Verses 13, 14. - After all that is come upon us, etc. After the punishments that we have suffered, the loss of our independence, of our temple, and our city, the long and weary period of captivity and servitude in a foreign land, which should have bent our stubborn spirits to obedience; and after the mercy shown us in the fact that thou hast punished us less than our iniquities deserved, and given us a deliverance, or rather a residue, such as this, which should have stirred us up to gratitude and love, should we again break thy commandments, and fall away, what can we expect but final abandonment, complete and entire destruction? If neither severity nor kindness avail anything, what can God do more? must he not view our case as hopeless, and so make an end of us altogether? (Compare Isaiah 5:1-7; Luke 13:6-9).

9:5-15 The sacrifice, especially the evening sacrifice, was a type of the blessed Lamb of God, who in the evening of the world, was to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Ezra's address is a penitent confession of sin, the sin of his people. But let this be the comfort of true penitents, that though their sins reach to the heavens, God's mercy is in the heavens. Ezra, speaking of sin, speaks as one much ashamed. Holy shame is as necessary in true repentance as holy sorrow. Ezra speaks as much amazed. The discoveries of guilt cause amazement; the more we think of sin, the worse it looks. Say, God be merciful to me sinner. Ezra speaks as one much afraid. There is not a surer or saddler presage of ruin, than turning to sin, after great judgments, and great deliverances. Every one in the church of God, has to wonder that he has not wearied out the Lord's patience, and brought destruction upon himself. What then must be the case of the ungodly? But though the true penitent has nothing to plead in his own behalf, the heavenly Advocate pleads most powerfully for him.And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass,.... As famine, sword, pestilence, and captivity, for their idolatries and other heinous sins:

seeing that our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve; for they deserved eternal punishment, whereas it was temporal punishment that was inflicted, and this moderate, and now stopped; the sense is, according to Aben Ezra,"thou hast refrained from writing some of our sins in the book of remembrance, and thou hast let them down below in the earth, according to the sense of thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea;''but Jarchi better,"thou hast refrained thyself from exacting of us all our sins, and hast exacted of us beneath our sins (or less than they deserve), and hast not taken vengeance on us according to all our sins:"

and hast given us such deliverance as this; from captivity, which they now enjoyed.