A Peg in the Holy Place: The Grammar of Repentance Text: Ezra 9:5-15
Introduction: The Lost Art of Corporate Confession
We live in an age of boutique spirituality. Our faith is tailored, customized, and privatized. My Jesus, my quiet time, my personal relationship with God. And because our faith is so relentlessly individualistic, our understanding of sin and repentance is necessarily shrunken and domesticated. We think of sin as a private failure, a personal mistake, a secret shame to be dealt with between me and God. And so we confess our sins in the quiet of our hearts, and we assume that is the end of the matter.
But the Bible knows nothing of this isolated piety. The faith of our fathers is a corporate faith, a covenantal faith. We are not a collection of spiritual pebbles in a bag; we are a body, a building, a nation. And because we are a people, our sin is corporate, our guilt is corporate, and our repentance, if it is to be biblical, must also be corporate. Ezra's prayer in this chapter is a bucket of ice water to the face of our modern, sentimental individualism. It is raw, honest, and devastatingly corporate.
Ezra, a man who was personally righteous, tears his garments and falls on his face to confess sins he did not personally commit. He does not pray, "O Lord, look at what these people have done." He prays, "O my God, I am ashamed... for our iniquities." He identifies himself completely with the sin of his people. This is the logic of the covenant. This is the logic of the cross, where the one truly righteous man identified Himself completely with the sin of His people. If we do not understand the grammar of Ezra's prayer, we will never understand the gospel. This prayer is a master class in what it means to see sin as God sees it, to feel guilt as a people, and to cling to grace as the only hope.
The Text
But at the evening offering I arose from my affliction, even with my garment and my robe torn, and I fell on my knees and stretched out my hands to Yahweh my God; and I said, “O my God, I am ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have multiplied above our heads and our guilt has become great even to the heavens. Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt, and on account of our iniquities we, our kings and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to plunder and to open shame, as it is this day. But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from Yahweh our God, to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a little reviving in our slavery. For we are slaves; yet in our slavery our God has not forsaken us, but has extended lovingkindness to us before the kings of Persia, to give us reviving to raise up the house of our God, to restore its waste places, and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem. So now, our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken Your commandments, which You have commanded by the hand of Your slaves the prophets, saying, ‘The land which you are entering to possess is an impure land with the impurity of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations which have filled it from end to end, and with their uncleanness. So now do not give your daughters to their sons nor take their daughters to your sons, and never seek their peace or their prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good things of the land and leave it as a possession to your sons forever.’ After all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and our great guilt, since You our God have requited us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us an escaped remnant as this, shall we again break Your commandments and intermarry with the peoples who commit these abominations? Would You not be angry with us to the point of destruction, until there is no remnant nor any who escape? O Yahweh, the God of Israel, You are righteous, for we have been left an escaped remnant, as it is this day; behold, we are before You in our guilt, for no one can stand before You because of this.”
(Ezra 9:5-15 LSB)
The Posture of Guilt (vv. 5-7)
Ezra begins not with words, but with his body. True repentance is not just a mental exercise; it is a visceral, physical reality.
"But at the evening offering I arose from my affliction, even with my garment and my robe torn, and I fell on my knees and stretched out my hands to Yahweh my God; and I said, 'O my God, I am ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have multiplied above our heads and our guilt has become great even to the heavens.'" (Ezra 9:5-6)
He is torn, kneeling, and stretched out. This is the posture of utter desperation and submission. He is not coming to God with a list of excuses or a self-improvement plan. He is coming as a beggar, as a representative of a criminal nation before their judge. The shame is so profound he cannot lift his face. This is what it looks like to take sin seriously. He feels the weight of the nation's sin as his own. He says "our iniquities," "our guilt." This guilt is not a small thing; it is a towering mountain, piled up "even to the heavens." It is a legal reality before the throne of God. They are objectively, massively guilty.
And this is not a new problem. This is a generational pattern of rebellion.
"Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt, and on account of our iniquities we, our kings and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to plunder and to open shame, as it is this day." (Ezra 9:7)
Ezra is a student of covenant history. He knows that their present misery is not bad luck; it is the predictable and promised consequence of their sin. He connects the dots. The sword, the captivity, the plunder, the shame, this is the outworking of the covenant curses they were warned about centuries before in Deuteronomy. He does not blame Babylon or Persia. He blames their own sin. This is the first step in all true repentance: to agree with God about the righteousness of His judgments.
The Anchor of Grace (vv. 8-9)
Just when the confession reaches its bleakest point, Ezra pivots to the only thing that gives him any standing at all: the sovereign grace of God.
"But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from Yahweh our God, to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a little reviving in our slavery." (Ezra 9:8)
Notice the humility. It is a "brief moment" of grace. A "little reviving." They do not deserve a floodlight; they have been given a candle, and they are grateful for it. The existence of a "remnant" is a profound theological concept. It testifies that God never breaks His covenant promises, even when His people do. He always preserves a people for Himself, not because of their merit, but because of His grace. This remnant has been given a "peg in His holy place." A peg, or a tent stake, is a sign of stability, of permanence, of having a secure place to belong. After generations of exile and wandering, God has driven a stake in the ground for them back in Jerusalem. It is a small foothold, but it is a foothold of grace.
And this grace is given in the midst of their degradation.
"For we are slaves; yet in our slavery our God has not forsaken us, but has extended lovingkindness to us before the kings of Persia..." (Ezra 9:9)
Ezra does not have any romantic illusions about their political situation. They are subjects of a foreign empire. They are slaves. But even there, God's covenant loyalty, His hesed, His lovingkindness, has found them. He has moved the heart of a pagan king to show them favor. This is the sovereignty of God in action. God's grace is not constrained by geopolitical realities. He can make a Persian king the instrument of Israel's revival. And the purpose of this grace is not their personal comfort, but the restoration of true worship: "to raise up the house of our God."
The Folly of Renewed Treason (vv. 10-14)
Having established the foundation of their guilt and God's grace, Ezra now lays out the sheer insanity of their present sin.
"So now, our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken Your commandments..." (Ezra 9:10)
He is speechless. In light of God's grace shown to such a guilty people, their return to the very sin that got them exiled is incomprehensible. It is covenantal treason. And it was a direct violation of a clear command. He quotes the substance of the prohibition against intermarriage with the pagan inhabitants of the land (vv. 11-12). We must be clear: this was not a matter of racial purity. It was a matter of religious fidelity. The "abominations" and "uncleanness" of the peoples were their idolatrous practices. To intermarry was to import idolatry directly into the heart of the covenant family, polluting the line of promise. The command was given for their own good, "that you may be strong and eat the good things of the land and leave it as a possession to your sons forever." Obedience leads to strength and inheritance; disobedience leads to weakness and dispossession.
Then comes the theological linchpin of the entire prayer.
"After all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and our great guilt, since You our God have requited us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us an escaped remnant as this, shall we again break Your commandments...?" (Ezra 9:13-14)
This is stunning. Ezra acknowledges that the seventy years of exile, the destruction of their temple, the loss of their kingdom, all of it, was less than they deserved. God's judgment was a merciful judgment. He held back. The existence of the remnant is the definitive proof. And in light of that merciful judgment, to turn right around and dive back into the same sin is the height of madness. Ezra poses the rhetorical question: "Would You not be angry with us to the point of destruction, until there is no remnant nor any who escape?" The implied answer is a terrifying yes. He is telling God that they have done something that, by all rights, should have triggered their complete annihilation.
Prostrate Before a Righteous God (v. 15)
The prayer concludes with a final, unvarnished declaration of God's character and their own condition.
"O Yahweh, the God of Israel, You are righteous, for we have been left an escaped remnant, as it is this day; behold, we are before You in our guilt, for no one can stand before You because of this." (Ezra 9:15)
Here is the paradox of grace. God's righteousness is the very reason they should be destroyed. Yet, Ezra appeals to that righteousness as the ground of his hope. Why? Because God is righteous, He keeps His covenant promises. The remnant exists not because Israel was faithful, but because God is. Their survival is a testimony to God's righteousness, not their own.
The final line is a complete surrender. "Behold, we are before You in our guilt." There are no excuses. No extenuating circumstances. No bargaining. They are guilty, and on the basis of that guilt, "no one can stand before You." This is where all true repentance must end: stripped of all self-defense, cast entirely upon the mercy of a righteous God whom we have grievously offended.
This is the necessary prelude to reformation. Before the people can act, they must first be undone by the reality of their sin. Ezra's prayer is the wrecking ball that demolishes their pride and prepares the ground for rebuilding. And it is the prayer we in the modern church desperately need to learn. We need to stop making excuses for our compromise, for our worldliness, for our theological adultery. We need to fall on our faces and confess our corporate guilt, acknowledging that all the blessings we still enjoy are a remnant, a peg, a mercy that is far less than our iniquities deserve.
For it is only when we confess that we cannot stand, that we are driven to the one Man who could. Jesus Christ stood before the righteous God, not in His own guilt, but clothed in ours. He took the full weight of the iniquity that reached to the heavens. He endured the full measure of the wrath that should have led to our utter destruction, leaving no remnant. He did this so that we, the true and final remnant, might be given more than a peg, but a permanent place as sons in His Father's house. He is our wall, He is our temple, and He is our revival. Therefore, let us come before God, confessing our great guilt, so that we might rejoice all the more in His even greater grace.