Ezra Chapter 9

Please read:  Ezra 9 –

We humans tend to write down the big events in our lives, and for Ezra this next event was huge.  Ezra had prepared himself to teach the people the truths of God’s laws, but he was completely shaken by the news he received.  We have an expression in our culture that goes something like this, “I never would have expected that to happen in a million years.”  Ezra probably thought he would never hear of such a thing, at least not in his lifetime.  He was in complete shock to learn that the people had fallen back into the same sin that led to their judgement and captivity some 70 years earlier.  The people had once again intermarried with heathen cultures.  This meant that idolatry and other abominations would soon follow.  The gamut of emotions that Ezra must have been feeling upon hearing this horrible news must have been extreme.

Deuteronomy 7:1-4 “When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.  You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.