Ezra 9:9 Commentary and Bible Study

‘For we were bondman’, slaves really. This is not about Egypt. This is about Babylon: where they were underlings. They could run their smallholdings and live in houses, but they were third rate citizens and servants and slaves, wherever possible. ‘Yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia’ – Artaxerxes is the Persian emperor at this moment – ‘to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, to repair the desolations thereof, and to give us a wall’, some measure of security in Judah and in Jerusalem. Ezra reviews God’s patience towards the nation to make him feel worse.