Ezra is stunned to hear of intermarriage
After these things had been done, the leaders came to me and said, “The people of Israel, including the priests and Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring peoples with their detestable practices, like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians and Amorites. 2 They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the people around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness.”
3 When I heard this, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled. 4 Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me because of this unfaithfulness of the exiles. And I sat there appalled until the evening sacrifice.
It is not clear exactly when Ezra found out about the problem of intermarriage. Ezra chapter 10 indicates that the meeting to deal with the problem took place about four months after Ezra’s arrival in Jerusalem. Perhaps it took several months for Ezra to find out about the problem because he was out of town, presenting his orders to the Persian officials. Or perhaps he was so busy getting his work organized that he did not realize what was going on around him.
At any rate, when Ezra heard about the relapse into mixed marriages, he was shocked. He openly demonstrated his grief and dismay with the emotional signs of mourning that were customary in his culture; Ezra tore his clothing and disfigured his hair and beard. To people of our culture who aren’t shocked by much of anything anymore, Ezra’s behavior may seem like an overreaction. Why was he so shocked and grief-stricken by the report of intermarriage with the neighboring peoples?
For one thing, the Lord Almighty had prohibited intermarriage with the peoples of Canaan. Exodus 34:10-16 and Deuteronomy 7:1-11 are two of the many passages that forbid this practice. God’s command was unmistakably clear, “Do not intermarry with them” (Deuteronomy 7:3). The motive for banning marriage with the people of Canaan was not racial, but religious. The Israelites had been set aside as God’s chosen people, not because of any superiority on their part but so that the true worship of God could be preserved in at least one little corner of the world until the promised Savior would come and deliver the gospel to the whole world. God called Israel “the holy race,” or literally “a holy seed,” because the promised Savior was to be born as the descendant of Abraham and David.
To keep the Israelites separate from the heathen nations, God had given them the ceremonial law, which regulated their diet and many other aspects of their daily life. These regulations made Israel’s way of life very different from that of the peoples around it and served as a kind of fence, or barrier, to keep the Jews separated from surrounding peoples. The people of Israel would also be different than their neighbors if they observed the principles of God’s moral law as summarized in the Ten Commandments. If, however, the Israelites mixed with the heathen peoples who surrounded them, there was a great danger of losing their distinctness.
Mixing with the heathen was like playing with fire because of the temptation to follow the abominable practices of the Canaanite religion. Not only did this idolatrous religion lack any knowledge of the true God, but it embraced the grossest kinds of immorality as part of its worship. Sexual immorality and human sacrifice, especially of children, were acts of worship in the Canaanite religion. The Canaanites practiced every form of sexual immorality. Leviticus chapters 18 and 20 and Numbers chapter 25 mention the abominable practices of the Canaanites, which included incest and bestiality. There is not much evidence to indicate how widely such rites were practiced in Palestine at Ezra’s time, but there is considerable evidence that similar religious practices continued in North Africa and Asia Minor until New Testament times.
Even if the Jews who intermarried with the surrounding peoples did not engage in the most terrible forms of idolatry, they were nevertheless guilty of direct disobedience of God’s command. And they were endangering the existence of Israel as a distinct people from whom the Savior would come.
What made the matter even more shocking was the fact that Israel’s mixed marriages had been a chief cause of the disastrous Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. The people of Israel had been through the judgment of destruction and captivity. Now they had experienced the joy of restoration to their land. But they still had not learned their lesson. To make matters even worse, the spiritual leaders of the people, who should have been leading them in the right way, were ringleaders in defying God’s law. No wonder Ezra was shocked and appalled!
Those who “trembled” at God’s Word gathered themselves to Ezra. Would we place ourselves into this group? Many people today have not only lost a fear of judgment but even a sense of responsibility for their own sins. Even Christians have been so exposed to violence and immorality, especially through the entertainment media, that what would have shocked us a few decades ago hardly causes us to raise an eyebrow today.
No matter how commonplace sin becomes, it should still shock us. For no matter how much society may condone it, every infraction of God’s law is still an offense against a holy God, who has vowed to punish every sin. The holy God cannot stand evil in his presence; he still hates every sin and threatens every sinner with eternal damnation. Although we are offered free forgiveness through Christ, we never dare to think lightly of sin or underestimate its consequences. We enjoy forgiveness only because Christ suffered the terrible penalty of sin and endured God’s wrath for us on the cross. While many no longer tremble at God’s law, we need to be awakened to the seriousness of sin by the strong words of God’s law. We need to work to restore a fear of the holy wrath of God in a society that is increasingly calloused to sin.