The Pulpit Commentary — Ezra — Section 133

women of their own nation and religion, had was effectually checked, the evil rooted out taken to themselves wives freely from the and removed. Wo shall find, however, in idolatrous tribes and m1tions in their vicinity. Nehemiah, that it recurred (Neh. xiii. 23)1 They ha,! intermarried with the Ammonites, in combination with various other abuses, the Moa bites, the Amorites, the Egyptians, and had to be once more resisted and re• and even with the remnant of the Canaan- pressed by the civil power (ibid. ver. 30 ). ites. Not only had this been done by the This section is divisible into ten parts :- C'Clmmon people, but " the hand of the 1. The complaint made by the princes to princes and rulers " had been " chief in this Ezra concerning the mb,ed man-iages (eh. trespass" (eh. ix. 2). Nor had even the ix. l, 2) ; 2. Ezra's astonishment and horror sacerdotal order kept itself pure. Priests (ibid. vers. 3, 4); 3. His confession and and Levites, nay, the actual sons and prayer to God (ibid. vers. 5-15); 4. Repent- nephews of the high priest J eslrna himself, ance of the people, and covenant sworn to, were guilty in the matter (eh. x. 18), had on the recommendation of Shechaniah (eh. taken to themselves wi,es of the accursed x. 1-5); 5. Ezra's fast (ibid. ver. 6); 6. races, and "mingled themselves with the Proclamation summoning all the Jews to people of the lands " (eh. ix. 2). The Jerusalem (ibid. vers. 7-9); 7. Address of danger to purity of religion was great. Ezra, and consent of the people to put away Those who married idolatrous wives were the strange wives (ibid. vers. 10-14); 8. t.empted, like Solomon, to connive at their Opposition of Jonathan and others (ibid. introducing unhallowed rites into the holy ver. 15); 9. .Accomplishment of the work city; while the issue of such marriages, (ihid. vers. 16, 17); and 10. Names of those influenced by their mothers, were apt to who had married strange wives (ibid. vers. prefer heathenism to Judaism, and to fall 18-44). away from the faith altogether. .A fusion of COMPLAINT OF ·rHE PRINCES TO EZRA (eh. the Jews with the Gentiles in Palestine at ix. l, 2). It is remarkable that complaint this time would have meant a complete on a matter of religious transgression should obliteration of the Jews, who would have have come from the secular, and not from the been absorbed and swallowed np in the far ecclesiastical, authorities of the city. But larger mass of the heathen without materially there clearly appears about this time some affecting it. Thns God's purpose in singling remissness and connivance at evil, if not out a "peculiar people" would have been even participation in it, on the part of the frustrated, and the world left without a chief ecclesiastics. On this particular occa- regenerating element. Considerations of this sion, actual sons and nephews of J eshua the, kind help ns to understand the horror of high priest were among those who had Ezra when he understood what had ta.ken married idolatrous wives (eh. x. 18), and place (eh. ix. 3-6; x. 1), and enable us to afterwards, in Nehemiah's time, not only estimate at its right value the zeal that he did the high priest's family indulge in similar displayed in putting down the existing prac- alliances (Neh. xiii. 4, 28), but Eliashib tice and establishing a better order of things. actually assigned to one of the heathen, and His task was lightened to him by the fact one who was a bitter opponent of Nehemiah, that a large religions and patriotic party a chamber in the ~emple itself (ibid. vers. rallied to him, and associated itself with his 5, 9). When the headsofthesacerJotal order reforms ; a party including many of the were themselves implicated in the abuses pre- princes and elders (eh. ix. l ; x. 8), and no valent, it was perhaps not unnatural, though Joubt a certain number of the priests. He highly reprehensible, that the inferior clergy effected his reform by means of a commission should be silent and stand aloof. By God's oflaymen (eh. x. 16), which in the space of good providence, however, it often happens little more than three months inquired into that when things have come to this pass, all the suspected cases, and compelled every and the priestly order is hopelessly corrupt, person who had married an idolatrous wife godly princes e,re raised up to take in hand to divorce her, and send her back, with any religious reforms and carry them to e, suc- children that she had borne him, to her own ceasful issue. people. Thus, for the t,me, the corruption Ver. 1.-When these things were dona. CJI. IX. 1-15.] THFl BOOK OF RZRA. B9