As I’m about to wrap up on Ezra (and one more chapter before Nehemiah), I’m now on Ezra 9. Many times, I hear from my ethnic Chinese folks that I should marry only Chinese because the Jews only marry Jews. However, they fail to get the spiritual context of why God forbade the people of Israel to intermarry with Gentile nations. I’d like to make it clear that a Christian Gentile can marry a Christian Jew. Believers of two different ethnicities can marry. The issue with the people of Israel was that they married heathen women. Many times, the people of Israel fell into this sin when they intermarried with pagan nations. During the wilderness, we had Israelites mingling with Midianite pagan women. During the Judges, the problem of Israel rose when a new generation intermarried with the Canaanite women. The worship of Yahweh has always been incompatible with pagan worship.
The problem of Israelites marrying pagan nations
Bible scholar and teacher Dr. John F. MacArthur mentions that Israel’s exclusiveness was for spiritual reasons. Israel was to be the light of the world, not intermingle with the world. It’s no surprise to have the mention of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites. These are pagan nations. Egypt was a major exporter of pagan religion for some time. In Revelation, Egypt is a type of the world (Revelation 11:8). It became dangerous when God’s chosen nation chose to get unequally yoked instead of being the light to these pagan nations.
The Enduring Word Bible Commentary gives light on this issue of unequal yokes:
b. For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons: Their failure to separate resulted in intermarriage with the surrounding pagan communities.
i. It wasn’t that this intermarriage was the only problem; but as these communities intermarried, there would be no areas left untouched by pagan associations – business, government, social life. To allow intermarriage with idolaters was to allow all these other areas of compromise.
c. With respect to the abominations of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites: This shows that the problem was not primarily ethnic. The problem was they did not separate themselves from these abominations, specifically the idolatry of these people.
i. “All this testified abhorrence, not merely of the act of having taken strange wives, but their having also joined them in their idolatrous abominations.” (Clarke)
ii. With this forsaking of Jewish identity and the at least partial embrace of idolatry (or its toleration in the Jewish community), in a few generations there would cease to be any distinctive Jewish community in the Promised Land.
iii. Ezra 9:1-2 seems to recall passages from the Law of Moses against intermarriage with the surrounding Canaanite tribes – in particular, Exodus 34:11-16 and Deuteronomy 7:1-4. We may see this conviction of sin on the part of the people and their leaders, and the way that the conviction of sin was phrased, to indicate (spiritually speaking) that Ezra’s arrival to bring the ministry of teaching God’s word was bearing fruit. The people heard the word, looked at their lives, and saw that the two did not match.
iv. “During the obscure period that followed the dedication of the temple – a period of which we have no historical remains – the rigorous exclusiveness which had marked the conduct of the returned exiles when they rudely rejected the proposal of their Gentile neighbours to assist them in rebuilding the temple was abandoned, and freedom of intercourse went so far as to permit intermarriage with the descendants of the Canaanites.” (Adeney)
People tend to get complacent and hardheaded. It can be said many of the Jews here aren’t saved. It’s effortless for unsaved people to get together with unsaved people. In Judges 2:10, we read of the new generation of Israelites who didn’t know the LORD. MacArthur also states in his NIV MacArthur Study Bible in Judges 2:10:
The first psople in the Land had vivid recollections of all the miracles and judgments and were deovted to faith, duty, and purity. The new generation were ignorant of the experiences of their parents and yielded more easily to corruption. To a marked degree the people of this new generation were not true believers, and were not tuned to the God of miracles and victory. Sitll, many of the judges genuinely knew the LORD, and some who did not live by faith eventually threw themselves on God’s mercy during oppressions.
The problem has been that including the priests and the Levites. The House of Aaron was a mess yet again. This would always throw back to Jeremiah where there are a lot of negative verses about priests. Sure, Jeremiah was a priest because he was a son of Hilkiah, a priest. However, reading through Jeremiah, one can see that the priesthood has been corrupted. Jeremiah 2:8 mentions that the priests never said, “Where is the LORD?” Jeremiah 5:31 talks about priests ruling in their direction while the prophets prophesy falsely. Jeremiah 19:1 has Jeremiah instructed to confront the priests. Jeremiah 26 has the priests who are antagonizing Jeremiah. Jeremiah 27 talks about priests who are speaking lies. My favorite highlight is Jeremiah 21:11 where the prophets and priests are called godless, and wickedness hits the place of worship. The priests had broken the rules in Leviticus 21 on how to raise their families. It happened again in Ezra’s time. The same sins that led Israel to exile are committed all over again. People just don’t learn now, do they?
It’s wicked when pastors and missionaries are unequally yoked or unsaved. Pastors working with the Vatican should be marked. Pastors teaching salvation of faith plus works or saying that works are needed to maintain salvation; should be marked. There are times my own flesh told me it was okay to date Roman Catholics after I got saved. Fortunately, I was chastised as many times as possible after I got saved during my teenage years. Even today, there are times I want to cross that line and date an unbeliever, even when God says no. Sometimes, being single is better and more mature than entering an unequal yoke. No pastor should ever bless an unequal yoke either! Chances are that the priests probably officiated marriages between Israelites and the pagan spouses.
Ezra’s trembling because of the bad news
Ezra had every right to tremble. Ezra was a pastor (priest in the Old Testament) who did his responsibility. Pastors should man up like Ezra! It’s hard to find a pastor like Ezra these days. Verse 3 tells us that Ezra tore his tunic and cloak, pulled the hair from his head and beard, and sat down appalled. Whether or not Ezra literally tore off his hair and head (which may not be the case), is something I can’t determine. All I can say is poor Ezra was frustrated. He was pastoring a church and found out that the exiles he’s been preaching to, are still breaking rules.
The late J. Vernon McGee also gives this note on Ezra 9:3:
Remember that Ezra did not arrive in his native land until about 75 years after the first delegation of 55,000 led by Zerubbabel. When Ezra arrived with his delegation of 2,000, he found that the temple had been rebuilt, but not the walks of the city. And the population was in a sad and sordid condition. They had intermingled and intermarried with the heathen. Immorality and idolatry were running rampant. There was a lack of separation, and the Jews were a miserable were a miserable and bedraggled lot. With all of this was brought ot Ezra’s attention, and he found that it was accurate, he was absolutely overwhelmed and chagrined that God’s people would drop to such a low evel.
We must recognize that Ezra had just finished a four-month journey. It’s a primitive era by today’s standards. I’d imagine the stress Ezra had. Fortunately, God had caused people to tremble and gather around Ezra. It was because of the unfaithfulness of the exiles, that shows how people, left to themselves, will just choose to be with the world. Ezra sat in that place appalled until the evening sacrifice. Verse 5 tells us that Ezra rose up from self-abasement with his tunic and cloak torn, and fell on his knees with his hands spread out to the LORD God. Can you imagine the holy terror that fell on Ezra?
The Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible has Robert Jamieson give these details:
The burden of his prayer, which was dictated by a deep sense of the emergency, was that he was overwhelmed by the flagrant enormity of the sin, and the bold impiety of continuing in it after having, as a people, so recently experienced the heavy marks of the divine displeasure. God had begun to show returnign favor to Israel by the restoration of some. But this only aggravated their sin that, so soon after their re-establishment in their native land, they openly violated the express and repeated precepts which commanded them to exirpate the Canaanites. Such conduct, he exclaimed, could issue only in drawing down some great punishment from offended Heaven and ensuring the destruction of the small remnant of us that is left, unless, by the help of divine grace, we repent,a nd bring forth the fruits of repentance in an immediate and thorough reformation.
Ezra’s prayer of repentance before ending the study
Verses 6-15 give us a translation of Ezra’s prayer. I’d like to emphasize that Ezra also confesses his shame and disgrace. Now, it’s really boiling down to this. I’d like to share some insights by McGee yet again. this would help explain why Ezra expressed his own shame:
Now notice that he is saying. He does not say, “For their iniquities are increased over their head, and their tresspass is grown up unto the heavens.” He says, “For our iniquities are increased over our head and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.”
Today it is easy to divorce yourself from the chruch. The church is in a bad state. I’ll grat you that. Byt my friend, it is not their sin; it is our sin. If the church is in apostasy my friend, then we are in apostasy. “Not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me, oh LOrd, standing in need of prayer.”
Many times, I was told to just mind my own business. However, in Matthew 18:15-20, we are told about church discipline. It becomes a real problem when people just mind their own business. “It will never affect me, right? I’ll just focus on my business, as usual. I’m not going to be going to be poor!” However, what do people with that kind of mentality is that what affects society, affects our businesses. The same goes for the Church. The command with Paul in Romans 15:14 is to instruct one another. Church members who see other church members fall into sin, need to be a Nathan to a David and a Paul to a Peter. It’s not easy to accept that especially if people are told, “Just mind your own business and take care of yourself.” That kind of attitude of indifference is greatly damaging. If you don’t do anything to fight the evils of society, we cause a problem. Ezekiel 22:30 says who’s willing to stand in the gap and none was found. It’s easy to say, “Well, I’m not going to be the one to get bleeding to death after a botched abortion!” However, by not speaking against the evils of abortion, there will be numerous people who put themselves at risk.
I bet Ezra fell into an attitude of indifference. He was a pastor but may have failed to do that job. Now, it was time to call about the great guilt. Israel’s continuing sin is mentioned all over again. The sins during the days of the Judges and Jeremiah continued. Ezra recalls the wrongs of the ancestors. Why is that? There’s a saying that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I’m thinking about two friends of mine. One of the two friends is a former enemy. My former enemy wrote a simplistic speech about how history is a great teacher. If that former enemy was a Zechariah, the other was a Haggai. Sadly, history classes have been more focused on grades over learning. People need to see how history causes us to suffer the way we do today. Ezra recalls the sins that caused the exile and then remembers another great fact, God’s mercy.
Amazing that God still shows mercy to hardened sinners! God still left a faithful remnant and gave them a firm place. Not even that faithful remnant deserves anything but damnation! Now we, look at the Jews at the Fertile Crescent, one can see God’s kindness. God even allowed the Persian kings, worshipers of Ahura Mazda, to give Jews permission to rebuild the temple. This permission wasn’t expected from pagan kinds but God allowed it. Ezra acknowledges the guilt and the consequence of unequal yokes with pagan nations. Ezra confesses they deserve nothing but destruction for such a sin. The sin wasn’t that the people weren’t Jews but it was all about their detestable practices. Rahab and Ruth were integrated because they became worshipers of Yahweh. Uriah the Hittite was a proselyte. All that Ezra saw was guilt and nothing more than God’s deserving wrath.
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