Ezra 10:1 Tossing Away One Last Chance

While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites- men, women and children- gathered around him. They too wept bitterly. Then Shecaniah said to Ezra, "We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples around us. But in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel."

Ezra's party got to Jerusalem 80 years after the first exiles had returned. Yet within four months the Jewish leaders were asking this latecomer for advice on the most sensitive matters. They told Ezra that Israelites were marrying their idolatrous neighbors. At the news, Ezra completely lost his composure, tore his clothes and sat down stunned. (9:3) His grief-filled prayer of repentance inspired a large crowd to join him in bitter weeping. Then and there they resolved to break up the marriages. The women and children were to be sent away. Ezra, a practical man even in his emotional condition, put the machinery into operation and saw it done.

Why did Ezra react so negatively to these marriages? How could he allow children to be sent away from their fathers, families splits? Some people see proof that he was racially oriented, bound to exclude non-Jews from Israel. But, racial purity was not Ezra's worry. Non-Jews like Rahab and Ruth, who had converted to Judaism, had long been accepted into Israel. Ezra 6:21 suggests that outsiders who sought the Lord were still welcomed. Ezra's concern was that intermarriage represented a compromised faith that threatened the future existence of Israel.

Marriage in those days was more than a personal matter. It created a political and religious alliance between two families. These mixed marriages were tying Israelites to other faiths- for Israel's neighbors worshiped idols, an act God hated. Ezra knew that his God must hold the only place in his people's hearts. They must be a special people with a sense of their unique destiny. The law told them not to intermarry (Exodus 34:15-16, Deuteronomy 7:3-6). However, Ezra's prayer shows that petty technicalities of the law were far from his mind. His concerns involved the heart. He saw his people falling into the same pattern of compromise that he led God to give them up to the Babylonians years before. Had they learned nothing from their long exile? They were tossing away one last remarkable chance to start over.

Life Question: Ezra saw intermarriage as a compromise in people's faith. Do you think that this is still a relevant fear in today's society?

I've often thought how I would react if one of my kids ended up dating/ marrying someone outside the Christian faith. It certainly wouldn't appear to be very Christ-like to shun a member of your family or their significant other because they may not share the same faith as yours, but at the same time it would be awfully difficult to see someone whom I love get themselves into a situation that might jeopardize their relationship with Christ. I suppose the correct response would simply be a genuine prayer to Christ that my kids will choose the correct paths in life.