And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.

And said: My God I am confounded and ashamed to lift up my face to thee: for our iniquities are multiplied over our heads, and our sins are grown up even unto heaven,

and say, 'O my God, I have been ashamed, and have blushed to lift up, O my God, my face unto Thee, for our iniquities have increased over the head, and our guilt hath become great unto the heavens.

I said, O my God, shame keeps me from lifting up my face to you, my God: for our sins are increased higher than our heads and our evil-doing has come up to heaven.

And I said: "My God, I am confounded and ashamed to lift up my face to you. For our iniquities have been multiplied over our heads, and our offenses have increased, even up to heaven,

I am ashamed and blush - God had been so often provoked, and had so often pardoned them, and they had continued to transgress, that he was ashamed to go back again to the throne of grace to ask for mercy in their behalf. This is the genuine feeling of every reawakened backslider.

And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased (d) over [our] head, and our trespass is grown up unto the (e) heavens.
(d) That is, we are drowned in sin.
(e) They so exceed that they cannot grow greater.

And said, O my God,.... Here begins the prayer of Ezra, and that with faith in God as covenant God, even when he was about to make confession of sin, and repentance for it; that prayer is right which is put up in faith, and that repentance genuine which is accompanied with faith, and flows from it:
I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God; a true sight and sense of sin causes shame and blushing, and never more than when a man is sensible of his covenant interest in God, and of his grace and favour to him, particularly in the forgiveness of his sin, see Ezekiel 16:61
for our iniquities are increased over our head; arisen and swelled like mighty waters, which seemed to threaten an overwhelming of them:
and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens; being done in an open, public, and insolent manner, and in such numbers, that they were, as it were, piled up in heaps, reaching to heaven, and calling down vengeance from thence. Ezra includes himself as being one of the same nation; and these sins being so common were become national ones, which involved all the individuals, and exposed them to the divine resentment.

9:6, etc. The train of thought in this prayer is as follows: I scarcely dare to lift up my fact to God, through shame for the greatness of our misdeeds (Ezra 9:6). From the days of our fathers, God has sorely punished us for our sins by delivering us into the power of our enemies; but has now again turned His pity towards us, and revived us in the place of His sanctuary, through the favour of the king of Persia (Ezra 9:7). But we have again transgressed His commands, with the keeping of which God has connected our possession of the good land given unto us (Ezra 9:10). Should we then, after God has spared us more than we through our trespasses have deserved, bring His wrath upon us, till we are wholly consumed? God is just; He has preserved us; but we stand before Him with heavy guilt upon us, such guilt that we cannot endure God's presence (Ezra 9:13). Ezra does not pray for the pardon of their sin, for he desires only to bring the congregation to the knowledge of the greatness of their transgression, and so to invite them to do all that in them lies to atone for their guilt, and to appease God's wrath.
"I am ashamed, and am covered with shame, to lift up my face to Thee, my God." ונכלמתּי בּשׁתּי united, as in Jeremiah 31:19, comp. Isaiah 45:16, and other passages. נכלם, to be covered with shame, is stronger than בּושׁ. "For our iniquities are increased over our head," i.e., have grown above our head. ראשׁ למעלה, to or over the head. למעלה serves to enhance the meaning of רבוּ, like 1-Chronicles 23:17. "And our guiltiness is great, (reaching) unto the heavens;" comp. 2-Chronicles 28:9.

Our - He includes himself in the number of the transgressors, because he himself was guilty of many sins; and because the princes and priests, and so many of the people having done this, the guilt was now become national.