I am trying to be ever so careful as I comment on this 10th chapter of Ezra, its grand finale! And I’ve learned early this morning that I may have overlooked an issue! (Surprise: human commentators are not infallible!)

It’s just a single verse, Ezra 10:15 … “Only Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahaziah the son of Tikvah were employed about this matter: and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite helped them.” Looks to me like we’re just being given the names of four more men, leaders in Israel, who “assisted” Ezra in this matter of illegal (and ungodly) intermarriage.”

The verb used in our King James Bible is translated “were employed.” Those good scholars in the early 1600’s were working with the little Hebrew word “amad,” a verb. Now “amad” is found 521 times in the Old Testament. In roughly 300 of those instances it means something like “stand, stay, remain,” or even “continue, wait, establish.” This is good.

But it is also rendered “to withstand” (literally “withstood”) 6 times in our King James Bible! Furthermore, this is the ONLY TIME in all Scripture, our Text here today, where “amad” means “were employed!” (I checked that fact carefully.) Wow!

I am NOT criticizing the King James Bible. I love it dearly. It’s the only Bible I carry to the pulpit, or ever have. I am simply saying that “amad” as used here could imply that 4 men (our Text again: “only Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahaziah the son of Tikvah were employed about this matter: and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite helped them.”) withstood (were employed against Ezra and his plan) this separation of men and their wives.

This is also the view most commentators take of this quartet of possible objectors!

By the way, sanctioned “divorce” is a novel idea, even in the Old Testament! Only in this Ezra-Nehemiah era do we find it, period! Some could have misunderstood, disagreed!

We don’t know if Jonathan and his brethren withstood the idea because they thought the plan was too harsh … or because they thought it did not go far enough, not as strict as it should have been!

No matter, the men who passionately believed in “separation unto God” carried the day! Better yet, who believed in “separation from heathenism.”

My “point” this morning?

Always in God’s work, expect it, opposition will arise!

Some of the criticism we elicit may be good, to help us fine-tune our actions, our motives, our plans!

Some may be satanic, destructive, designed to get us out of the will of God, to walk the wrong path!

We need discernment here!

And love for the detractors!

All of which Ezra had, exhibited.

And the (if there at all) disagreeing men … soon fell into line and helped with the task at hand!

The spirit of Philippians 3:15 may have prevailed in this situation: “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: AND IF IN ANY THING YE BE OTHERWISE MINDED, God shall reveal even this unto you.”

Wow!

So … the work of separating the Jews from the idolaters (yes, even believing husbands from unbelieving wives) went forward … apparently with God’s blessings upon it … and judgment was averted!

Opposition!

Just like churning the milk brings the cream to the top … so the turmoil of opposition can bring the “loyal men” to the top! Read 1 Corinthians 11:19 for this idea expressed a little differently. “For there must be also heresies (divisions) among you, that THEY WHICH ARE APPROVED may be made manifest among you.”

Wow again!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Some day we might even say, “Blessed opposition,” it merely made me stronger in my faith!

 

Several times Ezra gives us precise “time spans.” Of course, with the man (Ezra) being a “scribe,” he would have been used to such specificity! (Think of court reporters, scientific researchers, skilled lawyers, and such. No, add scholars in religious law, as the Pentateuch of Moses!)

Here’s the Book’s final example of such “dating:” From Ezra chapter 10, as one would suspect. “And the children of the captivity did so. And Ezra the priest, with certain chief of the fathers, after the house of their fathers, and all of them by their names, were separated, and sat down in the first day of the tenth month to examine the matter. And they made an end with all the men that had taken strange wives by the first day of the first month.” Ezra 10:16-17

The “did so” of verse 16 means they “obeyed” the Law of God in the matter of widespread intermarriage. (Which not only diluted the Jewish blood line, but nearly obliterated their national identity!) They truly followed through on the advice of their leaders and of Ezra the Scribe, Ezra the Priest.

A great assembly is underway! What assembly? The one demanded by a binding resolution decided back in Ezra 10:14 … “Let all them which have taken strange wives in our cities come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, and the judges thereof,” Well, here they are! (“Taken” is “yashab,” meaning “living with, dwelling among.” And the Hebrew adjective “strange” is expressed by the Hebrew word for “foreign,” in the sense of “non-Jewish” and even more so “idol worshipping,” truly “heathen!” Women not knowing, or even wanting to know, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob!)

Looks like “appointed times“ means they did not all appear the same day! The “sessions” were spread out over a few weeks. The whole (little) nation had to be polled, judged in this matter. And along with the “offenders” (“criminals” in the eyes of Mosaic Law) came the leaders of their various cities! (Back in those days, “elders” could be held accountable by Almighty God for sin in their communities. Especially sin that goes unjudged! Deuteronomy 21 gives a good example of this being the case. Plus, these “elders” often also served as “judges.”)

What then must be done? In today’s Text, verse 17, “They made an end with all the men that had taken strange wives.” That does not mean they executed them! They required them to “separate” from their wives! To quit living in godless situations! They “dissolved” those marriages!

Ezra felt (as did Nehemiah shortly after him) that this was THAT SERIOUS an offense to God, THAT FLAGRANT a violation of the Law. And God Himself seems to have agreed! (The Lord having previously forbidden time and time again such compromising unions!)

And, back to the “point” of today’s lesson … “how long” did it take to so purge the nation, to cleanse Judah? “They sat down in the first day of the tenth month to examine the matter.” (Verse 17)

Then before we know it … “They made an end with all the men that had taken strange wives by the first day of the first month.”

Do the math, please. Three full months! (The equivalent of our October 1st until January 1st! Although Jewish months and English months do not perfectly correspond, match.)

That many disobedient Jews!

But without that action … that annulling of so many, many marriages … God could not have continued using Judah! God would have in fact … judged the little county. In fact, they  felt that such judgment had already begun, the nation essentially being in shambles that very moment! Having been made into slaves for the past 70 years, having lost their liberty! “Until the fierce wrath of our God for this matter be turned from us.” Ezra 10:14 terms the situation.

It may be: if sin HURTS badly enough … we then tend TO DO something about it!

Here’s a prime example of people changing their very lifestyles … in order to fall  back into alignment with the ways of God!

Hallelujah!

Selah!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Oh, this too! “Three months” of a nation judging herself? Yes! The applicable Principle being: Sin often does not develop overnight! And resolving that sin, eliminating that sin, sometimes takes a while as well!

However long it takes, today begin confessing and forsaking some “sin” in your life! (“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” Proverbs 28:13) Confessing may not be enough … forsaking is essential too!

And again I say … Selah!

One meaning of which can be:  “PAUSE … AND THINK ABOUT THAT!”

 

The problem has been identified.

But it is overwhelming, too big to be solved in a single session!

Yet the people agree … the sin has to be removed!

So “all the congregation” purposed:

“The people are many, and it is a time of much rain, and we are not able to stand without, neither is this a work of one day or two: for we are many that have transgressed in this thing. Let now our rulers of all the congregation stand, and let all them which have taken strange wives in our cities come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, and the judges thereof, until the fierce wrath of our God for this matter be turned from us. Only Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahaziah the son of Tikvah were employed about this matter: and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite helped them. And the children of the captivity did so.” Ezra 10:13-16

That rain, again!

Look at the honesty here: “For we are many that have transgressed in this thing.”

The Hebrew verb used for “transgress” is “pasha,” meaning “to rebel!” That’s what sin is, rebellion (revolt) against God’s Law, God’s Word! Insurrection against the Lord Himself, in reality! (1st John 3:4 teaches us: “Sin is the transgression of the law.” To the point!)

Yes, God had sternly warned the Jews … “Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love the Lord your God. Else IF YE DO IN ANY WISE GO BACK, and cleave unto the remnant of these nations, even these that remain among you, and SHALL MAKE MARRIAGES WITH THEM, and go in unto them, and they to you: know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which the LORD your God hath given you.” Joshua 23:11-13

Such a dire situation demands action!

Thus … “Let now our rulers of all the congregation stand, and let all them which have taken strange wives in our cities come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, and the judges thereof, until the fierce wrath of our God for this matter be turned from us.”

This strategy implies that God, just knowing the Israelites plan to extirpate the iniquity, that they hope to nullify these forbidden intermarriages, just might “turn His Wrath!”

These good men presume that sin brings with it consequences!

Wages!

The withdrawing of God’s good Hand of protection, for example! (Please read Joshua 23:11-13 again, printed earlier in the Lesson. To see one of these dangers!  If you do so intermarry … “know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which the Lord your God hath given you.” Frightening!)

Next, today’s Text begins a list of names! The last such list in the Book of Ezra. “Only Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahaziah the son of Tikvah were employed about this matter: and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite helped them. And the children of the captivity did so.”

Here one word applies, “obedience,” Did you notice? “And the children of the captivity did so.”

The “offenders” will now be identified. And required to renounce these (illegal) relationships!

Marriages annulled!

Some children essentially orphaned!

Nearly unprecedented in Scripture (though repeated in Nehemiah), that drastic a solution!

Still, action (it seems) sanctioned by God the Father, nonetheless. The great God Who “hates divorce!” (Malachi 2:16 says so. “For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away ….” And Jesus even further intensified this tenet!)

Sad.

But necessary.

If Israel plans to continue being Israel!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

 

“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

 

The Church parking area, at the lunch break! Looked pretty good!

The Book of Philemon, verse by verse!

Today I have had the honor of teaching a 4 hour Bible Study Class!

Yes, from 10:00 this morning until 2:00 this afternoon! Well, we did have a (delicious) lunch break! At the sweet Sunnyside Baptist Church near Lafayette, Georgia.

I had planned to write the Saturday Website Lesson this afternoon when returning home. But the schedule is just not going to allow that. Oh yes, we’re back home (3:30 PM) … but must pack and leave for a Revival Meeting beginning tomorrow morning in the Atlanta area. Welcome Hill Baptist Church in Hiram, Georgia.

This means … the next Ezra Lesson will be written (the Lord willing) Monday morning, from a motel room in Hiram. From Ezra chapter 10.

Pray for us please this busy weekend.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell