Repentance

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Introduction

How do you deal with a history of failure? I’m always surprised by accumulation. Laundry accumulates whether we encourage it or not. Dirty dishes accumulate with rapid vengeance. And I don’t even want to think about the accumulation of transgression. Think over the course of your life and consider the adding up and piling on of transgression second by second, moment by moment. Imagine it as massive—big as the amount of time you have spent on it, dense as the frequency of your thoughts about it—and what you have is this massive, dense weight of guilt that hangs over your head, threatening to crush you at any moment. The only thing keeping it off you is the mercy of God.

As we look at Nehemiah 9, we will see God’s people back in the land, and what they’re going to do is rehearse the accumulation of their transgression. There’s a repeated pattern in this chapter: having first rehearsed all that God’s done for them, they go through their transgressions, and then they return to God’s mercy. They don’t necessarily make this explicit, but they are returning to God’s mercy to bring it to bear on their own sin.

Need

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If are a sinner, you can expect to identify with this passage. If you know that the accumulation of your transgression would pile up like all the dirty laundry you’ve ever soiled, like a bottomless sink full of dirty dishes, the prayer that will be prayed in Nehemiah 9 will likely resonate with you.

Context

Let’s back out and think about where this passage falls in the whole book of Nehemiah. We have seen the rebuilding of the wall in Nehemiah 1-6. We are in the midst of a whole section on covenant renewal in chapters 7-12, and that renewed covenant will be broken in the book’s final chapter.

We can hone in on this section on covenant renewal and see that it breaks down as follows:

• Nehemiah 7—Reviewing the Returnees
• Nehemiah 8—Reviewing the Torah in the Seventh Month
• Nehemiah 9—Praise for God’s Mercy and Confession of Israel’s Sin
• Nehemiah 10—Written Covenant Not to Intermarry, to Keep Sabbath and Sabbatical, and to Support Temple Worship
• Nehemiah 11—Repopulating Jerusalem
• Nehemiah 12—Dedication of the Wall
• Nehemiah 13—Intermarriage, Failure to Support Temple Worship, and Profanation of Sabbath

The long list of names in Nehemiah 7 accounted for all the people who belonged to the covenant they were renewing. Then in chapter 8, on the first day of the seventh month, they read the Torah. They reviewed the people to establish who was in the covenant, then they read the Torah to instruct the people in the covenant, and in 8:9-10 they began to mourn and weep about the way that they had fallen short of the Torah, fallen short of the stipulations of the covenant.

Because of the time of year, because the first day of the seventh month was a holy day (8:2), they were told not to weep that day. They postponed the weeping and went forward with the Festivals of the seventh month:

• The first day of the seventh month is a holy convocation, the Festival of Trumpets (Lev 23:24).
• 166The tenth day of the seventh month is the Day of Atonement (Lev 23:26-28).
• Beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month they celebrate the Festival of Booths for seven days (Lev 23:33-36).

The events of the Festival of Booths continue to the twenty-second day of the seventh month. Then the eighth day of the Festival of Booths is another holy convocation—that would be the twenty-third day of the month—and now in Nehemiah 9:1 we arrive at the twenty-fourth day of the month. So they have completed the Festivals, and now they are here on the twenty-fourth day to finish what they started when the law was read on the first day and they began to weep and mourn in response to it (8:2, 9-10).

The Twenty-Fourth Day Of The Seventh Month

Nehemiah 9:1-4

In verse 1 Nehemiah tells us what took place: “On the twenty-fourth day of this month the Israelites assembled; they were fasting, wearing sackcloth, and had put dust on their heads.” Andrew Steinmann dates this coming together to handle the “unfinished business of 8:9” to October 31, 445 bc (Ezra and Nehemiah, 531). They’re going to mourn their conduct with fasting, sackcloth, and earth on their heads. They are going to repent of their sin. What’s remarkable about this is that they first felt conviction when the law was read on the first day of the month. Almost the whole month has passed. They weren’t able to deal with the conviction they felt. They took care of all that the law requires and gathered 23 days later to deal with their sin.

Have you ever been convicted of your sin at a time when it wasn’t appropriate for you to deal with it? Maybe it was recently. Maybe something happened while you were in a conversation with someone, and it just wasn’t right for you to fall on your face before God and cry out to Him and deal with your sin in that moment. If you’ve felt conviction that you haven’t addressed, take care of your unfinished business. Go before the Lord and imitate what the Israelites do here.

In the first part of verse 2, “Those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all foreigners, and they stood and confessed their sins and the guilt of their fathers.” The people who descend from Israel were listed back in chapter 7, so they could identify who could be enrolled among the people. There are probably people from the land who have 167separated themselves from the uncleanness of their own kinsmen and devoted themselves to the Lord, but they don’t necessarily descend from Israel (cf. Ezra 6:21; Neh 10:28). These confessing sin are confessing as the people of Israel. They confessed their own sin and the sin of their fathers. The non-Israelites apparently don’t take responsibility for the sins of the nation of Israel and its fathers. They are newly joined to Israel, so it seems here that the Israelites have separated themselves from all foreigners, even those who have joined themselves to the people of God. Andrew Steinmann writes, “They are going to repent for the sins of their fathers, so they separate from those who don’t descend from the fathers” (Ezra and Nehemiah, 531). The Israelites will acknowledge all God has done for them as Israel, and they will confess all the ways that Israel has disregarded what God has done for them. In this chapter they confess that they have received everything and appreciated nothing.

So we see in 9:3, “While they stood in their places, they read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a fourth of the day,” probably three hours, “and spent another fourth of the day in confession and worship of the Lord their God.” We’re about to see the content of their worship and confession in verses 5-37, but before we get there we see who leads the service of worship in 9:4-5. The people are called to bless Yahweh their God as the One who has no beginning and no end. That will be significant for the way that they respond to the Lord.

Prayer Of Praise And Confession Of Sin

Nehemiah 9:5-37

The praise begins in earnest in the second part of 9:5 (my trans.): “May they bless the name of Your glory, magnifying over all blessing and praise!” The name of God is more worthy and more exalted and more majestic than our meager praises can express. They want to see His name exalted over all blessing and praise, and the Levites call the people to “Stand up. Praise Yahweh” (9:5). The Lord deserves this worship from His people. To praise someone is to speak well of them, and the people are going to speak what is right about Yahweh throughout this passage.

In Nehemiah 9:6-37 we get the content of the way the people made confession and worshiped the Lord. What we have here in this passage is the fullest summary of the storyline of the Old Testament in the Old Testament (Steinmann, Ezra and Nehemiah, 534-35). It’s as168 though Nehemiah is giving us a biblical theological summary of the Old Testament. This passage is full of phrases from earlier parts of the Bible. Nehemiah here retells the story of the Old Testament. He has selectively and strategically chosen what to include, referencing earlier parts of the Old Testament by using key phrases from those passages, adding some new material of his own, and thus re-presenting the whole of the Old Testament story.

Nehemiah 9 is a very significant interpretation of the Old Testament right here in the Old Testament. So if you want to understand how someone who was inspired by the Holy Spirit understood the Old Testament, here it is for you. If you want to understand the Old Testament, an inspired commentary on it awaits us. I invite you to explore with me Nehemiah’s inspired interpretation of the Old Testament.

Nehemiah will highlight these key moments in his retelling of the biblical narrative: creation, Abraham, exodus, wilderness, conquest, judges, prophets, and exile: justice and mercy. These key moments will provide the subheadings you’ll find below as we work through this passage together.

Creation (9:6)

Nehemiah, the author of the book, records that this interpretation of the Old Testament’s story was spoken by the Levites, who are depicted praying this prayer to God, starting from creation. Having praised God in 9:5, they begin in verse 6 with God Himself:

This is conceptually similar to Deuteronomy 6:4 (my trans.): “Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one.” In keeping with Deuteronomy 6:4, the Levites here assert that Yahweh stands alone: there is only one God. From there they go to creation:

This is a quick summary of Genesis 1-2. God made everything that is. There is nothing that God has not made. Praising God begins with 169acknowledging that He alone deserves credit for this fantastic world. This world is stunning. There are leaves that fall every year that are more beautiful than anything that humans could produce or engineer on our own, and we treat them like trash. We look at them like they’re a bother. And those trees appear to die, and then they come back to life. Remarkable! And that’s just one little piece of this world. My son had a tooth fall out, and a new tooth grew in that gap. This world is miraculous, and God deserves praise for every aspect of it.

The people are about to confess their sins. Confessing sin begins with the recognition that we are both accountable and obligated to the Creator. He made us; that makes us accountable to Him. I would propose that the modern mythology of naturalistic evolution—Darwinism, materialism, all that mythological explanation of where the world came from—is all an elaborate dodge. It’s all an attempt to remove man’s responsibility to his Creator. There is one living and true God who made you, and you are accountable to Him.

Do you praise God for His power in creation? Do you recognize your obligation to the One who made you and sustains you? Could human creativity invent the song of the birds? Human creativity and engineering cannot give life to what it builds. Only God can give life. Praise Him!

Covenant with Abraham (9:7-8)

From Yahweh and creation, the Levites move to Abraham:

That’s Genesis 11-12. The Levites continue,

That’s Genesis 17. Now in Nehemiah 9:8 we move to another part of Abraham’s story:

That’s Genesis 15:6. You might say: wait, Genesis 15:6 is about Abraham believing the Lord and his faith being reckoned to him as righteousness, and Nehemiah 9:8 says, “you found his heart faithful.” So was Abram reckoned righteous because he believed or because he was faithful in doing good works? I would argue that this is a significant170 interpretation that assumes that first, God chose Abram, as 9:7 states. That precedes God finding him faithful. Then second, when you look at what Abram is called to do and what the Old Testament expects of people, there’s no way to be faithful without believing. In other words, you’re not going to discharge your duties and be faithful if you don’t believe that God is the One to be obeyed. So this is not about Abram being righteous by works but about him being righteous by faith, just as Genesis 15:6 teaches.

It’s significant, isn’t it, that the Levites don’t put these things about Abraham in the order that we find them in Genesis. They seem to have arranged these theologically for us. God chose Abram, then gave him the name Abraham, then He found his heart faithful: so this passage goes from Genesis 12, to 17, then back to 15.

Then the Levites continue with Genesis 15. Remember Abram cutting the animal in half and the smoking firepot passing through the pieces? We read of this in the rest of Nehemiah 9:8:

This arrangement, then, moves from Abram’s righteousness by faith to the covenant that God made with him, and then the conclusion is stated at the end of verse 8:

The fact that God keeps His promises is emphasized throughout this passage. God does what He says He will do.

Exodus and Wilderness Wandering (9:9-21)

We went from Yahweh’s identity and creation in Nehemiah 9:6, to the covenant with Abraham in verses 7-8, and now we go to the exodus. So the Levites began with Deuteronomy 6, took us back to Genesis 1-2, fast forwarded to Genesis 12 (with Gen 17 and 15), and now they take us to the book of Exodus in verse 9:

171God heard their groaning, saw their condition, and remembered His covenant with Abraham in Exodus 2:24. The Israelites cried out to the Lord at the Red Sea in Exodus 14-15. Between those bookends came the 10 plagues, to which the Levites allude in Nehemiah 9:10:

After the quick summary of the 10 plagues and who they affected there at the beginning of verse 10, we read,

The Egyptians acted arrogantly against the Israelites, so the Lord vindicated His people by delivering them. He did these wonders and heard the cry of their affliction. This is significant because later in this passage these Levites are going to say, “We are in great distress” (v. 37). The distress of Israel in Egypt is like the distress the returnees face. And the Levites want Yahweh to do in their day what He did at the exodus, as they declare at the end of verse 10,

The Levites continue in verse 11 with reflection on the Red Sea:

That situation seemed hopeless, but as my friend Joe Blankenship put it, God split the seas, and the Levites recount what happened next:

Those phrases of verse 11 are conceptually reminiscent of statements in Exodus 15 (vv. 1, 4, and 10). The Levites next rehearse the way the Lord led His people through the wilderness:

What comes after the trek through the Red Sea, after the pillar of cloud and fire led Israel through the wilderness? The arrival at Mount Sinai in Exodus 19-20:

We should remember this about the Old Testament law: it’s a good law. Moses stresses this in Deuteronomy. The law of Moses is a good gift to Israel. God doesn’t leave His people guessing about how to please Him, and God doesn’t leave His people un-regulated. If we look at human history and compare how kings and people in power have devised ways to oppress and abuse the people under their control, we will see that the laws of the Old Testament are good laws. It’s a good system. That’s what Nehemiah recorded the Levites celebrating here.

One aspect of this can be seen in verse 14:

Often when the topic of the Sabbath arises, the question in view is whether or not we are under it today. That’s a good discussion to have. But what this text is saying is that God gave Israel the gift of a holy Sabbath. Think of what a good gift that was: A day when they were commanded to rest. A day when it’s not just that you don’t have to work, you’re commanded not to work. So you feel no guilt about not working. And if you’ll heed this, you’ll have a day where you can bring yourself back together. A day where there is time to spend with your family. A day where there will be time to read the Scriptures. What a gift the Sabbath was!

The Levites continue in verse 14,

Now having summarized what God gave Israel at Sinai, the Levites move to the provision for the people throughout their time in the wilderness:

So the Lord sustained them through the wilderness all the way to the good land of promise.

173This brings us to Israel’s sin. You remember Numbers 13-14, where they sent the spies into the land? The bad report and the faithless response of the people are summarized here in Nehemiah 9:16:

That phrase, “acted arrogantly” in verse 16 is the same term that was used to describe the Egyptians acting arrogantly against the Israelites in verse 10. So the Levites said that the Israelites acted in Numbers 13-14 the same way the Egyptians did during the plagues. The Levites describe the Israelites acting like Egyptians, but unlike the Egyptians, who were arrogant against other humans, the Israelites “acted arrogantly” against the Lord.

The history of Israel continues in verse 16:

This is language that depicts Israel acting like a recalcitrant mule or an unwilling cow, and I think that G. K. Beale is correct that this imagery is used because the Levites are about to talk about the golden calf. Israel is described acting like what they worshiped (see Beale, We Become What We Worship). As Psalm 115:8 says, we will become like what we worship. Israel worshiped a calf; they acted like a calf. They stiffened their neck.

Do you want to feel conviction for your sin? Do what this passage says Israel didn’t do. Look at your life, and look at the majesty of what you are as a human being, the way that God has created you in His image. Then rehearse all the good things that God has done for you. Think of the way that no one you know personally has died from hunger. No one you know has died from thirst.12 The Lord has preserved you, clothed you, provided for you. He is even now allowing you to study His Word.

This is the Levites’ strategy: they are recounting all the good things that God has done for Israel to make them feel how heinous all their sin is. The rehearsal of their sin in verse 17 continues:

God freed them, and what do they want? They want to be slaves again. This makes no sense. That’s how sin is. It makes no sense. Sin is stupid. Why would anyone act this way? God has been so good to liberate them. Why would they return to slavery? That’s what they wanted.

And look at what the Levites say next:

The Levites are going to exposit this idea by quoting Exodus 34:6-7, which comes right after Israel made the golden calf. Having quoted Exodus 34:6-7, the Levites will rehearse Israel’s sin with the golden calf. Exodus 34:6-7 is what God said of Himself when He pardoned Israel, when He showed mercy to Israel after the golden calf. The Lord is ready to forgive:

That’s what God said of Himself in Exodus 34:6-7. That’s how You are, God, the Levites say,

The Levites are now beginning to make their argument. They lay the foundation for their argument by rehearsing how the fathers were delivered, then they sinned, and God forgave them. God showed them mercy.

The Levites are going to repeat this pattern because it’s the basis of the appeal they are making, so in Nehemiah 9:18-19 they return to the sin of the people:

The Levites again return to God’s goodness to the people:

That reference to the Spirit probably recalls the way the Lord put the Spirit on the 70 elders who assisted Moses in leading the people (Num 11). The Levites continue in Nehemiah 9:20,

Even though they were sinning in the wilderness, God kept giving them food and drink. Verse 21 then says,

At this point the Levites have summarized creation, Abraham, the exodus, the wilderness, and now they come to the border of the promised land. Derek Kidner writes, “Throughout this miraculous pilgrimage ‘they lacked nothing’ (21)—and appreciated nothing (17). This part of their history ends with an undeserved and unstinted inheritance, ‘full of all good things’ (25)” (Ezra and Nehemiah, 112). We have seen God and creation, the covenant with Abraham, the exodus and wilderness provision, and now we come to the conquest of the land.

Conquest (9:22-25)

To this point the Levites have essentially rehearsed the whole of the Pentateuch. When we come to verse 22, we meet the final events of the Pentateuch, the initial conquests, followed by the events of the book of Joshua:

176This is what God had promised to do for Abraham (Gen 15:5), and so by recounting this the Levites draw attention to the way God has kept His word. They continue,

Again, God promised the land to Abraham; God gave that land to Abraham.

The statement that “their descendants” took the land subtly notes that their fathers had died in the wilderness. They continue,

Note the full description of God’s goodness to Israel here in verse 25. This is a rich land:

Everything they could want, God gave them. God took them out of slavery and gave them everything they could desire. How did they respond? The allusion in this verse to Deuteronomy 6:10-12 is ominous.

Rebellion (9:26)

The Israelites responded to God’s goodness to them at the conquest the same way they responded to God’s goodness to them at the exodus: rebellion. The history of Israel is a history of rebellion. It’s a history of God being good to Israel and Israel using God’s goodness to them to rebel against Him.

This brings us to the end of the book of Joshua, and we know what comes after that: more rebellion in Judges.

Judges (9:27-28)

The Levites summarize the experience of Israel in the book of Judges as follows:

This reference to the Lord’s abundant compassion is almost the exact same phrase that was used back in verse 19, because the Levites are singing the second verse of the same song. They continue,

These deliverers are probably the judges featured in the book of Judges. The Levites continue with what happened next in Judges (my trans.):

This reference to “rest” probably recalls the rest or peace the judges gave to the land when they delivered Israel from her enemies (e.g., Judg 3:11, 30). After the judges delivered Israel, Israel went right back into sin:

In this last line we find another phrase, “in Your compassion,” similar to the one used in verses 19 and 27. The reuse of these phrases reinforces the pattern that the Levites are sketching across Israel’s history. This brings us to their summary of the ministry of the prophets.

The Prophets (During the Reign of the Kings) to the Exile (9:29-30)

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In verse 29 the Levites describe what the Lord was doing through the ministry of the prophets:

In the tripartite organization of the Old Testament, you have the Law, the Prophets, and the book of Nehemiah is in the group of books called the Writings. So this book in the Writings is presenting the Prophets pointing back to the Law. Another way to think about this is to recognize that Nehemiah, an inspired author of Scripture, is saying that the Prophets were pointing people back to the Torah of Moses, which is the law of Yahweh Himself. This reference to “Your law” recalls the rejection of the law and the persecution of the prophets the Levites described back in verse 26. The repetition communicates that this is what Israel kept doing. Israel kept responding to God with more and more sin.

Do you look at your life and identify with Israel? We all should. If we take an honest look at our lives, we will see all the good things that God has done for us, and we will see that all we have done in return is transgress against Him. Even when we don’t mean to sin, we do sin.

In the middle of verse 29, we see again the language we saw back in verse 10 about the Egyptians and in 16 about the Israelites:

This last line is a reformulation of Leviticus 18:5. Neither Leviticus nor Nehemiah taught that legalists earn life by works of righteousness. What both Leviticus and Nehemiah mean is that if you do what the law says, you’ll enjoy the blessings of the covenant. God’s holiness won’t strike out against you and kill you. The only way people do what the law says to do is by trusting the Lord. The only way to be faithful is by faith. Consider, for instance, the command to rest on the seventh day: in order to rest, you have to trust that this is what you should do. Consider the command to let the land lie fallow in the seventh year: in order to obey that, you have to trust that the Lord will provide food for you. If you will obey these commands, you will have life. You will enjoy life in 179the land in the blessings of the covenant, and you will enjoy life beyond death in the blessing of God.

The law of Moses was a good gift to Israel, a good law that they could have lived by. But instead they acted like that calf they wanted to worship (see v. 18), and verse 29 says,

Again we see the same language that we saw earlier in verses 16 and 17 here at the end of verse 29, reinforcing the repetition of the pattern. And again the Lord’s patience is restated in verse 30:

This talk of God warning them has been used in verses 26 and 29, and we’ll see it again in verse 34. Again and again the same phrases are used to communicate that Israel keeps sinning and God keeps warning. And here’s how they keep reacting:

The exile happened at last. As we see from the presence of these returnees in Ezra and Nehemiah, however, the exile did not end the story.

Mercy: Israel Exiled but Not Ended (9:31)

We now come to these words that the Levites know from Israel’s past to be the hope of Israel’s present and future. The opening words of Nehemiah 9:31 (my trans.) state,

This mercy is what they are banking on. They have rehearsed God’s great mercies (ESV) or abundant compassion (HCSB) in verses 17, 19, 27, and 28, because they look at the history of disobedience and rather than being depressed by it, they see God’s overflowing mercy.

Don’t be discouraged by the history of disobedience in your life. Use it to highlight the great mercies of God. That’s what it’s for. It’s for you to know how merciful the Lord is. It’s for you to celebrate the greatness of this good God. Verse 31 continues,

Think for a moment on the just penalty against sin. If we were to be altogether found out and everything that is due to us were to be done to us for our sin, we would be destroyed; there would be an end made of us (cf. ESV, “you did not make an end of them”). It would be over. It would be curtains.

God’s mercies are great. And now the Levites conclude by returning again to truths from Exodus 34:6-7 at the end of Nehemiah 9:31(my trans.),

As Lamentations 3:22 (my trans.) says, “Because of the steadfast love of Yahweh, we are not cut off.”

Plea for Restoration (9:32)

The Levites address their own situation. They have shown that in spite of the history of rebellion, God has continued in His patience and mercy to Israel. The Levites are asking the Lord to keep showing mercy in their own day. Here’s their appeal (my trans.):

God keeps covenant and steadfast love even though His people have not. The Levites continue (HCSB),

This plea is that God would not view all their suffering lightly because what they want is not more justice—they know that God is just—they want those great mercies. That’s what they’re asking God to continue to show. They don’t make the request explicit at this point, but they have been saying it all through the historical review. They have expressed how the Lord has always shown His people mercy, and they are asking Him to do it again in their day.

181The argument made through the historical review is that this is how things have gone:

• God is good to Israel.
• Israel sins.
• God shows mercy.

They don’t come right out and say it, but that’s the case they have made. They want God to do it again. They want God to show mercies anew.

I encourage you to make the same argument, make the same plea. When you want to bless God, when you want to praise Him, this is what you do: Take stock of all His goodness to you, then make confession of your sins. Confess all your sins—own up, make a full accounting of your iniquity—then rehearse the repetitions of His mercies and ask Him for more.

Confession of God’s Righteousness and Israel’s Sin (9:33-35)

These Levites know that God is in the right. They have not been treated unfairly, as they say in verse 33,

They list out everyone who has sinned in verse 34:

The Levites list these people out, and in this they provide a subtle reminder that God continued to show mercy in the past to all these people. He was patient toward them, and they’re implicitly asking for more of that mercy. There’s an appeal here: “show mercy to us, too!”

They continue in verse 35,

182God was good to them, and they were unfaithful to Him. This brings us to the present.

Current Predicament: Slavery and Distress (9:36-37)

The Levites describe their own condition:

Israel had been enslaved in Egypt, and God had delivered them. So this cry from the Levites to God that they are enslaved, this statement of their “great distress,” functions to call on the Lord to deliver His people anew. They are asking Yahweh to show mercy to them as He did to previous generations. The cry of distress goes up to One who has heard such cries before, and when He heard those cries throughout Israel’s history, He answered, just as the Levites have recounted throughout this passage.

The Levites lay their plea before the Lord, and then they commit themselves.

Covenant In Writing

Nehemiah 9:38

The Levites are like good preachers. They come with specific, actionable points of application. We see this in verse 38 (my trans.):

They have rehearsed God’s goodness, their sin, and God’s mercy, and now they are prepared to make a covenant to keep the covenant. We will see the details of this covenant when we study Nehemiah 10.

Conclusion

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Jesus died on the cross, and the density and the weight of that massive block of accumulated transgression hovering over you, with only God’s mercy keeping it from crushing you, all that wrath, rested on the shoulders of the Lord Jesus. He bore it. He died for it. Isaiah 53:10 says that it was the will of the Lord to crush Him. If you will look to Jesus, if you will trust God, if you will do what the Levites have done in Nehemiah 9, if you will come to the place, as the Levites do in verse 38, where you are ready to enter into a covenant with God through Christ by the power of the Spirit, God will save you. God will show you His great mercies, His abundant compassion.

If you’re not a Christian, when you feel that weight of justice hanging over you, look to Christ. Seek the Lord who acts according to His great mercy and forgives people. Trust Him to do that for you.

If you are a Christian but you struggle with guilt, look to Christ. Celebrate God’s great mercy, and live in that mercy. No wrath remains for those who hope in Christ.

Reflect and Discuss

1. What is the value in contemplating the seriousness and immensity of your accumulated sins? What is the danger in doing so? What is the danger in never doing so?
2. What other chapters in the Bible summarize and interpret large portions of biblical history?
3. If you were going to summarize the whole Old Testament using 10 or fewer topical headings, what would they be?
4. Why did this prayer of confession begin with creation? How might doing the same make your own prayers more meaningful?
5. Does the Sabbath seem to you more like a gift or an imposition? What stands in the way of your enjoyment of the Sabbath?
6. How does going over the history of Israel help us to ponder our own sinfulness? Do we sometimes blame Israel for their stubborn sinfulness while overlooking the fact that we are the same?
7. When you consider how often God blessed Israel, Israel sinned against God, and God showed mercy to Israel, what aspects of that cycle do you find discouraging? What is encouraging?
8. Is God pleased or offended when we appeal to Him for mercy? Can you think of a human metaphor or example that expresses similar love and mercy?
9. 184How would you use Nehemiah 9 in a children’s Sunday school class to teach about the sinfulness of man and the mercy of God?
10. How are a history of Israel, a synopsis of the Old Testament, and biblical theology related?