Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The Jews in fasting and sackcloth confess their sins to God. The Levites celebrate the ancient benefits with which God contended against the misdeeds of the people: and they renew the covenant between God and the people.
Vulgate Text: 2 Esdrae (Nehemiah) 9:1-38
1. On the twenty-fourth day of this month, the children of Israel gathered together in fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth upon them. 2. And the seed of the children of Israel was separated from every foreigner: and they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3. And they rose up to stand: and they read in the book of the law of the Lord their God four times during the day, and four times they confessed and worshipped the Lord their God. 4. And there rose up upon the platform of the Levites: Joshua, Bani, Cadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani: and they cried out with a loud voice to the Lord their God. 5. And the Levites said — Joshua, Cadmiel, Bunni, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, Pethahiah: Arise, bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting; and let them bless Your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. 6. You alone, O Lord, You made heaven, and the heaven of heavens, and all their host: the earth, and all things that are in it: the seas, and all that is in them; and You give life to all these things, and the host of heaven worships You. 7. You are the Lord God, who chose Abram, and brought him forth from the fire of the Chaldeans, and gave him the name Abraham. 8. And You found his heart faithful before You: and You struck a covenant with him, to give him the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it to his seed: and You fulfilled Your words, because You are just. 9. And You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and You heard their cry at the Red Sea. 10. And You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, and against all his servants, and against all the people of that land: for You knew that they had acted arrogantly against them; and You made a name for Yourself, as it is to this day. 11. And You divided the sea before them, and they passed through the midst of the sea on dry ground: but their pursuers You cast into the deep, like a stone into mighty waters. 12. And in a pillar of cloud You were their guide by day, and in a pillar of fire by night, so that the way by which they were to go might be visible to them. 13. You also came down upon Mount Sinai, and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right judgments, and the law of truth, ceremonies, and good precepts; 14. and Your sanctified sabbath You made known to them, and commandments, and ceremonies, and the law You commanded them through the hand of Moses Your servant. 15. And bread from heaven You gave them in their hunger, and water from the rock You brought forth for them in their thirst, and You told them to enter in and possess the land, over which You had raised Your hand to give it to them. 16. But they and our fathers acted arrogantly, and hardened their necks, and did not heed Your commandments. 17. And they refused to listen, and did not remember Your wonders which You had done for them. And they hardened their necks, and set their heads to return to their bondage, as if by contention. But You, O God, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, and of great compassion, did not forsake them, 18. even when they had made for themselves a molten calf and said: This is your god, who brought you out of Egypt: and they committed great blasphemies. 19. But You in Your many mercies did not abandon them in the desert: the pillar of cloud did not depart from them by day, to lead them on the way; and the pillar of fire by night, to show them the path by which they should go. 20. And You gave Your good Spirit to teach them, and Your manna You did not withhold from their mouths, and You gave them water in their thirst. 21. For forty years You fed them in the desert, and nothing was lacking to them: their garments did not wear out, and their feet were not bruised. 22. And You gave them kingdoms and peoples, and allotted them by portions: and they possessed the land of Sihon, and the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og, king of Bashan. 23. And You multiplied their children like the stars of heaven, and brought them into the land of which You had told their fathers to enter and possess. 24. And the children came and possessed the land, and You humbled before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and delivered them into their hands, and their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do to them as they pleased. 25. And so they took fortified cities and fertile soil, and possessed houses full of all good things; cisterns fashioned by others, vineyards and olive groves, and many fruit trees: and they ate and were filled and grew fat; and they abounded in delights through Your great goodness. 26. But they provoked You to wrath, and departed from You, and cast Your law behind their backs: and they killed Your prophets, who testified against them that they should return to You; and they committed great blasphemies. 27. And You delivered them into the hand of their enemies, and they afflicted them. And in the time of their tribulation they cried out to You, and You heard from heaven, and according to Your many mercies You gave them saviors, who saved them from the hand of their enemies. 28. And when they had rest, they returned to do evil in Your sight: and You abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, and they dominated them. And they turned again and cried out to You: and You heard from heaven, and delivered them in Your mercies many times. 29. And You warned them to return to Your Law. But they acted arrogantly and did not heed Your commandments, and sinned against Your judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them: and they gave a withdrawing shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not listen. 30. And You extended over them many years, and warned them by Your Spirit through the hand of Your prophets: and they did not listen, and You delivered them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. 31. But in Your very many mercies You did not bring them to utter destruction, nor did You forsake them: for You are a God of compassion and merciful. 32. Now therefore, our God, great, mighty, and terrible, who keeps covenant and mercy, do not turn Your face from all the hardship that has found us, our kings, and our princes, and our priests, and our prophets, and our fathers, and all Your people, from the days of the king of Assyria even to this day. 33. And You are just in all that has come upon us: for You have acted in truth, but we have acted impiously. 34. Our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers did not observe Your law, and did not heed Your commandments and Your testimonies, which You testified to them. 35. And they in their kingdoms, and in Your great goodness which You had given them, and in the very broad and fertile land which You had delivered before them, did not serve You, nor did they turn from their most wicked pursuits. 36. Behold, we ourselves today are servants, and the land that You gave to our fathers to eat its bread and its good things — we ourselves are servants in it. 37. And its fruits are multiplied for the kings whom You have set over us because of our sins, and they rule over our bodies and our cattle according to their will, and we are in great tribulation. 38. Therefore because of all these things, we ourselves make a covenant, and we write it, and our princes, our Levites, and our priests sign it.
Verse 1: And Earth Upon Them
1. AND EARTH (that is, dust and ashes) UPON THEM. — Note here three offices of penance, as well as their symbols. The first is to sprinkle ashes on the head, as if confessing that we are lowly and ashen, being formed from ashes and destined to return to ashes, according to that saying in Genesis III, 19: "Dust you are and to dust you shall return." The second is public and solemn fasting. The third is sackcloth or haircloth.
Verse 2: Separated from Every Foreigner
2. The seed of the children of Israel was separated from every FOREIGN CHILD — that is to say, they separated themselves from their Gentile wives, and the sons whom they had begotten from them, they separated from the sons whom they had begotten from Israelite wives, in the manner that I described in I Ezra X, 3.
Verse 3: They Rose Up to Stand
3. AND THEY ROSE UP (the Levites) TO STAND — in a higher place, from which they could be seen and heard by the people. And four times they confessed — that is, at each reading they sang psalms and hymns to God, by which they celebrated God's beneficence, and confessed the misdeeds of the ungrateful people, and humbly begged pardon for them from God.
Verse 6: The Heaven of Heavens
6. THE HEAVEN OF HEAVENS (that is, the highest, most vast, and most excellent heaven, namely the empyrean); AND ALL THEIR HOST — namely all the angels and all the stars.
Verse 7: You Chose Abram
7. YOU CHOSE ABRAM, AND BROUGHT HIM OUT OF THE FIRE OF THE CHALDEANS. — You will say: The Hebrew and the Septuagint have, "from Ur of the Chaldeans," and so our translator renders it at Genesis XI, 31, and elsewhere. I answer: Ur or Ura, as Josephus has it, is the proper name of a city of the Chaldeans, from which God brought Abraham, which Eupolemus, quoted by Eusebius (Book IX, Preparation, chapter IV), calls Camirine. It seems to have been named from the worship of fire (for this is what ur means in Hebrew), which, according to St. Jerome (Questions on Genesis), the Chaldeans worshipped as God. Just as Heliopolis in Egypt was named from the worship of the sun: for "Heliopolis" means the same as "city of the sun"; and therefore our translator, to interpret the Hebrew name ur, renders it as "fire." Hence some Bibles write the word "fire" in this place with a capital I, as if it were the proper name of a city; for there is clearly an allusion here to Genesis XI, 31, where it says: "I brought them out of Ur of the Chaldeans;" for so also elsewhere our translator often interprets the etymologies of the proper names of the Hebrews, because some mystery, or force and significance, lies hidden in them, as in Judges XV, 19; Genesis XXVI, 20 and 22.
Hence secondly, the word ur can be taken not as a proper name but as a common noun, signifying fire, that is, pressure and affliction: as also in Psalm XVI, 3, and Psalm LXV, 12; for Josephus testifies (Book I, Antiquities, VIII) and St. Augustine (Book XVI, City of God, chapter XIII) that Abraham suffered many afflictions from the Chaldeans because he refused to worship fire, which they, like the Persians, worshipped as God. Indeed, it is a tradition of the Hebrews that for this reason Abraham was cast into fire, but was miraculously delivered by God, which tradition St. Jerome approves (Questions on Genesis). Nor is it surprising that Josephus did not mention this matter, nor Philo, nor St. Paul in Hebrews XI (which Pererius objects), because those authors generally report only what is found in the Scriptures, as Josephus often professes of himself. See what is said at Genesis XI, 31.
Verse 10: Signs and Wonders Against Pharaoh
10. AND YOU PERFORMED SIGNS AND WONDERS AGAINST PHARAOH — namely the ten plagues with which God struck Pharaoh, to compel him to release the Hebrews to go to Canaan. The Levites here celebrate the magnificence and beneficence of God, recounting all that God did for the Hebrews in Egypt and Canaan; namely that for their sake He afflicted Egypt with ten plagues, that He gave them a pillar of fire as a guide on the way, likewise manna, the law, water from the rock, the land of Canaan. Hence they likewise confess the ingratitude of the people who were disobedient to God. And so this confession and prayer of theirs is, as it were, a compendium of the books of the Pentateuch, Judges, and Kings.
Verse 15: Bread from Heaven
15. And bread from heaven You gave them — namely manna, concerning which see Exodus XVI. YOU RAISED YOUR HAND — that is, You swore. For we swear with hand raised, as if invoking God as witness.
Verse 17: They Set Their Head
17. AND THEY SET THEIR HEAD. — Vatablus renders: so that they chose, that is, they wanted to choose a leader who would bring them back to Egypt to their former slavery (Numbers XIV). More simply, secondly, "they set their head to return," that is, with stiffened neck, as was previously stated, and with hardened head they resolutely wanted to return to Egypt. So in verse 29 it is said: "They gave a withdrawing shoulder and hardened their neck."
Verse 32: Do Not Turn Your Face
32. DO NOT TURN YOUR FACE (but continually look upon us with kindly eyes, that You may have compassion and mercy on us) FROM ALL THE HARDSHIP (all our troubles), FROM THE DAYS OF THE KING OF ASSYRIA — who in the sixth year of Hezekiah carried away the ten tribes captive into Assyria.
Verse 33: You Have Acted in Truth
33. YOU HAVE ACTED IN TRUTH — that is, You truly fulfilled, truly bestowed the rewards that You had promised, and the punishments that You had threatened against transgressors.
Verse 37: The Fruits Are Multiplied for the Kings
37. The fruits are multiplied for the kings — that is to say, Judea indeed produces many crops, but not for us: rather for the kings of the Persians, to whom we are compelled to pay them as tribute.
Verse 38: We Make a Covenant
38. Therefore because of all these things — that is to say: Therefore because of all these things, that You may have mercy on us, behold, by a new promise and covenant we pledge ourselves, having renounced idols and crimes, henceforth to serve You alone faithfully, constantly, and perpetually. AND WE WRITE — the terms of this covenant which we make with You, and we shall have it subscribed and sealed in the name of all by our Princes, whose names will be listed in the following chapter.