Ezra 9:5

“And at the evening sacrifice I rose up from my heaviness, etc.] The signs and tokens of it, particularly sitting on the ground; or “from my fasting” f97, having eaten nothing that day, it being early in the morning when he was told the above case: and having rent my garment and my mantle; which he had done before, and still kept them on him in the same case: fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God; in the posture and with the gesture of an humble supplicant.”

“PRAYS TO GOD. (Ezr 9:5-15) I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God--The burden of his prayer, which was dictated by a deep sense of the emergency, was that he was overwhelmed at the flagrant enormity of this sin, and the bold impiety of continuing in it after having, as a people, so recently experienced the heavy marks of the divine displeasure. God had begun to show returning favor to Israel by the restoration of some. But this only aggravated their sin, that, so soon after their re-establishment in their native land, they openly violated the express and repeated precepts which commanded them to extirpate the Canaanites. Such conduct, he exclaimed, could issue…”

“Heaviness - From that mournful posture, and put myself into the posture of a petitioner. He did this at the time of the evening sacrifice, because then devout people used to come into the courts of the temple, that hearing his confession, they likewise might be made sensible of the sins of the people. And he had an eye to that great propitiation, of which that sacrifice was a peculiar type. Ezra 9:6”

“9:5 Ezra’s inner humility before God was consistent with his falling on his knees. His outstretched hands demonstrated his pleading with God to intervene.”

“heaviness: or, affliction I fell: Ch2 6:13; Psa 95:6; Luk 22:41; Act 21:5; Eph 3:14 spread: Exo 9:29, Exo 9:33; Kg1 8:22, Kg1 8:38, Kg1 8:54; Psa 141:2, Psa 143:6; Isa 1:15 Ezra 9:6”

“Ezra's prayer and confession for the congregation. - Ezr 9:5 And at the time of the evening sacrifice, I rose up from my mortification (תּענית, humiliation, generally through fasting, here through sitting motionless in deep affliction of soul), and rending my garment and my mantle. These words contribute a second particular to קמתּי, and do not mean that Ezra arose with his garments torn, but state that, on arising, he rent his clothing, and therefore again manifested his sorrow in this manner. He then fell on his knees, and spread out his hands to God (comp. Kg1 8:22), to make a confession of the heavy guilt of the congregation before God, and thus impressively to set their sins before all…”