Repentance

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:

Even after they had cast an image of a calf for themselves and said, “This is your God who brought you out of Egypt,” and they had committed terrible blasphemies, You did not abandon them in the wilderness because of Your great compassion.

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

During the day the pillar of cloud never turned away from them, 175guiding them on their journey. And during the night the pillar of fire illuminated the way they should go. You sent Your good Spirit to instruct them.

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,

You did not withhold Your manna from their mouths, and You gave them water for their thirst.

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

You provided for them in the wilderness 40 years and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell.

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.

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:

You gave them kingdoms and peoples and assigned them to be a boundary. They took possession of the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and of the land of Og king of Bashan. You multiplied their descendants like the stars of heaven

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,

and brought them to the land You told their ancestors to go in and take possession of it.

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

So their descendants went in and possessed the land:

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

You subdued the Canaanites who inhabited the land before them and handed their kings and the surrounding peoples over to them, to do as they pleased with them. They captured fortified cities and fertile land

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

and took possession of well-supplied houses, cisterns cut out of rock, vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. They ate, were filled, became prosperous, and delighted in Your great goodness.

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.

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.

But they were disobedient and rebelled against You. They flung Your law behind their backs and killed Your prophets who warned them 177in order to turn them back to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.

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

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

So You handed them over to their enemies, who oppressed them. In their time of distress, they cried out to You, and You heard from heaven. In Your abundant compassion

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,

You gave them deliverers, who rescued them from the power of their enemies.

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

But as soon as they had rest,

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:

they again did what was evil in Your sight. So You abandoned them to the power of their enemies, who dominated them. When they cried out to You again, You heard from heaven and rescued them many times in Your compassion.

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.

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

You warned them to turn back to Your law,

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:

but they acted arrogantly and would not obey Your commands. They sinned against Your ordinances, which a person will live by if he does them.

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,

They stubbornly resisted, stiffened their necks, and would not obey.

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:

You were patient with them for many years, and Your Spirit warned them through Your prophets,

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:

but they would not listen. Therefore, You handed them over to the surrounding peoples.

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.

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,

But in Your great mercies

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,

180You did not destroy them or abandon them,

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.),

for You are a gracious and merciful God.

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

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.):

And now, our God, the great God, the mighty and the fearsome, who keeps the covenant and steadfast love,

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

do not view lightly all the hardships that have afflicted us, our kings and leaders, our priests and prophets, our ancestors and all Your people, from the days of the Assyrian kings until today.

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:

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.

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

You are righteous concerning all that has come on us, because You have acted faithfully, while we have acted wickedly.

They list out everyone who has sinned in verse 34:

Our kings, leaders, priests, and ancestors did not obey Your law or listen to Your commands and warnings You gave them.

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,

When they were in their kingdom, with Your abundant goodness that You gave them, and in the spacious and fertile land You set before them, they would not serve You or turn from their wicked ways.

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

The Levites describe their own condition:

Here we are today, slaves in the land You gave our ancestors so that they could enjoy its fruit and its goodness. Here we are—slaves in it! Its abundant harvest goes to the kings You have set over us, because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and our livestock as they please. We are in great distress.

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.

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.):

Because of all this we are cutting [a covenant] of faith in writing; on the sealed document are the names of our princes, our Levites, and our priests.

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.

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.

These statements could be made to the congregation at Kenwood Baptist Church. I cannot, of course, be certain that they will be true of everyone who will read this book.