THE PRAYER OF REPENTANCE

And this leads us to …

2. THE CONTENT OF THE PRAYER (vv. 5b-37).

Note carefully that it begins with worship. The leaders prayed;

“Blessed be Your glorious name,
Which is exalted above all blessing and praise!
You alone are the Lord;
You have made heaven,
The heaven of heavens, with all their host,
The earth and everything on it,
The seas and all that is in them,
And You preserve them all.
The host of heaven worships You” (vv. 5b-6).

All true prayers of repentance ought to begin with a recognition of who God is. Unless we recognize who God is—and unless we grasp the majesty of His holiness—we really can’t see the sinfulness of our own sin as we should. If we only look at ourselves, we’ll think we’re wonderful. And if we only compare ourselves with others, we’ll make ourselves out to be better than them. But if we turn our attention to God, as He is presented to us in the Scriptures, then we will see our sinfulness in the light of His righteousness.

The worship of God that began this prayer included a recognition of His works in history—and of how those works had shown forth His grace;

“You are the Lord God,
Who chose Abram,
And brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans,
And gave him the name Abraham;
You found his heart faithful before You,
And made a covenant with him
To give the land of the Canaanites,
The Hittites, the Amorites,
The Perizzites, the Jebusites,
And the Girgashites—
To give it to his descendants.
You have performed Your words,
For You are righteous” (vv. 7-8).

The grace of God is shown in how God called Abraham to Himself from out of a land and culture of paganism; and gave Him the land of promise. This grace was still shown even while Abraham’s descendants were under bondage in Egypt.

“You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt,
And heard their cry by the Red Sea.
You showed signs and wonders against Pharaoh,
Against all his servants,
And against all the people of his land.
For You knew that they acted proudly against them.
So You made a name for Yourself, as it is this day.
And You divided the sea before them,
So that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land;
And their persecutors You threw into the deep,
As a stone into the mighty waters.
Moreover You led them by day with a cloudy pillar,
And by night with a pillar of fire,
To give them light on the road
Which they should travel” (vv. 9-12).

God not only showed grace by delivering His people from bondage; but also by giving them a good law and entering into a covenant relationship with them.

“You came down also on Mount Sinai,
And spoke with them from heaven,
And gave them just ordinances and true laws,
Good statutes and commandments.
You made known to them Your holy Sabbath,
And commanded them precepts, statutes and laws,
By the hand of Moses Your servant.
You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger,
And brought them water out of the rock for their thirst,
And told them to go in to possess the land
Which You had sworn to give them” (vv. 13-15).

God’s promise to Abraham is ever in view in this prayer. That’s because the prayer was being prayed at a time when the people were returning to the land God had promised to Abraham after having been sent into exile for 70 years for their disobedience.

What’s more, this prayer recognizes that disobedience to God was a part of their story from the very beginning. They prayed about their fathers in the wilderness under Moses—on the way to the promised land; and said;

“But they and our fathers acted proudly,
Hardened their necks,
And did not heed Your commandments.
They refused to obey,
And they were not mindful of Your wonders
That You did among them.
But they hardened their necks,
And in their rebellion
They appointed a leader
To return to their bondage.

But You are God,
Ready to pardon,
Gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger,
Abundant in kindness,
And did not forsake them” (vv. 16-18).

Those words in verse 17 remind us of the character of God that was declared to Moses at an early time of the people’s rebellion. God had revealed Himself to Moses as “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin …” (Exodus 34:6-7a). They would need to call upon God’s gracious and pardoning nature many times throughout their history. They had to do so, in fact, at the very beginning; because no sooner had God delivered them from their bondage in Egypt than they began to rebel against Him.

“Even when they made a molded calf for themselves,
And said, ‘This is your god
That brought you up out of Egypt,’
And worked great provocations,
Yet in Your manifold mercies
You did not forsake them in the wilderness.
The pillar of the cloud did not depart from them by day,
To lead them on the road;
Nor the pillar of fire by night,
To show them light,
And the way they should go.
You also gave Your good Spirit to instruct them,
And did not withhold Your manna from their mouth,
And gave them water for their thirst.
Forty years You sustained them in the wilderness;
They lacked nothing;
Their clothes did not wear out
And their feet did not swell” (vv. 18-21).

For forty years, that first rebellious generation wandered in the desert in an area that would have taken less than two weeks to travel across. But that first rebellious generation had to die out; so that God could keep His promise to their children. Those children entered the land under the leadership of Joshua; and they began to take possession of the land with God’s mighty help.

“Moreover You gave them kingdoms and nations,
And divided them into districts.
So they took possession of the land of Sihon,
The land of the king of Heshbon,
And the land of Og king of Bashan.
You also multiplied their children as the stars of heaven,
And brought them into the land
Which You had told their fathers
To go in and possess.
So the people went in
And possessed the land;
You subdued before them the inhabitants of the land,
The Canaanites,
And gave them into their hands,
With their kings
And the people of the land,
That they might do with them as they wished.
And they took strong cities and a rich land,
And possessed houses full of all goods,
Cisterns already dug, vineyards, olive groves,
And fruit trees in abundance.
So they ate and were filled and grew fat,
And delighted themselves in Your great goodness” (vv. 22-25).

But in spite of God’s faithfulness to them, they rebelled yet again. They rebelled over and over again, in fact, during the times of the Judges. These leaders in Nehemiah’s day remembered this as they prayed;

“Nevertheless they were disobedient
And rebelled against You,
Cast Your law behind their backs
And killed Your prophets, who testified against them
To turn them to Yourself;
And they worked great provocations.
Therefore You delivered them into the hand of their enemies,
Who oppressed them;
And in the time of their trouble,
When they cried to You,
You heard from heaven;
And according to Your abundant mercies
You gave them deliverers who saved them
From the hand of their enemies” (vv. 26-27).

The story of the days of the Judges is an almost monotonous record of disobedience, and suffering, and crying out to God in repentance, and being delivered again—only to rebel again afterward. But repeatedly, God showed them mercy. God gave them kings to rule over them; and prophets to declare the truth to them; and yet, they again rebelled. These spiritual leaders confessed;

“But after they had rest,
They again did evil before You.
Therefore You left them in the hand of their enemies,
So that they had dominion over them;
Yet when they returned and cried out to You,
You heard from heaven;
And many times You delivered them according to Your mercies,
And testified against them,
That You might bring them back to Your law.
Yet they acted proudly,
And did not heed Your commandments,
But sinned against Your judgments,
‘Which if a man does, he shall live by them.’
And they shrugged their shoulders,
Stiffened their necks,
And would not hear.
Yet for many years You had patience with them,
And testified against them by Your Spirit in Your prophets” (vv. 28-30a).

Those words in verse 29 about God’s law—“Which if a man does, he shall live by them”—are taken from Leviticus 18:5. God told them this from the beginning;

“Yet they would not listen;
Therefore You gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands” (v. 30).

Now; those words in the latter half of verse 30 speak of the very judgment of God that the people had just been delivered from. God had warned them that they would be taken out of the land if they continued to rebel against Him. And so it happened. They had spent 70 years in exile—in a far-away, pagan land; and were only now beginning to rebuild their city. But now, as they could plainly see, God in His mercy had once again restored them and had kept His promises to them. The leaders recognized this when they prayed;