For we [were] bondmen; yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the desolations thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.
Ver. 9. For we were bondmen] Heb. servants; and so wholly and only at the pleasure of another; for a servant is not αυτοματος, saith Aristotle, one that moveth absolutely of himself; but he is the master's underling and instrument, και ολως εκεινου, wholly at his disposal. The saints may say all as much, We were bondmen, slaves to sin, drudges to the devil, driven about by him at his pleasure, having as many lords as lusts, Titus 3:3, and thereby exposed to a thousand mischiefs and miseries; the heathens' Pistrinum, the Turk's galleys, Bajazet's iron cage, the Indian mines, are nothing to it. This we should frequently recognize; and remembering that our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but brought us from darkness to light, "and from the power of Satan unto God, that we might receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified," Acts 26:18; we should blush and bleed in the sense of our unthankfulness, saying, as Ezra 9:14, Should we again break thy commandments, &c.
Yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage] As he may seem to do his prisoners of hope, when he leaves them in the enemy's hand, or under some pressing affliction, and seems to forget them, that they may the better remember themselves. But God had remembered these returned captives "in their low estate: for his mercy endureth for ever." And had "redeemed them from their enemies: for his mercy endureth for ever," Psalms 136:23,24. Their sin therefore was the greater, since against so much mercy; and God might justly have said unto them, as Ezekiel 22:20, "I will gather you in my anger and in my fury, and will leave you there." A grievous judgment indeed! for woe be unto you when I forsake you, Hosea 9:12. Lord, leave us not, Jeremiah 17:17. Forsake us not utterly, Psalms 119:8 .
To give us a reviving] See Ezra 9:8 .
To set up the house of our God, and to repair, &c.] He reciteth and celebrateth God's favours to that people, not in the lump only and by wholesale, as we say; but entereth into particulars, and reckoneth them up one by one. So doth Moses, Exodus 18:8. So doth David, Psa 136:1-26 So must we, that we may shame and shent ourselves, as here, for our unthankfulness: and be inrited and incited thereby to better obedience. God, for this cause, crumbleth his mercies unto us (saith one): we have his blessings by retail, that we may make our utmost of them.
And to give us a wall] Protection and safeguard, as the walls of Sparta was their militia, and the walls of England is our navy. They had the fence of the king of Persia's favour. They had also God's providence, as a hedge or wall of fire round about them, Zechariah 2:5. See Trapp on " Zec 2:5 "