Therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the Law.
Ezra had wept in front of the whole assembly over marriages that broke God's command. Shecaniah answers with a plan: make a covenant with God, send the foreign wives and their children away, and settle it by what is written.
Hope on the far side of confession
Shecaniah speaks of hope only after he owns the guilt as his own. One writer notes what that cost him: his own father was among the guilty.
Michael HardtWhere there is confession of failure there is hope. Shecaniah put it well: "We have broken faith with our God, but even now there is hope for Israel." I do not think he took it lightly. In fact, his father was among the "problem cases" (verse 26). He suggests that action should go with the confession and prayer (v. 3) — what an encouragement for Ezra (v. 4)!
The cost to the man who proposed it
Shecaniah asks for a covenant that would break up homes, including his father's. Another writer draws attention to what he did not ask for — a place at the front.
H. L. RossierShecaniah, the people's spokesman, shows energy and unselfishness that ought to be an example to us. His father, Jehiel, was among the guilty (v. 26)! It took the power of God, joined to the zeal of Phinehas, to make him give up all his own family interests. He took up God's cause alone. Still, this energetic man does not look for a place in the work of restoration. He counts himself as nothing.
From grief to action
The covenant Shecaniah proposes turns grief into a decision. The same writer warns that grief on its own is not enough, and that action without grief makes matters worse.
H. L. RossierHumiliation is not yet separation from evil. It is the road to that separation and prepares for it. But when ruin has to be put right, activity without humiliation can lead to nothing but more ruin, however zealous it is. If humiliation has not judged the flesh, the flesh throws off all restraint when evil has to be put away. Such was the zeal of Jehu. This man did not carry the sin of the people as his own before God, and so, once the judgment was carried out, he was the first to go back to the golden calves at Dan and Bethel.
"According to the Law"
The last clause of the verse decides who sets the terms. Shecaniah invents no remedy of his own; he asks that the written Word settle it.
Edward DennettNotice too that Shecaniah owns the authority of the Word. "Let it be done," he says, "according to the Law." Ezra's mission was to restore the authority of the law over the ways of the people, if not over their hearts and consciences (Ezra 7:10), and God had now given him a helper in Shecaniah. There is truly no other way of reform among God's people.
Weakness and small numbers did not lower the standard.
An Outline of Sound WordsThis devoted and earnest servant of God did not say, "We are only a very small remnant compared with the nation before the exile, so no one can expect us to carry out what is written in God's Word." No! He valued the law of the LORD, and he wanted others to value it too.
The wives and children under law and grace
Shecaniah's plan sent the children away as well. Commentators point out that this belonged to the law, and that grace works the other way.
Edward DennettBoth the wives and the children born to them were to be sent away. The wives were not of Israel, so they were unclean, and the children of these mixed marriages counted as unclean too. This was under law — but under grace all of this is reversed. That does not leave a Christian free to marry someone who is not converted. But as the apostle teaches, "the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy." (1 Cor. 7:14.)
The difference matters most where one partner comes to faith after the wedding.
Leslie M. GrantUnder law nothing could turn a Moabite into an Israelite, but under grace an unbeliever may become a believer. This gives no permission at all for a believer to marry an unbeliever, since 2 Corinthians 6:14 plainly forbids it. But if one partner is converted after the marriage, he is encouraged to bring the grace and faith of Christianity into the marriage now, in patient testimony. It may be the means of the other's conversion.
Summary
- Confession — Shecaniah says "we," not "they." Hope follows owning the failure, not excusing it.
- Cost — his own father was among the guilty. He still pressed for the remedy, and claimed no leading place in it.
- Action — humbling before God prepares for separation from evil, but is not yet separation. Zeal without that humbling, like Jehu's, only adds to the ruin.
- Standard — "according to the Law" hands the decision back to Scripture. Weakness never lowered what God had written.
- Grace — the law sent the foreign wife and her children away. Under grace the believing partner stays, and the children count as holy.