I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezra 9-10.

We saw in yesterday’s passage how those living in the land who turned from the detestable practices common among their people and adopted true worship of God were welcome among the returned exiles.  In today’s passage we have an account of how many among the returned exiles had married women from among the people living in the land and adopted some of their practices.  While the passage focuses on the fact that they had married women from among those living in the land we can see that it was the fact that these women had not given up the pagan practices which was the problem.  In fact, I suspect that what brought this problem up was that many of the most prominent among the returned exiles had formed marriage alliances with the prominent among those living in the land and were corruptly serving the interests of their new families against the interests of the returned exile community.

When Ezra proposed that the people must separate themselves from the people of the land and the women from among them which many of them had married, the people agreed but said that it was more complicated than could be resolved while they were all gathered in Jerusalem.  So, it was decided that those who had married women who were not part of the returned exiles would meet with the elders of their villages to resolve things.  This tells us that this was not a blanket putting aside of wives from among the locals.  I read this as telling us that some of the women in these marriages had abandoned pagan worship and embraced the worship of God.  I conclude that the problem was not that they married women from outside their community.  Rather the problem was that they married women who did not share their faith, which led them to worship practices unacceptable to God.