Ezra 10:44 Kommentar

In this chapter we have that grievance redressed which was complained of and lamented in the foregoing chapter. Observe, I. How the people's hearts were prepared for the redress of it by their deep humiliation for the sin (Ezr 10:1). II. How it was proposed to Ezra by Shechaniah (Ezr 10:2-4). III. How the proposal was put in execution. 1. The great men were sworn to stand to it (Ezr 10:5). 2. Ezra appeared first in it (Ezr 10:6). 3. A general assembly was called (Ezr 10:7-9). 4. They all, in compliance with Ezra's exhortation, agreed to the reformation (v. 10-14). 5. Commissioners were appointed to sit "de die in diem" - day after day, to enquire who had married strange wives and to oblige them to put them away, which was done accordingly (v. 15-17). and a last of the names of those that were found guilty given in (v. 18-44).

INTRODUCTION TO EZRA 10 Upon Ezra's prayer and confession, it was proposed by Shechaniah, that those who had married strange wives should put them away with their children, which they swore to do, Ezr 10:1, and proclamation was made throughout the land for all to meet at Jerusalem in three days' time, and accordingly they did, Ezr 10:6 when, at the exhortation of Ezra, all agreed to it, and persons were appointed to see it done, and the work was finished in the space of three months, Ezr 10:10 and a list of the names of those is given who had married such wives, and now put them away; of the priests, Ezr 10:18, of the Levites, Ezr 10:23, of the other Israelites, Ezr 10:24.

All these had taken strange wives,.... In all about one hundred and thirteen: and some of them had wives by whom they had children; and yet they put them away, which made it the more difficult for them to do; and those that had none, it is thought to be a mark of God's displeasure at such marriages. No mention being made of the children being put away, as Shechaniah proposed, Ezr 10:3, it may be concluded they were not, but were taken care of, to be educated in the true religion, and entered proselytes at a proper time; and the rather, as Ezra gave no orders about their putting away, Ezr 10:11. Next: Nehemiah Introduction

The people are greatly afflicted by Ezra's prayer, Ezr 10:1. Shechaniah proposes that all who have taken strange wives should put them away, and the children they had by them; and make a covenant to serve God, Ezr 10:2-4. Ezra is encouraged; and make a proclamation to collect the people, to find who had transgressed, Ezr 10:5-8. They come together on the twentieth day of the ninth month, Ezr 10:9. Ezra exhorts them to put away their strange wives, Ezr 10:10. The people agree to it, and require time, Ezr 10:11-14. This being granted, the business is completed by the first of the first month, Ezr 10:15-17. Some of the priests had taken strange wives; their names, and the names of all who were in the same trespass, vv. 18-44.

Some of them had wives by whom they had children - This observation was probably intended to show that only a few of them had children; but it shows also how rigorously the law was put in execution. According to a passage in Justin Martyr's dialogue with Trypho, a Jew, Ezra offered a paschal lamb on this occasion, and addressed the people thus: "And Ezra said to the people, This passover is our Savior and our Refuge; and if ye will be persuaded of it, and let it enter into your hearts, that we are to humble ourselves to him in a sign, and afterwards shall believe in him, this place shall not be destroyed for ever, saith the Lord of Hosts: but if ye will not believe in him, nor hearken to his preaching, ye shall be a laughing-stock to the Gentiles." - Dial. cum Tryphone, sec. 72. This passage, Justin says, the Jews, through their enmity to Christ, blotted out of the book of Ezra. He charges them with cancelling several other places through the same spirit of enmity and opposition. In the Hebrew text this and the following book make but one, though sometimes Nehemiah is distinguished as the second book of Esdras. In the Masoretic enumeration of sections, etc., both books are conjoined. This may be seen at the end of Nehemiah. I can add nothing of importance to the character of Ezra, which has already been given so much in detail in the introduction to this book. Corrected, March, 1828. - A. Clarke.

EZRA REFORMS THE STRANGE MARRIAGES. (Ezra 10:1-17) Now when Ezra had prayed--As this prayer was uttered in public, while there was a general concourse of the people at the time of the evening sacrifice and as it was accompanied with all the demonstrations of poignant sorrow and anguish, it is not surprising that the spectacle of a man so respected, a priest so holy, a governor so dignified as Ezra, appearing distressed and filled with fear at the sad state of things, should produce a deep sensation; and the report of his passionate grief and expressions in the court of the temple having rapidly spread through the city, a great multitude flocked to the spot.

The separation of the strange wives from the congregation. - Ezr 10:1-5. While Ezra was making this confession before God, a numerous assemblage gathered around him, and wept aloud. From this point onwards Ezra relates the further course of events in such wise as to cast his own person in the background, and speaks of himself in the third person. The matter of his prayer is more definitely declared by וּכהתודּתו, and his posture in prayer by וּמתנפּל בּכה, weeping and casting himself down (lying on his knees, Ezr 9:5). "Before the house of God," i.e., in the court of the temple. The confirmatory clause: for the people wept much (בכה הרבּה, a weeping in mass), furnishes the motive of so great a number of men, women, and children gathering around Ezra. Very many were as distressed as he was at the marriages with strange wives, and regarded them as a grievous trespass; hence they assembled weeping around him.

Ezr 10:44 contains the statement with which the account of this transaction closes. The Chethiv נשׂאיּ seems to be an error of transcription for נשׂאוּ (the Keri), which the sense requires. וגו מהם וישׁ, "and there were among them women who had brought forth sons." מהם must be referred to women, notwithstanding the masculine suffix. ישׂימוּ, too, can only be referred to נשׁים, and cannot be explained, as by J. H. Mich.: unde etiam filios susceperant seu procreaverant. The gender of the verb is adapted to the form of the word נשׁים, an incorrectness which must be attributed to the increasing tendency of the language to use the masculine instead of the feminine, or to renounce a distinction of form between the genders. There are no adequate reasons for such an alteration of the text as Bertheau proposes; for the lxx already had our text before them, and the καὶ ἀπέλυσαν αὐτὰς σὺν τέκνοις of 1 Esdr. 9:36 is a mere conjecture from the context. The remark itself, that among the women who were sent away were some who had already brought children into the world, is not superfluous, but added for the purpose of showing how thoroughly this matter was carried out. Separation from women who already have children is far more grievous, ob communium liberorum caritatem, than parting with childless wives. Strictly as this separation was carried out, this evil was not thereby done away with for ever, nor even for very long. After the arrival of Nehemiah at Jerusalem, when the building of the wall was concluded, the congregation again bound themselves by an oath, on the occasion of a day of prayer and fasting, to contract no more such illegal marriages (Neh 10:31). Nevertheless, Nehemiah, on his second return to Jerusalem, some five and twenty to thirty years after the dissolution of these marriages by Ezra, again found Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Moab, and Ammon, and children of these marriages who spoke the tongue of Ashdod, and could not speak the Jews' language, and even one of the sons of the high priest Jehoiada allied to a daughter of Sanballat the Horonite (Neh 13:28, etc.). Such a phenomenon, however strange it may appear on a superficial view of the matter, becomes comprehensible when we consider more closely the circumstances of the times. The nucleus of the Israelite community in Jerusalem and Judah was formed by those exiles who returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel and Ezra; and to this nucleus the remnant of Jewish and Israelite descent which had been left in the land was gradually united, after the rebuilding of the temple and the restoration of the worship of Jahve. Those who returned from Babylon, as well as those who remained in the land, had now, however, lived seventy, and some of them one hundred and fifty, years (from the captivity of Jehoiachin in 599, to the return of Ezra in 457) among the heathen, and in the midst of heathen surroundings, and had thus become so accustomed to intercourse with them in civil and social transactions, that the consciousness of the barriers placed by the Mosaic law between Israel, the people of Jahve, and the Gentiles, was more and more obliterated. And this would specially be the case when the Gentiles who entered into matrimonial alliance with Israelites did not flagrantly practise idolatrous worship, i.e., did not offer sacrifice to heathen deities. Under such circumstances, it must have been extremely difficult to do away entirely with these unlawful unions; although, without a thorough reform in this respect, the successful development of the new community in the land of their fathers was not to be obtained. Ezra's narrative of his agency in Jerusalem closes with the account of the dissolution of the unlawful marriages then existing. What he subsequently effected for the revival of religion and morality in the re-established community, in conformity with the law of God, was more of an inward and spiritual kind; and was either of such a nature that no striking results ensued, which could furnish matter for historical narrative, or was performed during the period of his joint agency with Nehemiah, of which an account is furnished by the latter in the record he has handed down to us (Neh 8:10).