabbath of thy holiness and didst prescribe for them commandments, statutes, and law by the hand of Moses, thy slave.

15 And thou didst give them bread from heaven in their hunger and didst bring forth water for them out of the rock in their thirst and didst promise them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them.

16 But they and our fathers dealt proudly and hardened their necks and did not hearken unto thy commandments

17 and refused to hear; neither did they remember thy wonders that thou hadst done among them, but hardened their necks and in their rebellion thought to appoint a leader to return to their bondage; but thou art a God of pardons, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great mercy, for thou didst not leave them.

18 Even when they had made themselves a molten calf and said, This is thy God that brought thee up out of Egypt, and had committed great abominations;

19 yet thou in thy manifold mercies didst not forsake them in the wilderness; the pillar of the cloud did not depart from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither did the pillar of fire by night, to illuminate the way in which they should go.

20 Thou didst give thy good spirit to teach them and didst not withhold thy manna from their mouth and didst give them water for their thirst.

21 Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness so that they lacked nothing; their clothes did not wax old, and their feet did not swell.

22 Thou didst give them kingdoms and peoples and didst divide them into corners; so they possessed the land of Sihon and the land of the king of Heshbon and the land of Og, king of Bashan.

23 Thou didst multiply their sons as the stars of heaven and didst introduce them into the land, concerning which thou hadst promised to their fathers, that they should go in to inherit it.

Nehemiah 9:13-23 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.