Ezra 9:1-4 - A Holy Race
Notes
Transcript
NOTES
NOTES
After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations, from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands. And in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost.” As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled. Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles, gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice.
We saw the rumblings of the faithlessness of those in the land:
The dispatch of Ezra in the first place.
The lack of a welcoming delegation when the caravan arrived.
How aware was Ezra of the intermarriage problem among the Jews?
It seems likely he was aware of it, but 9:3 seems to indicate he did not know its full extent or waited on the teaching to take hold.
How long does it take you to trust a teacher enough to begin to allow the Spirit to use his words to reshape your very soul and life?
Some of you are thinking “Not yet.”
As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.
English Standard Version Ezra 9:2
faithlessness
מַ֫עַל 1 (maʿal 1), n. disloyalty, infidelity; fraud. Greek equiv. fr. LXX: πλημμέλεια (5), ἀσυνθεσία (3), παράπτωμα (3).1
1 Brannan, R. (Ed.). (2020). Lexham Research Lexicon of the Hebrew Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Many have questioned why it took Ezra four months to address the sin regarding these mixed marriages.
It is quite instructive that in the first verse, we are told by Ezra “the officials approached me…”
That is the nature and truth of teaching – even when we teach the word of God: The teacher can instruct, challenge, exhort; but until the hearer encounters repentance, change cannot happen.
Ezra was not a governor that he could command. He did have a mandate, but what eternal advantage would have been served by forcing the unrepentant into a superficial obedience?
We know he had been teaching these things because the officials quote the Torah (with additions) with regard to the nations.
The Hittites, Canaanites, Perizzites, and Jebusites did not even exist in Ezra’s day, having been earlier eradicated or absorbed by other peoples.
This kind of single-minded teaching is urgent, patient, and long-suffering all at the same time.
There is a power in this kind of meekness that will never be seen in displays of force.
It is unconquerable, irresistible, and unbending in the face of either opposition or apathy.