Commentaria in II Esdrae (Nehemiam)
1. And earth (that is, dust and ashes) upon them.—Note here three offices of penance, and likewise symbols. The first is to sprinkle the head with ashes, as if confessing that we are vile and ashen, as being formed of ashes and about to return to ashes, according to that in Genesis 3:19: “Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return.” The second is a public and solemn fast. The third, sackcloth, or hair-shirt.
2. And the seed of the children of Israel was separated from every [stranger]—from the gentile wives, and the sons whom they had begotten of them they separated from the sons whom they had begotten of Israelite wives, in the manner which I described on 1 Esdras 10:3.
in a higher place, from which they could be seen and heard by the people.
after the readings they sang to God psalms and hymns, in which they celebrated the beneficence of God, and confessed the evil deeds of the ungrateful people, and as suppliants asked pardon for them from God.
6. The heaven of heavens (that is, the highest, vastest and most excellent heaven, namely the empyrean;) and all the host thereof—namely all the angels and all the stars,
7. Who didst choose Abram, and bring him out of the fire of the Chaldeans.—You will say: The Hebrew and the Septuagint have, from Ur of the Chaldeans, and so our version at Genesis 11:31 and elsewhere.
I answer: Ur or Ura, as Josephus has it, is the proper name of a city of the Chaldeans, from which God brought Abraham, which Eupolemus in Eusebius, Preparation, book 9, chapter 4, calls Camarine. It seems to be so called from the worship of fire (for this is what ur signifies in Hebrew), which, according to St. Jerome, Questions on Genesis, the Chaldeans worshipped as a god. As Heliopolis in Egypt was so called from the worship of the sun: for “Heliopolis” is the same as the city of the sun; and therefore our version, to interpret the name ur, renders it fire. Hence some Bibles in this place write “Fire” with a capital letter, as the proper name of the city; for allusion is entirely made here to Genesis 11:31, where it is said: “I brought them out of Ur of the Chaldees”; for so elsewhere too our version often interprets the etymologies of proper names, because some mystery or force and energy lies hidden in them, as Judges 15:19, Genesis 26:
Hence, second, the word ur can be taken not as a proper name but as a common one, to signify fire, that is, pressure and affliction; as in Psalm 16:3 and Psalm 65:12; for that Abraham suffered many afflictions from the Chaldeans, because he would not adore fire, which they, like the Persians, worshipped as a god, Josephus testifies, Antiquities book 1, chapter 7, and St. Augustine, City of God, book 16, chapter 13. Indeed it is a tradition of the Hebrews that for this reason Abraham was cast into the fire, but was miraculously delivered by God, which St. Jerome approves, Questions on Genesis. Nor is it wonderful that Josephus did not mention this, nor Philo, nor St. Paul, Hebrews 11 (as Pererius objects), because they relate almost only what is found in the Scriptures, as Josephus often professes of himself. See what I said on Genesis 11:31.
10. And thou shewedst signs and wonders upon Pharao—namely the ten plagues, with which God struck Pharao to force him to let the Hebrews go to Chanaan. Here the Levites celebrate the magnificence and beneficence of God, recounting all that God did for the Hebrews in Egypt and Chanaan; namely that for them he afflicted Egypt with ten plagues, that he gave them the pillar of fire as a guide of the way, likewise manna, the law, water from the rock, the land of Chanaan. Hence they confess likewise the ingratitude of the people disobedient to God. So this confession and prayer of theirs is as it were a compendium of the books of the Pentateuch, Judges and Kings.
15. Thou gavest them also bread from heaven—namely manna, of which Exodus 16.
Thou hadst lifted up thy hand—that is, thou hadst sworn. For we swear with a raised hand, as it were invoking God as witness.
17. And they gave a head.—Vatablus: as, they chose, that is, they wished to choose a leader to bring them back into Egypt to their former servitude, Numbers 14. Second, more simply, “they gave a head that they might return,” that is, with stiffened neck, as went before, and with hardened head they resolutely wished to return into Egypt. So in verse 29 it is said: “They gave a departing shoulder, and hardened their neck.”
32. Turn not away from thy face (but look constantly with kindly eyes, that thou mayest have compassion on us and have mercy on us) all the labour (all our miseries), from the days of the king of Assur—who in the sixth year of Ezechias led the ten tribes captive into Assyria.
33. Thou hast done truth—that is, thou hast truly fulfilled, truly rendered the rewards thou hadst promised and the punishments thou hadst threatened to transgressors.
it yields indeed many fruits, but not to us, but to the kings of the Persians, to whom we are forced to pay them as tribute.
38. Because of all this therefore—as if to say: On account of all these things, therefore, that thou mayest have mercy on us, behold, by a new promise and covenant we pledge ourselves, having cast away idols and crimes, henceforth to serve thee alone faithfully and constantly for ever.
And write it—the letters of this covenant which we enter into, and we shall have it subscribed and sealed in the name of all by our princes, whose names are given in the following chapter.