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The Evil of Intermarriages Exposed
v. 1. Now, when these things were done, namely, the delivery of the treasures and the money, the bringing of the sacrifices, and the paying of respects to the official representatives of the Persian king in the satrapy of which Judea was a part, the princes, certain chief men among the people, came to me, saying, The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, of the remnants of the Gentile nations that were still found in the land, doing according to their abominations, showing a tendency to relapse once more into gross idolatry, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites, whose idolatrous practices had persisted in the country during all these centuries.
v. 2. For they, the Jews who had previously returned from Babylonia, have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy seed, the children of Israel as a peculiar people, as a nation consecrated to Jehovah, have mingled themselves with the people of those lands; yea, the hand of the princes and rulers, of the leaders of the people, hath been chief in this trespass, which was a plain violation of the divine Law, Deu_7:2-3. The mixed marriages threatened the purity of Israel and imperiled the higher blessings connected therewith.
v. 3. And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, both the inner dress and the outer cover, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, all signs of most overpowering grief and righteous anger, and sat down astonied, staring dully into nothingness, as one helpless in angry displeasure.
v. 4. Then were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, those impressed with the terror of Jehovah's possible wrath, because of the transgression of those that had been carried away, of those living in captivity, of the people who had returned with the first company of exiles; and I sat astonied until the evening sacrifice. Ezra foresaw the dangerous results of the condition as reported to him and was overwhelmed with the difficulty of correcting the evil. Mixed marriages are always dangerous, for experience has shown that the believing spouse is more often misled into misbelief and indifference than the unbelieving is brought to the knowledge of the truth.