shall we break your commandments again and intermarry with the peoples who practice these abominations? Would you not be angry with us until you consumed us, so that there should be no remnant, nor any to escape?
Ezra has just recited God's mercy in bringing a remnant home from exile. Now he turns that mercy into a question: after such kindness, dare they break God's commandments again and marry into the nations God condemned?
Grace recited to measure the sin
The order of Ezra's prayer matters. He recites God's kindness before he names the sin.
Edward DennettFirst he owned the sins of his brothers, and justified God in His ways with His people. Next he magnifies the grace which had visited them in their low estate. That grace had brought them — a remnant — back to the land, and had let them set up the house of their God once again. But why does he recite this proof of the Lord's grace and mercy? It was to show the character of His people's sin... he confesses that they had sinned against both light and grace. He conceals nothing, and excuses nothing, but spreads it all out before God.
What the marriage alliance meant
Intermarrying with the nations around them sounds like a social matter. For an Israelite it was a double desertion.
William KellyYou have transgressed, he says, and have taken foreign wives. For an Israelite, as far as the people were concerned, this was the great mark of apostasy — apostasy from God in taking a foreign god, and apostasy from the people in taking foreign wives. It was a complete giving up of their holy place of separation to the Lord.
The wrong was not only in what they lost, but in what they denied God.
The Bible TreasuryIn itself this broke a basic requirement of the Lord's will. It gave up that separation to Himself from the nations, which was essential to their standing as His people. They were not only surrendering their own privilege as the sole nation of His choice. They were rebelling against the rights and glory of God, Who had so favoured them.
Punished less than they deserved
Behind the word "again" stands what Ezra had just said. The punishment they had already borne was lighter than their guilt deserved.
Leslie M. GrantAfter all the disobedience and guilt of Israel, Ezra considered that God had punished them less than their iniquities deserved. God had indeed punished them, but His purpose was to drive them back to Him, not simply to punish them. Then He gave them a wonderful deliverance from the severity of that punishment: He restored them to their land.
The sentence Ezra accepts in advance
Ezra names what God would be right to do, and leaves it standing.
Leslie M. GrantAfter such kindness shown by God, Ezra asks whether they should break His commandments again and intermarry with the peoples who practice these abominations. He saw this as a most ungrateful way of responding to God's grace. So he expected God to act in anger, and to consume Israel until no remnant at all was left.
"We," not "they"
Notice who Ezra puts inside the question. He is not accusing others from a safe distance.
The Bible TreasuryHis prayer held confession in it, thorough and unreserved. In a day of ruin, when we look at the state of God's people, there cannot be true prayer without true confession. And true confession is not saying, "They have sinned," but, "We have sinned."
The same question turned on us
One writer turns the same charge on Christians today, and puts it as questions rather than a verdict.
Edward DennettThe place of confession is always the place of restoration and of spiritual power. So it is always a sign of a bad condition when that place is rarely taken. Let us then challenge ourselves for a moment... Is it not true that we have largely "joined in alliance" with the people of the world? Have we not submitted ourselves to their habits, ways, and customs? Is not worldliness our ruin?
Summary
- Mercy first. Ezra names God's kindness first. That sets the measure of the sin: it was sin against grace.
- Mercy restrained. God had punished them less than their guilt deserved. He punished them to bring them back, not to make them suffer.
- Mercy repaid badly. To marry into the nations again would be apostasy twice over. It leaves God, and it leaves the separated place He gave them.
- Mercy exhausted. Ezra names the outcome himself. God would have reason to consume them, leaving no remnant and no one to escape.
- Mercy applied. True confession says "we have sinned," not "they have sinned." And the same question about mixing with the world stands over believers now.