Nehemiah 9 Bible study: A God ready to pardon

Chapter 8 ended with the feast kept "seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly, according to the ordinance" (8:18). Then: "Now in the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, with sackcloth, and dirt on them" (9:1). "The offspring of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers" (9:2) (tap confessed). A fourth part of the day went to the book, and a fourth part to confession and worship: "They stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of the LORD their God a fourth part of the day; and a fourth part they confessed and worshiped the LORD their God" (9:3). Levites "stood up on the stairs, and cried with a loud voice to the LORD their God" (9:4), and Levites called, "Stand up and bless the LORD your God from everlasting to everlasting!" (9:5). In chapter 8, when the people wept at the words of the law, they were told, "Don’t mourn, nor weep" (8:9). Here they come with fasting and sackcloth (9:1), and they confess (9:2-3).

Nehemiah 9:36→leads toJohn 8:34-36

The prayer ends its story in the present: "Behold, we are servants today" (9:36), and the land "yields much increase to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins" (9:37). In John, Jesus said, "the truth will make you free" (John 8:32). Asked how they would be made free (John 8:33), he answered, "Most certainly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the bondservant of sin" (John 8:34), "A bondservant doesn’t live in the house forever. A son remains forever" (John 8:35), and "If therefore the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:36). Jesus doesn't cite Nehemiah, so setting the two side by side is a reading. It rests on a shared subject, bondage and sin, not on a shared word. Some set Jesus' words beside the prayer's "we are servants" (9:36), said "because of our sins" (9:37), and hear in them a freedom the Son gives. Others read each in its own setting: the prayer speaks of kings set over the people in their own land (9:37), and Jesus of bondage to sin itself (John 8:34), and they draw no line from one to the other.

סְלִיחָהselichahsay se-lee-KHAH

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "forgiveness". Strong's: "pardon", and "from 5545", the verb salach, "to forgive". "But you are a God ready to pardon" (9:17). Here the noun is plural, selichot, after eloah, the word for God. The Hebrew Bible uses the noun only three times. Daniel prays, "To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness" (Daniel 9:9), and a psalm says, "But there is forgiveness with you, therefore you are feared" (Psalm 130:4). The verb comes in Moses' prayer in Numbers 14, after the people said, "Let’s choose a leader" (Numbers 14:4): "Please pardon the iniquity of this people" (Numbers 14:19).