Nehemiah 9:1-3

The Israelites Confess Their Sins

1 On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads.

2 Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the sins of their ancestors.

3 They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshiping the LORD their God.

Nehemiah 9:1-3 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.

Cross References

• 1. Leviticus 26:40-45; S Joshua 7:6; 1 Samuel 4:12; 2 Chronicles 7:14-16
• 2. S Ezra 6:21; Nehemiah 10:28; Nehemiah 13:3,30
• 3. S Leviticus 26:40; S Ezra 10:11; Psalms 106:6