Ne. 9: History in Confession

Nehemiah 9:37 "Because of our sins, its abundant harvest goes to the kings you have placed over us. They rule over our bodies and our cattle as they please. We are in great distress."

As a ritual of confession, the Israelites clothe themselves in sackcloth and put dust on their heads. They spent a quarter of the day reading the word, and the rest of the day in confession of their sins. 

Confession here appears to be more than simply telling God how you screwed up, though that's a part of it. In reading the majority of chapter 9, confession appears to also be acknowledging who God is. What he has done, how he has blessed you, and how one stands in need of his forgiveness.

Perhaps that acknowledging, that confession of who God is, embiggens one's own sense of their need for God's forgiveness. It magnifies the need to confess to God, and the importance of God to one's own existence. Confession by the mouth not only allows a person to speak the words of confession, but to hear them as well. God clearly has the ability to know a person's heart. But rarely does a person truly know his own heart.