And Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, addressed Ezra: “We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.
Ezra lies weeping in front of God's house because the returned exiles have married women from the nations around them. Then Shecaniah speaks up — first confessing the sin, then saying the damage can still be repaired.
One faithful man stirs many
The sin troubled nobody until Ezra arrived and took God's side against it. What followed traces back to one man's willingness to stand alone.
Edward DennettFirst, it is worth noticing how the Lord uses the faithful zeal of one person to wake others up to their condition. Before Ezra came, everyone's conscience seems to have gone numb... Ezra was alone, and he would have stayed alone if necessary, in taking God's side against the people's sin. But that took courage and a single eye, and by grace Ezra had both. God was with him in the stand he was taking, and now we see the effect. Shecaniah comes forward on behalf of the people, owns their sin, and accepts that they must submit to the Word... In times of evil, the only path of blessing is the path of faithfulness.
"We have trespassed" — a confession that costs
Shechaniah says "we," not "they." What makes that costly is the list further on in the chapter: his own father Jehiel is named among the offenders.
H. L. RossierShecaniah, the people's spokesman, shows an energy and selflessness here that ought to be an example to us. His father, Jehiel, was among those who had sinned (v. 26)! Only the power of God, joined to zeal, could make him set aside his own family interests and take up God's cause alone. Yet this energetic man does not try to make a name for himself in the work of restoration. He counts himself as nothing. He judges that the matter rests on Ezra, the "scribe skilled in the Law of Moses"... In his eyes, the man who carries the Word — indeed the Word itself — must play the leading part.
"Yet now there is hope"
The hope does not rest on excusing what happened. It arrives on the far side of admitting it.
Michael HardtWhere there is confession of failure there is hope. Shechaniah put it well: "We have trespassed against our God... yet now there is hope in Israel." I do not think he took it lightly. In fact, his father was among the 'problem cases' (verse 26). He suggests that the confession and prayer should be matched by action (v. 3) — what an encouragement for Ezra (v. 4)!
Others note that this was the only answer God gave. Ezra's prayer drew no voice from heaven, but it drew a voice from among the guilty.
J. N. DarbyUnlike so many times before, no prophet brings the answer. But God answers in the hearts of the guilty. "We have broken faith with our God," said one among them; "but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this." And they set to work with all their heart.
Grief alone would have changed nothing
Ezra could not lift himself out of his grief, and the assembly wept with him. The turn came from somebody else.
J Wilson SmithHis grief was such that he could not rise above it, and even the people "wept bitterly." It was a place of weeping indeed, but tears are not power. Things might have stayed that way. Then one man, Shecaniah, confessed the sin and rose in the strength of faith in God, declaring that there was still hope for Israel. So he urged Ezra to "arise... and do" — to take hold of God, to act on his prayers, and to expect God's help. He did so, and great was the reformation.
But the order runs both ways. Action without self-humbling makes the ruin worse.
H. L. RossierHumiliation is not yet separation from evil. It is the road to that separation and prepares for it. But when the work is repairing ruin, activity without humiliation can only lead to more ruin, however zealous it is.
Measured by the Word, not by feeling
Shecaniah ends his proposal with an appeal to what was written. Nothing else, one writer says, reforms God's people.
Edward DennettShecaniah also owns the authority of the Word. "Let it be done," he says, "according to the law."... There is, in truth, no other way of reformation among God's people.
What changes under grace
Shecaniah's remedy was to send the foreign wives and their children away. That belonged to the law, and one writer draws a sharp line between it and the Christian's case.
Edward DennettUnder law, as in the passage before us, the foreign wife and her children were to be sent away. But under grace the unbelieving wife is sanctified by her husband, and the children are holy... The law sent the wives and children away because they were unclean, so Israel could not receive them into the congregation... Under grace the unconverted wife is set apart through her husband. This holiness is purely external and carries no saving power, for salvation is always tied to personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Even so, it gives the priceless privilege of being in the place of blessing.
Summary
- One — the recovery starts with one man willing to take God's side alone. When every other conscience has gone quiet, faithfulness is still the only path of blessing.
- We — Shecaniah says "we," not "they," though his own father is on the list of guilty men. He owns the people's sin and asks for no part for himself.
- Even now — hope does not replace confession; it comes on the far side of it: "we have broken faith... but even now there is hope."
- Do — tears are not power. Humiliation must move into action, and action without humiliation only deepens the ruin.
- Written — the standard is the Word, not the mood of the moment. That remedy itself belonged to the law; under grace God sets an unbelieving wife apart through her husband.