And didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red sea;
The verse rehearses the works of the Lord in behalf of His people. That work included seeing His afflicted people in Egypt and hearing them at the Red Sea. The rehearsal belongs to Israel's historical confession in Nehemiah 9, which sets God's goodness toward the people alongside their ingratitude and turning from Him.
It stands within a prayer in which Nehemiah and Ezra humbled themselves before God and confessed both their own sins and the sins of their people. In that prayer they pleaded for pardon as though they themselves were the offenders. The record of what God had done stands joined to the pointing out of the people's turning from God, to the truth that their sins separated them from Him and caused Him to permit them to be brought under the control of heathen nations, and to the truth that He would not serve with their sins.
The verse rehearses the works of the Lord in behalf of His people. That work included seeing His afflicted people in Egypt and hearing them at the Red Sea. The rehearsal belongs to Israel's historical confession in Nehemiah 9, which sets God's goodness toward the people alongside their ingratitude and turning from Him.
It stands within a prayer in which Nehemiah and Ezra humbled themselves before God and confessed both their own sins and the sins of their people. In that prayer they pleaded for pardon as though they themselves were the offenders. The record of what God had done stands joined to the pointing out of the people's turning from God, to the truth that their sins separated them from Him and caused Him to permit them to be brought under the control of heathen nations, and to the truth that He would not serve with their sins.