It is a little difficult for us to hear today. In fact, it might seem racist even.
Ezra receives a report that the Israelites have been marrying foreign women, women from the other peoples from around them, the other nations there in Canaan. In reaction, he tears his clothes, sits in repentance, and calls out to God for forgiveness. What’s happening here? Why such a violent reaction to this news?
The Israelites, at this point, are under foreign rule. The people of Jerusalem and the surrounding area of Judea have been conquered. In their area, it started with the Babylonians. Nebuchadnezzar and conquered Jerusalem, taking many of the Israelites into exile.
The Babylonians had then been overcome by the Medes and the Persians and that is currently where we stand in this timeline. Ezra and the other exiles are living under the reign of the Persians. They have been conquered and are living under the rule of other nations.
But it isn’t just because they didn’t have a very good military and couldn’t fight the Babylonians. Yes, the Babylonians were one of the most powerful nations and armies on the earth at that time, but the Israelites had faced down many powerful armies. And yet, because God was with them, the Israelites had come away as victors each time.
So what changed? Why are they in captivity now instead of remaining in their own land as their own people with their own God?
The answer is that they had rejected God. The Israelites had walked away from him. They wanted their own king, a human king, just like all of the other nations around them. They wanted this human king because they no longer followed God. They were no longer interested in him. Instead, they followed the other evil gods of the peoples around them. And they followed the other evil gods because they had not kept themselves separate from the other people. They had, instead, gone and intermarried with the foreign women of the land. And by intermarrying with these women, they were introduced to the foreign gods and began to worship them instead of worshiping the One true God.
After these things had been done, the leaders came to me and said, “The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring peoples with their detestable practices, like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians and Amorites. They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness.”
Ezra 9:1-2
And so this is the problem. The women, themselves, aren’t necessarily the problem. In fact, they are part of the Gentile nations that God will call into his kingdom, opening the door through Christ to all peoples. God loves the Gentiles, those other than the Israelites as well, but they worshiped other gods and so this became a massive problem. The problem is that the Israelites worshiped the foreign gods and wouldn’t leave them behind. And by doing this, God withdrew himself from the Israelites, leaving them to their own devices. He didn’t protect them any longer, but instead brought the Babylonians and each of the subsequent nations as a punishment for walking away from him.