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What is the conclusion of the book of Ezra?
In Ezra 9 and 10 we will wrap up the book of Ezra. This ending brings us full circle. The book began with a celebration, an energetic march of miraculously released exiles joyfully returning home. But the conclusion of the book of Ezra is an eerie reversed scene. The quiet shuffle of frightened women and children tearfully leaving home.
Two processions, both necessary, both heartbreaking in their own way. One brings people home. The other sends them away. And somehow, in God’s complex story of redemption, both are acts of faithfulness.
What was the main sin of the people in the book of Ezra?
About 80 years before Ezra’s return, Zerubbabel led the first return with over 42,000 exiles. These people were doing life in Jerusalem and the surrounding towns for a long time before Ezra arrived on the scene. Ezra 9 opens a few months after he and his new leadership have settled into Jerusalem. Everything is under control and appears to be going as planned until Ezra makes a devastating discovery in verses 1-2.
What problem did Ezra find among the Israelites upon his return in Ezra 9?
The people, including the priests and Levites, are not keeping themselves separate from the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites and Amorites, and their detestable practices. These are the very people who have led Israel into idolatry for over 500 years. If the people are engaging in the idolatry of foreign gods as they have so many times before, then the Israelites will end up right back where they started…in exile.
Obedience to God Can Be Painful
Ezra arrived in Jerusalem with a plan. He was faithfully, obediently executing the plan for God, but he did not anticipate this big reveal. It puts his entire mission at risk, and he is thrown into agony. Why was he sent to lead the Israelites when their fate seems inevitable? In verses 3-4, Ezra’s reaction is visceral. He tears his clothes and pulls his hair out.
Sometimes obedience to God doesn’t feel like a victory. Sometimes it is painful.
Historical Context
In Genesis 15:12-16, God told Abraham that when the sin of the Amorites and related Canaanite reached its full measure his descendants would inherit the land. Then God gave the Canaanites hundreds of years to repent. But their sin only escalated in evil to the point they were sacrificing children and, at the same time, engaging in temple prostitution for fertility.
It was for this reason that God gave the Promised Land to the Israelites and commanded the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites. In Exodus 34 and Deuteronomy 7:1-4, before the Israelites even stepped foot in the Promised Land, Moses commanded them about these nations.
If they had obeyed, the people in our current story would not exist to lead them astray. But the Israelites failed to obey.
What sin did Ezra speak against?
The current problem is that the people broke God’s laws again. The sin of intermarriage with these idolatrous people puts them at risk for idolatry, especially because the priests and Levites are a part of it. If you were with us in seasons three through five of the Bible Book Club Podcast, you are aware of the holiness required of the priesthood.
But now failure is looming. Ezra arrived too late. The people have returned to the ways of their forefathers. On top of that, Ezra has an order from the King of Persia in Ezra 7:25-26 that clearly states he is responsible for administering justice to lawbreakers. He is devastated. The people he came to save he must now punish by death, banishment, confiscation of that precious Promised Land, or imprisonment. In his grief, he cannot even move.
What happened in Ezra 9?
In Ezra 9:5-9, Ezra rises from his self-abasement, with his tunic and cloak torn, and falls on his knees. He approaches God with humility and his awareness of the human condition of sin is painful.
Why was Ezra ashamed?
God offers Israel a relationship of love and loyalty, but Israel can’t seem to return the love and loyalty. The people’s guilt is too embarrassing for Ezra to comprehend. How could they do this again in light of God’s kindness and all He is doing for them?
What does the Hebrew word hesed mean?
God’s kindness is what gave them the opportunity to return. In Hebrew, the word kindness is hesed. It means favor performed for a person in need in the context of a deep and enduring relationship between two people.
What sin is confessed at the end of the book of Ezra?
In Ezra 9:10-15, Ezra, the one who has devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel, recites the exact law they broke. Then, in Moses-like fashion (no one in the Old Testament has done more interceding than Moses), Ezra begs God for mercy.
He acknowledges that God has spared them when they deserved worse, giving them another chance, but they sin again. God is righteous, and they are guilty. They can only throw themselves on His mercy.
What is the lesson learned from Ezra 9?
God continues to offer them undeserved loyalty because He promised Abraham he would in a vision which ends in Genesis 15:17-21. God keeps His promises, and He promised Abraham a people, a place, a nation, and a land.
Although God has exiled them for their consequences, now He is giving the Promised Land back and giving them another chance. And Ezra is hanging all hope on that promise to Abraham. The promise of a relationship between man and God. But that promise hinges on a covenant given to Moses, and here we are back to the Temple and worship…Ezra’s job.
What is the meaning of Ezra 10 vs 4?
Here’s where our story gets perplexing, and there is a lot of commentary about the right or wrong of what happens next. We will discuss it within the context of the period and through Ezra’s eyes. In Ezra 10:1-4, Ezra’s grief draws and convicts a crowd, and they weep. The people have an awakened awareness of their sin and a desire to “do something” arises. They make a plan to send all the foreign women and children away, and then they take their idea to Ezra.
In Ezra 10:5-6, Ezra rises from his prayer of grief and does his job, the hard part of his job, to adhere to God’s law and the king’s decree. He leads the priests, levites, and people in an oath to send the foreign women and children away. Then he withdraws to fast, pray, and mourn their repetitive unfaithfulness to God’s law, the crisis this sin is creating in families, and the failure of his mission to teach them.
Based on his knowledge of their history and God’s word in Deuteronomy 7, Ezra’s ultimate goal in banishing the foreigners is to avert God’s wrath. All he can do now is pray for those being sent away and await God’s response, because even though the leaders took steps to correct the problem it is not a guarantee God will have mercy.
Different Approaches to the Same Problem
The problem is that God does not give any instructions on how to handle intermarriage after the fact. Just a few years later, Nehemiah will handle a similar situation differently in Nehemiah 13:23-26. He is equally distraught but commands that they put an end to it by forbidding their half-Jewish children from marrying foreigners.
Ezra’s actions are harsher, but he views the return to Jerusalem as a second Exodus. If this is a new exodus, then the eviction of women and children equates to a reconquering of the Promised Land, and that means removing the foreigners from the land in totality. The very thing the Israelites failed to do after the first exodus.
What does Ezra tell the men to do in chapter 10?
In Ezra 10:7-15, the proclamation is severe and repeats the command given to Ezra by King Artaxerxes in Ezra 7:26. Whoever does not obey the law of God and the law of the king must be punished. Everyone is to attend, all exiles, those married to foreigners and those not. If they don’t, they will forfeit all property and be exiled from this community of exiles. Rather ironic. Being an exile is the threat of the day.
The Gathering
The scene is heartbreaking. It’s December and probably cold. Everyone is there. Everyone is afraid. They all could lose someone they love. And it is raining, a visible manifestation of the tears they are trying to keep inside.
Ezra tells them they must do two things. Separate themselves from all foreigners around them and from their foreign wives. Why? Because they are guilty of unfaithfulness. Their guilt is now added to the mountain of guilt of their forefathers. Post-exilic Israel is just as bad as pre-exilic Israel. Will they never change?
The Historical Pattern
The answer is no, if they continue to allow the Canaanites to live in the land. The forced departure is not unlike the forced removal that God commands through Joshua. The problem is, in Judges 2:20-23 then one chapter later in Judges 3:5-6, we learn that after Joshua’s death the removal was never completed.
So God allows the Canaanites and others to stay in the land to test Israel and see whether they will be faithful. But over and over again they aren’t faithful. They fail the test.
A Different Response
What happens next is different, and just when you think the Israelites will never change they do something refreshingly different. They become totally self-aware and convinced their reform will avert God’s wrath. The whole assembly, except a few, confess their guilt and readily agree to the plan. It will take time, but they will work through it.
And so, just as Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away, over the next 3 months in Ezra 10:16-17 the Israelites send their foreign families away. Where and with what we do not know. What we do know is that in ancient Near Eastern culture, divorce typically involved some form of provision. However, we can’t assume it automatically applies here.
Some scholars argue the careful, organized nature of the process in Ezra 10 suggests provisions were made, even if not recorded. Others point out that Ezra’s silence may itself be significant either because no provisions were made or because his focus was entirely on the covenantal aspect rather than the social consequences. Hopefully they were provided for because God provided for Hagar and Ishmael.
Ezra 10:18-44 lists all the men who compromised their faith by marrying outside of their faith.
What is the spiritual significance of Ezra?
It’s vital to remember that at this point God’s story of redemption isn’t finished yet. What Ezra and his community can’t see is that all their efforts, the rebuilding of the Temple, the sacrifices, even the painful separation of family are pointing toward a need for something greater.
The Israelites are trying to solve a heart problem with external solutions. If they can just get the law right, keep the bloodlines pure, and maintain proper worship, then they can be the people God calls them to be.
But God knows what they can’t yet see. The real problem isn’t mixed marriages or forgotten festivals. It’s the human heart itself. Centuries later, through the prophet Jeremiah, God promises a New Covenant. This new covenant isn’t written on stone tablets that can be broken. Instead it’s written on human hearts that can be transformed. He says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.”
The painful march out of Jerusalem in Ezra 10 isn’t the end of God’s story. It is a chapter that helps His people understand their desperate need for a Savior who will do what the Law never could: change hearts from the inside out.
Like the Israelites, we must learn that sometimes the hardest chapters aren’t the end. They’re preparation for something better to come.
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