Matthew Henry on Nehemiah 9:4–end
We have here an account how the work of this fast-day was carried on. 1. The names of the ministers that were employed. They are twice named (Neh 9:4, Neh 9:5), only with some variation of the names. Either they prayed successively, according to that rule which the apostle gives (Co1 14:31, You may all prophesy one by one), or, as some think, there were eight several congregations at some distance from each other, and each had a Levite to preside in it. 2. The work itself in which they employed themselves. (1.) They prayed to God, cried to him with a loud voice (Neh 9:4), for the pardon of the sins of Israel and God's favour to them. They cried aloud, not that God might the better hear them,…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Nehemiah 9:38
we make a sure covenant, and write--that is, subscribe or sign it. This written document would exercise a wholesome influence in restraining their backslidings or in animating them to duty, by being a witness against them if in the future they were unfaithful to their engagements.
Next: Nehemiah Chapter 10
Adam Clarke on Nehemiah 9:38
Our princes, Levites, and priests, seal unto it - Persuaded that we have brought all the miseries upon ourselves by our transgressions, feeling much and fearing more, we make a covenant with thee to devote ourselves to thy service; to do with us as thou pleasest. From this sealing we learn that at this time the government of the Jews was a mixed aristocracy; composed of the nobles for the civil department, and the priests and Levites for the ecclesiastical.
This was not mixing the Church with the state, or the state with the Church: both were separate, yet both mutually supported each other. The state never attempted to model the Church according to its own mind; because the Church had been…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Nehemiah 9:38
And because of all this,.... Of all this distress, and that it might be removed, and be clear of it; or "in all this distress and evil", as Jarchi and Aben Ezra, in the midst of it all:
we make a sure covenant; or faithfully promise to observe the law of God, and particularly put away strange wives, and not intermarry with the people of the land:
and write it; that it may remain and be a testimony against them should they break it, being their own handwriting:
and our princes, Levites, and priests, seal unto it; as witnesses of it, and thereby binding themselves to observe the same things; their names that sealed are given in the next chapter.
