Summary of Ezra 9:5-15
Ezra prayed to God. He acknowledged the people’s great sins. He thanks God for their return to Jerusalem and the temple rebuilding. He again acknowledges their sins and how they are unworthy of God’s grace, mercy, and presence.
BSF Study Questions Exile & Return: A Time to Build Lesson 12, Day 3: Ezra 9:5-15
6a) Ezra addressed God on his knees with his hands spread out to the Lord. His face was down due to the greatness of the shame and sin he felt. He prayed and acknowledged the people’s sins, God’s mercy, and their unworthiness to stand before Him. It shows that he is fully aware that God is all-mighty and he is nothing before Him. Ezra’s prayer reveals he is a leader of profound humility who sees God as both perfectly righteous and incredibly merciful. He doesn’t approach God as a detached, righteous leader scolding sinners, but as a broken member of a guilty community.
b) The same. Humbly. With an attitude of a repentant heart and a desire to do better. Approach God with total honesty and humility, not excuses. Confess your sin directly. Acknowledge His perfect righteousness and your own guilt. Don’t bargain, but appeal to His mercy and grace, which He promises to those who genuinely repent.
7) Because the people needed God’s grace and mercy once again. Recalling God’s faithfulness was their only source of hope. As Ezra confessed, they deserved total destruction. Remembering God’s mercy—proven by their very existence as a “remnant”—was their only basis for appealing to His gracious character, giving them the courage to repent rather than fall into complete despair.
8 ) It’s very encouraging. We all sin, but God always forgives. We just need to come to him with a repentant heart and ask for forgiveness and move forward with a desire to do better.
Conclusions BSF Study Questions Exile & Return: A Time to Build Lesson 12, Day 3: Ezra 9:5-15
Great example of how to pray in the midst of sin in your life.
End Notes BSF Study Questions Exile & Return: A Time to Build Lesson 12, Day 3: Ezra 9:5-15
Ezra prayed on his knees like so many in the Bible did (Solomon, Daniel, Stephen, Peter, Paul, and Jesus!).
Yet, many in the Bible don’t pray on their knees, so it’s not a requirement, but it is good!
Ezra spread out his hands, which was very common in OT times. This shows surrender and readiness for God.
Note that Ezra offers no excuses for their sins. He just lays it out there. He rightly asks for mercy and appeals to God’s position and His righteousness.
END NOTES SUMMARIZED
This section is Ezra’s powerful, public prayer of confession. After his initial shock (v. 1-4), he moves to formal repentance, which unfolds in three parts:
- Corporate Shame (v. 5-7): Ezra rises from his grief and prays. He doesn’t blame “the people”; he fully identifies with them, using “I” and “our.” He expresses profound shame (“I am… ashamed and disgraced”), confessing that their current sin (intermarriage) is not an isolated mistake. Instead, it’s a continuation of the same unfaithfulness their ancestors practiced, which he identifies as the very reason God sent them into the Babylonian exile (“our guilt has mounted up… we were given over…”).
- Acknowledgment of Grace (v. 8-9): He immediately contrasts their sin with God’s recent, undeserved mercy. He acknowledges that God could have destroyed them completely. Instead, God graciously preserved a “remnant,” gave them a “foothold” (or “a peg”) back in Jerusalem, “revived” their spirits, and even gave them favor with the Persian kings to rebuild the Temple and find security (“a wall”).
- The Gravity of the New Sin (v. 10-15): This is the core of his anguish. He asks, “what can we say?” He highlights the community’s shocking ingratitude. Despite God’s grace and after experiencing the severe punishment of exile, they have still knowingly broken the specific commands about separation (v. 11-12). He recognizes that God has punished them less than they deserved (v. 13) and that by repeating this sin, they are provoking God’s righteous anger to the point of total annihilation, “leaving no remnant or survivor” (v. 14).
Conclusion
Ezra’s prayer is a model of true repentance. He makes no excuses, shifts no blame, and does not try to minimize the sin. In fact, he argues that God’s recent grace makes their new sin even worse, not more excusable.
He concludes not by begging for a specific outcome, but by affirming God’s total righteousness (“you are righteous”) and their own total guilt (“no one can stand before you because of this”). It is a complete surrender, an admission that they have no defense and stand condemned, placing the entire community at the mercy of the just God they have offended.
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