Reading: Ezra 8-10, Psalm 47
Let’s review. The people of Israel are greatly diminished. Their attempts to restore themselves in the land have stalled out. They have rebuilt a temple, but it is clearly not the Temple of Solomon, or the Temple of Ezekiel. The glory of God has not occupied it, and the prophesied blessing of a restored Eden have not come to pass. Now let’s make believe. You are Ezra. What do you do?
The author of this part of the book (who I believe was Ezra himself) gives us a hint in his heavy concern for legitimate bloodlines among the priests. He has been studying the books of Moses and has realized that purity is a big deal to God, so he is obsessed with getting the purest people to serve in the temple and teach the people. Fortunately the exiles have been keeping really good records of their ancestors, which is an observable hallmark of human behavior among refugees even today, and Ezra can figure out who should and should not serve in the temple.
But then disaster strikes. Ezra has been busily organizing the priests most provably pure of blood. In the meantime the returned exiles have been off marrying local women. Now, this is not quite as normal as it would be for us today. Marriage in that time implied alliances- economic, religious, cultural alliances- that it has lost, at least in the west, today. It is unlikely these marriages were young men and women falling in love. It is far more likely they were carefully considered alliances to ensure the power and security of various families among both the exiles and the locals. All that being said, the following narrative is among the most difficult and tragic in the entire Bible.
It starts off decently enough. Ezra realizes what is happening and what it implies: the present returned exiles are no better than their ancestors. This was how the trouble started for people like Solomon, the great hope who failed to live up to his potential. Ezra mourns, prays a fantastic prayer of repentance, and gathers the people to do the same. Then it starts to go sideways. Ezra has repented, which was good. The next step ought to have been an act of sacrifice and a plea for mercy from God. Instead, Ezra decides that the correct move is to remove the offense. Note that there is no inquiry of God on what the people should do. Ezra decides that they needed to break up these marriages and purify their people. The exiles, diminished and stalled out, largely agree. A few do not, and they are subject to another kind of exile: they are put out of the assembly of the people of Israel.
Given the overarching story of Scripture and it’s view on marriage, it is not hard to see that this was not the ideal response to the situation. I have read and heard a number of defenses of Ezra’s actions here, and frankly none of them hold much water. This is descriptive, not prescriptive. God does not speak to Ezra here, so Ezra makes his own call. He acts in his own wisdom, out of his own knowledge of good and bad. Given how the Story started, maybe not the best idea. I have no doubt this was a grievous error.
Where did Ezra go wrong? It seems that while he set his heart to study the law of God, to do it, and to teach it, he failed to apply the core themes of the Story to his own people. They thought they were the pure, chosen people. God says they are not who they think they are. They thought their foreign marriage were the problem. God says your heart is the problem. They thought they needed to restore the purity of their people and worship. God says I will make all things new. They looked to correct their problems by changing their behavior and undoing their mistakes. God says my Servant will restore you.
The awful story of mass divorce among the returned exiles is an object lesson in how having the whole Bible memorized does not guarantee righteous behavior. Ezra had spent his whole life studying the Scriptures, but missed the point. The way the book is put together leads me to believe that Ezra, and his successor in the book Nehemiah, at some point realized this was another stall in Israel’s attempt to be what they were supposed to be. Unfortunately, as we will see when we get to the New Testament, their response was to double down on a bad idea, leading to the most legally righteous people in the history of the world, a group of religious elites called the Pharisees.