“And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel. Now therefore make confession unto the LORD God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives. Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so must we do.” Ezra 10:10-12

We have now come to one of the most difficult passages in the whole Book of Ezra! At least hard to explain to a Western (Christian) congregation.

In fact, this is quite a stringent Text, Old Testament or New!

The breaking up, dissolving, of families! Marriages then, but unions that never should have occurred in the first place!

And it is not a “marginal” or “optional” issue, either. One of the greatest Bible leaders ever, Ezra himself, is the protagonist, the “separator!”

So remember that Ezra is not only a “scribe,” but also a “priest.” A man who is essentially (in the Old Testament) a “go-between” or a “mediator” linking a holy God and fallen, sinful man.

But that “link” can’t occur if known, unconfessed sin is allowed to live (even covertly) in one’s heart! Bible proof: “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” Psalm 66:18

Jeremiah 27: 8 addresses this issue too. “For what is the hope of the hypocrite? Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him?” With the implied answer being “No!”

Or Proverbs 15:8 … “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight.” (“Abomination” … it makes God “sick,” literally “disgusted!”)

Proverbs 15:29 … “The LORD is far from the wicked: but he heareth the prayer of the righteous.” (Again it seems He does NOT hear the prayer of the wicked! Except when he cries “God be merciful to me a sinner!”)

Proverbs 28:9 … “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.” (Spurn God’s Word … then you can forget “answered prayer” in your life!) God’s Word that forbids marriage to a lost (unsaved, ungodly) mate!

In that same vein: “Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.” John 9:31

James 4:3 even … “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” (Intermarriage with those heathen “beauties” could easily be classified “lust.”) Wow, the folks of Ezra’s day were in real NEED of repentance.

Yet, and thankfully so …

The people were willing to do just that, repent and change their ways!

“And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel. Now therefore make confession unto the LORD God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives. Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, AS THOU HAST SAID, SO WE MUST DO.”

To “separate,” using “badal” as the verb … “to divide oneself, to be severed!”

The spiritual health of the nation depends on this!

In fact, the very existence of Judah as a nation does too!

Note that these illegal (in God’s Eyes) marriages have “increased the trespass of Israel.” Have “added to” the list of national wrongs, to the “guilt” of the populace. 

Thus Ezra has become a Book of “separation” in some ways. And Preachers yet today “shy away” from these 10 chapters because of this drastic (???) solution to the Jews being so deeply “yoked with sin!” “Separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives.”

From the “foreign” (not true God -worshippers) wives!

No wonder even the New Testament pounds this sacred “drum,” this holy “principle.”

“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.” 2 Corinthians 6:14

But let’s back up three verses: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” (Surely “marriage” would be rightly considered a “yoke,” two laboring as one.)

More specifically (though back to the Old Testament), Deuteronomy 7:3 of the heathen: “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.” Crystal clear, isn’t it?

Furthermore, read this contemporaneous account, from Ezra’s friend Nehemiah’s memoirs: “In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: and their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin.” Nehemiah 13:23-26, what a sermon!

And Malachi 2:11, also written about this same time: “Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god.”

I can describe God’s prohibitions all day long … but the “key” to today’s Lesson is found in those last few words of our Text: “As thou hast said, so we must do!”

That equates to Wisdom in any language, when spoken to Almighty God!

“As thou hast said, so we must do!”

— Dr. Mike Bagwell