When Ezra learned that the returned exiles were sinning by making alliances with and marrying idolaters, he did not just ignore it, or throw up his hands and say, “Well, that’s too bad, I hope they repent,” or even preach a sermon about their sin. No, he publicly abased himself before God and prayed. Others joined Ezra in his prayer and abasement and prayer about the sin. And their prayer was not about other people’s sin, they prayed, “We have sinned…” Then they decided to enter into a covenant with God and each other to change their behavior, to stop sinning and make good for their past sins. If you, like me, see God’s judgement coming upon our society because of our sins, let us acknowledge our part in that sin and pray to God to transform our hearts, and the hearts of those around us, so that we change our ways and live the life He desires us to live.
When reading today’s passage I have often been bothered by the fact that the writer emphasizes the sin of the people of having married foreign women. After all, why would it be wrong to bring women into the family of faith? As I have been writing off and on this spring, that is because that is not quite what the passage is telling us. In order to understand what is going on here you have to start with what those who brought the problem to Ezra’s attention told him. They told him that the people of Israel had not kept themselves separate from the detestable practices of the people around them. One can easily misread what they said to think they were upset with the interaction with the people around them, but a careful reading of the entire passage shows there is more to it than that. When the Returned Exiles gathered to address the issue, they agreed that those who had married “foreign women” needed to send those wives away, but they said it would take more than a day or two to accomplish this. Why would it take more than a day or two to settle this if it was just a matter of all the men who had married a woman not of the group of Returned Exiles putting aside their wives? To me, this says that they had to evaluate whether these wives had continued in the detestable practices of their people or had embraced the worship of God and all that entailed.
When Ezra learned that many of the Returned Exiles had intermarried with the people living in the land, we need to interpret that in terms of yesterday’s passage. Ezra’s response, and that of the rest of the people, was not about those of the Returned Exiles who married those in the land who chose to follow God’s Laws. It was about those who married and allied with those who continued to worship idols and follow other practices contrary to God’s Law. In addition to yesterday’s passage where it stated that everyone who separated themselves from the unclean practices of their Gentile neighbors was welcomed to take part in the Passover, we have in today’s passage an indication that resolving who had violated this prohibition was not just a matter of looking at their wives’ parentage. Rather, each case needed to be looked at on an individual basis.
There is another thing in this passage I want to look at. When Ezra came forth and publicly prostrated himself before God because of those among the Returned Exiles who were joining themselves with idolaters, many of the people joined him. This tells us that many people had been concerned about the problem, but no one was willing to step forward and do something about it. I want to be fair here, it takes a special kind of person to mobilize a group to deal with this sort of problem. The lesson we learn here is that we are not alone in being grieved by the sins which are damaging our society. We should take heart from such knowledge. We can also learn that many times it only takes one person willing to stand up to such things to bring about change. When we see sin around us, let us prostrate ourselves before God and ask Him to show us what to do.
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.
This passage has always bothered me. A casual reading suggests that the sin of which many of the Returned Exiles were guilty was marrying wives from outside of their group. Further, the solution goes against one of my most deeply held beliefs: that marriage should always be for life. However, the problem was NOT that some of the Returned Exiles had married women from among the locals. The problem was that they were following the detestable practices of the local people. They were taking part in the idolatrous worship practices of the pagans living in the land. Rather than have these women convert to Judaism* and give up their pagan religions before marrying them, the Jewish men were trying to have it both ways; they continued to practice Judaism but also joined their wives in their pagan religion.
*This is the first point in the Bible I am comfortable with using the term Judaism to refer to the religion of the Old Testament. This is not because I think the practice or beliefs changed. Rather it is at this point that the people who practiced this religion began identifying themselves as Jews and their religion as Judaism(although that last part might not be for another few centuries).
So, an assembly of all of those whose claim to property was based on being one of the Returned Exiles were summoned to an assembly in Jerusalem or risk forfeiting their property. That sounds like a fairly severe penalty for not making a trip which might cause someone significant hardship. However, they included a clause which stated that the forfeiture would only happen if the elders and leaders so decided. Then when they got together to discuss what should be done about the problem of men of the assembly practicing idolatry because of their pagan wives. They decided that all members of the assembly married to a pagan wife should divorce her and separate themselves from the people who practiced pagan rituals. This sounds harsh, men must divorce their wives if those wives were not Jewish (that is, not one of those who returned from Exile. However, this is where it gets interesting. They decided that each man who had married a pagan wife should come before the elders at a scheduled time. This suggests to me that it was not just a matter of divorce your wife or else. I think the point of the meeting with the elders was to allow the man to argue that his formerly pagan wife had abandoned her pagan practices and converted to Judaism.
I would guess that some of these women continued, and encouraged their husbands to join them, in pagan practices because they did not understand the conflict between Judaism and their pagan practices. When that conflict was made clear to them, many of those would have been willing to give up their pagan practices.
Today’s passage is part of the book of Ezra which has always bothered me. It seems to completely reject the idea of allowing outsiders to join the people of God. However, if you read it in light of what was said in chapter 6 verse 21, it takes on a new light. The same Jewish leaders who came to Ezra to complain about their fellow Jews marrying pagan women embraced those “others in the land” who ate the Passover meal with the Returned Exiles. Understanding Ezra’s prayer and his directions to the people in this context sheds a completely different light on them.
Repeatedly throughout both his prayer and his address to the people Ezra refers to the fact that the people married pagan women. Or, if we go to the NIV, we find the problem is with intermarrying with people who commit detestable practices. The problem is with forming alliances with those who do not truly worship God. Marriage is just one of those alliances. I want to note that if it had just been about marrying women who were not of Jewish descent, it would not have taken any significant amount of time to resolve: they could have just made a list of men who had done so and insist that they divorce their wives. Clearly the fact that it involved setting up councils to oversee it. Clearly the purpose of these councils was to determine if these women of non-Jewish descent had adopted Jewish religious practices.
If you marry someone who does not share your beliefs, you will soon find yourself compromising those beliefs. But the meat of this passage is about more than just marriage. Taken as a whole, the Book of Ezra is about welcoming outsiders into the faith without giving them a veto over what that faith is. We cannot express our love for someone by allowing them to continue in pagan practices, whether that someone is our spouse or just a member of our congregation.
As soon as Ezra had gotten settled in, some of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem came to him with a concern. A casual reading would make it seem like they were unhappy with returned exiles intermarrying with the local people. This is true but incomplete. What they were concerned with was returned exiles intermarrying with the local people and adopting the idolatrous practices of those people. They even explained why they had come to Ezra about it: many of the leaders of the returned exiles were taking part in these practices. The focus of this passage is on intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews, but it was not about marrying outside of the ethnic group. Rather it was about marrying outside the religious group. It is clear that it was more than just about marrying women who were locals, because otherwise why would it require a case by case judgement of the marriages? To me, it seems obvious that each of the men married to a local woman was allowed to make the case that she had converted (or was already a follower of) to the Jewish practices. This passage makes it clear that if you marry someone of another faith, you will, sooner or later, begin to follow their idolatrous practices.
The problem with mixed marriages was not that the women many of the Returned Exiles had married were not of Jewish decent. The problem was that they did not worship God. Many of the Returned Exiles had married women who continued to follow pagan religious practices, and these men joined their wives in those practices. There was no easy answer to this problem. The decision was made that those who were married to women who continued to follow pagan religious practices needed to divorce them. However, it was acknowledged that this needed to be addressed on a case by case basis. The fact that they decided to address the issue on a case by case basis tells us that it was not simply a matter that every man who had married a woman of non-Jewish decent needed to divorce her. Clearly, those whose wives had fully adopted Jewish religious practices were allowed to keep those wives.
