Nehemiah 9:16-20

16 “But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and they did not obey your commands.

17 They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them,

18 even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,’ or when they committed awful blasphemies.

19 “Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take.

20 You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst.

Nehemiah 9:16-20 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. S Exodus 32:9; Jeremiah 7:26; Jeremiah 17:23; Jeremiah 19:15
• 2. Deuteronomy 1:26-33; Deuteronomy 31:29
• 3. Judges 8:34; Psalms 78:42
• 4. Psalms 77:11; Psalms 78:12; Psalms 105:5; Psalms 106:7
• 5. Jeremiah 7:26; Jeremiah 19:15
• 6. Numbers 14:1-4
• 7. Psalms 130:4; Daniel 9:9
• 8. S Deuteronomy 4:31
• 9. S Exodus 34:6; Psalms 103:8; Nahum 1:3
• 10. S Exodus 22:27; Numbers 14:17-19; Psalms 86:15
• 11. Psalms 78:11; Ezekiel 5:6
• 12. S Exodus 32:4
• 13. S Exodus 20:23
• 14. Exodus 13:22
• 15. S Exodus 13:21
• 16. Numbers 9:17; Numbers 11:17; Isaiah 63:11,14; Haggai 2:5; Zechariah 4:6
• 17. Psalms 23:3; Psalms 143:10
• 18. S Exodus 16:15
• 19. Exodus 17:6