Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezra 9-10.
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Today’s passage begins with some of the officials approaching Ezra with their concern that the returned exiles had not kept themselves separate from the peoples of the land. If you read this passage in isolation, you can easily get the idea that the returned exiles were xenophobic towards the people of the land. However, if you read today’s passage in light of what was in yesterday’s passage about those who ate the Passover lamb after the completion of the temple you see that this passage is more nuanced than that. This passage gives us reason to make that connection. Those who approached Ezra reported those who “have not separated themselves from the peoples of the land with their abominations,…” Then in Ezra’s prayer he sums up the problem when he says, “shall we break your commandments again and intermarry with the peoples who practice these abominations?” There we learn that the problem was not intermarrying with the peoples of the land in general, but only intermarrying with those who practice abominations.
We saw in yesterday’s passage that some of the people of the land had separated themselves from the abominable practices. Further, it is clear that it was more complicated than just cutting off those who had married people of the land when the passage tells us that it would take more than one day to resolve the matter. If it was just a matter of men separating themselves from wives whom they had married from among the people, it could have been resolved quickly. However, the fact that men were appointed to examine the matter and that it took two months to resolve it suggests that they were examining whether the wives in question had abandoned the abominable practices. All of which shows us the importance of not reaching quick judgements about people. We also learn from this passage that we need to be careful about allowing ourselves to be caught in practices which God condemns.
I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.
Thanks Phil some good thoughts here. I wonder what the tension is between separating from sin and the results of divorce. I mean if they separate from the wives does that mean divorce or excommunication from the community? Either way that is another part of brokenness. So, where would be the mercy of God? Missionally speaking, could the remnant of faithful Jews, have viewed the one’s in this committing abomination as people to witness to for God? Like do these qualify as a nation? Steve
The questions you ask are ones that in some form or another always trouble me when I read Ezra, because nothing in the Book of Ezra seems to have any concern for those questions. At this point, it seems that those questions are not ones for which the Book of Ezra offers us any answers. The Book of Ezra does not seem to have any concern for bringing those not descended from Jacob into a relationship with God, but that may be more about how it reads to our modern sensibilities.