1 Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads. 2 And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3 And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the LORD their God. 4 On the stairs of the Levites stood Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani; and they cried with a loud voice to the LORD their God. 5 Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, “Stand up and bless the LORD your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.
6 “You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. 7 You are the LORD, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. 8 You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.
9 “And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea, 10 and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day. 11 And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters. 12 By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go. 13 You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, 14 and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant. 15 You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.
(ESV)
STOP! Think a little 🤔 What is God saying to you?
- What is the writer saying?
- How do I apply this to my life?
The feast of tabernacles ended on the 22nd. On the 24th they all gathered again. They separated themselves from all foreigners, fasted, dressed in sackcloth and put dust on their heads as a sign of mourning and grief. Then they stood and confessed their sins and the sins of their ancestors. They spent a quarter of the day reading from God’s Word and then another quarter of the day they confessed and worshipped God. True worship can only happen after we have cleared our relationship with God through confession of our sins (1 John 1:8-10).
The rest of this chapter is their prayer of confession put forward in a new covenant that they wrote down and signed (Neh 9:38).
The prayer begins with God’s uniqueness. God exists in a class entirely of His own—He is the uncreated One!
God is the creator. He created everything and He is also the sustainer of His creation.
God is sovereign. He chose Abram and decided to make him the father of His chosen people and the source of blessing to every nation. God can and will choose to do things His way and His way is often beyond our understanding, yet He always knows better.
God is faithful. God chose to make a promise to Abraham and God kept His promise. God always keeps His promises. God is trustworthy because He is righteous and never lies.
God is compassionate. God cared about the affliction of His people as slaves in Egypt and went about rescuing them. God cares about even the little things. God cares about you and your situation.
God is holy. God came down on Mount Sinai and spoke personally with Moses but God is not one of us. God is wholly separate. He gets to set the rules and He has every right to enforce those rules through discipline and punishment.
God is gracious. He gives us food and drink and a place to live. He provided bread from heaven and water from the rock for Israel. God will supply your needs.
Israel looked back through history as a reminder of who God is and what He had done for them. This is also your story because God worked through Israel to bring Jesus as the ultimate blessing He promised to Abraham, the blessing who would free us from our sin. As you pray, you too can think back through this story and your personal story to remind yourself of who God is and what He has done for you.