Nehemiah — Chapter 9

Et humus super eos

And earth upon them. — Note here three offices and symbols of penance. First, to sprinkle the head with ash, as if confessing that we are vile and ashen, having been formed from ash and destined to return to ash (Genesis 3:19: \"You are dust and to dust you shall return\"). Second, public and solemn fasting. Third, sackcloth or hairshirt.

Separatum est semen filiorum

And the seed of Israel separated themselves from every stranger. — that is: They separated from their foreign wives, and separated the children they had begotten of them from the children begotten of Israelite wives, in the manner I explained at 1 Esdras 10:3.

Et consurrexerunt ad standum

And they stood up to stand — the Levites in a higher place from which they could be seen and heard by the people. \"AND FOUR TIMES THEY CONFESSED\" — at each reading they sang psalms and hymns to God, celebrating His beneficence, confessing the misdeeds of the ungrateful people, and humbly beseeching God's pardon.

Coelum coelorum et omnem

The heaven of heavens and all their host. — that is, the highest, vastest, and most excellent heaven, the empyrean; \"AND ALL THEIR HOST\" — namely all the angels and all the stars.

Elegisti Abram et eduxisti

You chose Abram and brought him out of the fire of the Chaldeans. — Question: The Hebrew and Septuagint have \"from Ur of the Chaldeans,\" and so the Vulgate translates at Genesis 11:31 and elsewhere. Answer: Ur or Ura (as Josephus has it) is the proper name of a city of the Chaldeans from which God led Abraham, which Eupolemus in Eusebius (Praep. IX.4) calls Camirinen. It seems named from the cultivation of fields (for \"ur\" in Hebrew signifies a field), which the Chaldeans worshipped as a god — just as Heliopolis in Egypt is named from sun worship. Hence the Vulgate, to interpret the Hebrew \"ur,\" translates \"fire.\" Moreover the Hebrew tradition holds that Abraham was for this reason cast into fire but miraculously liberated by God — which St. Jerome approves (Quaest. in Genesim). See Genesis 11:31.

Et dedisti signa atque

And you wrought signs and wonders against Pharaoh — namely the ten plagues, by which God struck Pharaoh to compel him to let the Hebrews go to Canaan. The Levites celebrate here God's magnificence and beneficence, reviewing all He did for the Hebrews in Egypt and Canaan: afflicting Egypt with ten plagues for them, giving a pillar of fire as a guide, manna, the law, water from the rock, and the land of Canaan. They also confess the ingratitude of the disobedient people. This confession and prayer is a kind of compendium of the books of the Pentateuch, Judges, and Kings.

Panem quoque de coelo

And you gave them bread from heaven in their hunger — namely manna (see Exodus 16). \"YOU LIFTED UP YOUR HAND\" — that is, you swore. For we swear with raised hand as if invoking God as witness.

Et dederunt caput ut

And they gave a head to return to their bondage. — Vatablus: \"they wished to choose,\" that is, they wished to choose a leader to lead them back into Egypt to their former servitude (Numbers 14). Or more simply: with stiff neck as before, and with hardened head, they resolutely determined to return to Egypt. So in verse 29 it says: \"They gave a withdrawing shoulder and hardened their neck.\"

Ne avertas a facie

Do not turn away from your face all the labor — do not turn away your face, but continually look with benevolent eyes, that you may have compassion on us, from ALL THE TRIBULATION; \"FROM THE DAYS OF THE KING OF ASSUR\" — who led the ten tribes captive to Assyria in the sixth year of Hezekiah.

Veritatem fecisti nos autem

You are just in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully, but we have done wickedly. — \"You fulfilled faithfully\" — that is: You truly fulfilled and truly exhibited the rewards you had promised and the punishments you had threatened to transgressors.

Fruges multiplicantur regibus quos

And the fruits thereof are multiplied for the kings. — that is: Judaea indeed brings forth much fruit, but not for us — rather for the kings of Persia, to whom we are compelled to pay it as tribute.

Super omnibus ergo his

And for all this, we ourselves make a covenant and write it: and our princes, our Levites, and our priests set their seal to it. — that is: For all these things, that you may have mercy on us, behold with a new promise and covenant we pledge — having renounced idols and crimes — that we will henceforth serve you alone faithfully and constantly forever. \"AND WE WRITE\" — letters of this covenant which we enter with you, and we will have it signed and sealed in all our names by our princes, whose names are given in the following chapter.