SUMMARY
The final chapters of Ezra deal with the problem of mixed marriages. Disturbed by this behavior, Ezra offers a long penitential prayer on their behalf (9:1-15), which moves the people to repentRepentance is a central biblical teaching. All people are sinful and God desires that all people repent of their sins. The Hebrew word for repent means to "turn away" from sin. The Greek word for repentance means to "change on'e mind," more specifically, it means... and empowers Ezra to rectify the situation (10:1-44).
ANALYSIS
In addition to condoning, even prescribing, divorce, this troubling passage has been used to support varying degrees of intolerance and exclusivism by forbidding mixed marriages of any type. Contemporary readers are especially scandalized by the lack of provision made for the divorced women and their children.
These serious objections may be unanswerable, but the following considerations should at least be noted: Divorce was a serious matter and one which God “hated” (Malachi 2:16), though it was permitted in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 24:1). Here, the issue is theological in that it concerns extensive marriage with foreign women. There is, however, precedent for marriage outside the tribe as opposed to Israel’s normal position of endogamous marriage: Esau’s marriage to two Hittites (Genesis 26:34); Joseph’s marriage to an Egyptian (Genesis 41:45); Moses’ marriage to a Midianite (Exodus 2:21) and a Cushite (Numbers 12:1); David’s marriage to a Calebite and an Aramean (2 Samuel 3:3); and the several foreign marriages of Solomon, to name the most flagrant.
The Book of Ruth’s portrayal of David as a descendant of a mixed marriage is often set against Ezra’s reforms. Yet Boaz, her “next-of-kin,” does not use her foreignness as a reason for not marrying her (Ruth 4:6). Old Testament proscriptions of intermarriage do exist (especially Deuteronomy 7:3-6), but they all seem to come after the fallThe Fall refers specifically to the disobedience of Adam and Eve when they listened to Satan rather than adhering to God's command not to eat the fruit from the tree. When people act contrary to God's will, they are said to fall from from grace... of the north to Assyria in 722 BCE to counter the political and religious crisis in the south.
This last observation seems to fit with Ezra’s implementation of Artaxerxes’ edict to reconstitute Israel as a religious community under the political rule of PersiaPersia was a southwestern Asian country. The Persian empire was a series of empires that occupied what is currently Afghanistan and Iran from 600 B.C.E. forward. Rulers of the Persian empire mentioned in the Bible are Cyrus and Darius.. This redefinition of Israel’s identity on religious grounds helps to explain, if not condone, Ezra’s opposition to foreign wives, not for their racial or national ties, but for the effects their religious practices would have on the newly constituted community. If the people were to continue marrying outside their faith and adopting those beliefs, there soon would be no distinctively Jewish community in Jerusalem.
The reforms must be seen as a purification of the people according to a priestly ideal of separation from all that was (ritually) uncleanIn Hebrew law many regulations warned against impurity. Unclean things were numerous and included leprosy, menstruating women, dead bodies, shell fish, and pigs. to preserve the identity of the community. That this seems impossibly narrow-minded to us is clear. It was also absolutely necessary for the survival of the community. Furthermore, many of the returnees had divorced their Jewish wives to marry women from the indigenous population (Malachi 2:10-16). Thus, Ezra’s reforms may be seen as a correction of an earlier problem of divorce and the lesser of two evils.
As regards the alleged, callous lack of provision for the divorced women and their children, the text, concerned about other matters, actually says nothing about their fate. Most modern translations (for example, NRSV) substitute the Greek parallel of 1 Esdras 9:36, “and they put them away together with their children,” for Ezra 10:44, which is notoriously difficult to translate. The Hebrew text probably read something like “but there were among them wives (with whom) they had had children.”
