9:4-38 The summary of their prayers we have here upon record. Much more, no doubt, was said. Whatever ability we have to do any thing in the way of duty, we are to serve and glorify God according to the utmost of it. When confessing our sins, it is good to notice the mercies of God, that we may be the more humbled and ashamed. The dealings of the Lord showed his goodness and long-suffering, and the hardness of their hearts. The testimony of the prophets was the testimony of the Spirit in the prophets, and it was the Spirit of Christ in them. They spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and what they said is to be received accordingly. The result was, wonder at the Lord's mercies, and the feeling that sin had brought them to their present state, from which nothing but unmerited love could rescue them. And is not their conduct a specimen of human nature? Let us study the history of our land, and our own history. Let us recollect our advantages from childhood, and ask what were our first returns? Let us frequently do so, that we may be kept humble, thankful, and watchful. Let all remember that pride and obstinacy are sins which ruin the soul. But it is often as hard to persuade the broken-hearted to hope, as formerly it was to bring them to fear. Is this thy case? Behold this sweet promise, A God ready to pardon! Instead of keeping away from God under a sense of unworthiness, let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. He is a God ready to pardon.

Verse 6. - Thou art Lord alone. Compare Psalm 86:10 and Isaiah 27:16. In the latter passage the phrase used is almost identical. The heaven of heavens. Compare Deuteronomy 10:14; 1 Kings 8:27; Psalm 148:4. The expression has been explained as -

1. The very highest heaven;

2. The heavens in all their infinity,

The latter sense best suits the various passages where the phrase occurs. With all their host. The "host of heaven" has been taken to mean -

1. The angels;

2. The stars.

By the immediate context the stars would seem to be here intended; but the last clause of the verse is more properly applicable to the angels. Still, it must be remembered that, according to H.S. (Psalm 148:3), even the stars "praise" God. Thou preservest them all. The preservation of all created things by him who called them into being is scarcely taught in the Old Testament elsewhere than in this passage. The Psalmist says in one place, "Thou preservest man and beast" (Psalm 36:6); but this acknowledgment falls very far short of the universality of the present passage. Man naturally, but foolishly, fancies that things once created are able to preserve themselves. Exact thought sees, that if all things have been produced from nothing, it requires precisely the same power to sustain as originally to produce them. Hence "preservation" has been called "a continual creation."

Thou, even thou art Lord alone,.... Whose name alone is Jehovah, the one only true and living God:

thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host; the airy and starry heavens, and the sun, moon, and stars in them, and the third heaven, the seat of God, angels, and saints:

the earth, and all things that are therein; men, beasts, trees, metals, minerals, &c.

the seas, and all that is therein; fishes, sea plants, &c. see Acts 4:24,

and thou preservest them all; they consist in thee, and are upheld in their being by thee, Hebrews 1:3

and the host of heaven worshipped thee; not the sun, moon, and stars, only in their way, Psalm 148:2 but the angels chiefly, Hebrews 1:6.

6-38. Thou, even thou, art Lord alone, &c.—In this solemn and impressive prayer, in which they make public confession of their sins, and deprecate the judgments due to the transgressions of their fathers, they begin with a profound adoration of God, whose supreme majesty and omnipotence is acknowledged in the creation, preservation, and government of all. Then they proceed to enumerate His mercies and distinguished favors to them as a nation, from the period of the call of their great ancestor and the gracious promise intimated to him in the divinely bestowed name of Abraham, a promise which implied that he was to be the Father of the faithful, the ancestor of the Messiah, and the honored individual in whose seed all the families of the earth should be blessed. Tracing in full and minute detail the signal instances of divine interposition for their deliverance and their interest—in their deliverance from Egyptian bondage—their miraculous passage through the Red Sea—the promulgation of His law—the forbearance and long-suffering shown them amid their frequent rebellions—the signal triumphs given them over their enemies—their happy settlement in the promised land—and all the extraordinary blessings, both in the form of temporal prosperity and of religious privilege, with which His paternal goodness had favored them above all other people, they charge themselves with making a miserable requital. They confess their numerous and determined acts of disobedience. They read, in the loss of their national independence and their long captivity, the severe punishment of their sins. They acknowledge that, in all heavy and continued judgments upon their nation, God had done right, but they had done wickedly. And in throwing themselves on His mercy, they express their purpose of entering into a national covenant, by which they pledge themselves to dutiful obedience in future.

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