What does the Bible say about interracial marriage?

Soon after God's dealing so seriously with Israel's complaints, both Miriam and Aaron are infected with a similar spirit of murmuring. It was plainly Miriam who led in this, but she influenced Aaron in the same way. they spoke against Moses because he had married an Ethiopian woman, but also used this occasion to question the fact that God had spoken through Moses, urging that He had also spoken through them. Scripture does not forbid marriages between whites and blacks, though 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 forbids a believer to marry an unbeliever. But to use an occasion like this to put the Lord's servant down in order that they may virtually take his place is wickedness in the sight of the Lord.

Such an action certainly shows the seriousness of the evil of sinful associations. We must not diminish the seriousness of this, though in our day, under grace, we cannot require the putting away of wives, though they are not saved. The nations Israel was involving themselves with were actually demon worshipers, so that God had absolutely forbidden any marriages with them. Believers today are not under such a law, though they are told, "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers" (2 Cor. 6:14). If they disobey this scripture, they are not told to put away the unbeliever, but rather, "a wife is not to depart from her husband" (1 Cor. 7:10), though "if the unbeliever departs, let him depart" (1 Cor. 7:15). Once the marriage is consummated, the believer is not free before God to leave it except in the case of the partner being unfaithful (Mt. 19:9). Today, a believer who marries an unbeliever must learn by experience the painful results of this disobedience, rather than being relieved of such results.

Marriages with these enemies are expressly forbidden (v.4), for the foreign spouse would influence the Israelite to serve idols. All Scripture has consistently warned against such mixtures, and 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 is clear and decided as to this question, "Do no be unequally yoked together with unbelievers." If an Israelite was told to avoid a yoke with a Gentile, how much more today is a believer to form no bound with an unbeliever. This is God's Word, which is enough for every obedient heart, but if one is disobedient, he can expect to suffer painful consequences.

Jezebel! One of the most sinister figures in the Word of God! This wicked woman not only wrought incalculable mischief amongst God's chosen earthly people in the days of Elijah's testimony; her name is used by the Holy Spirit in Rev: 2:20 as the symbol of a frightful system of evil which has intruded itself into a more sacred circle than Israel ever was. One of Ahab's many sins was his marriage with idolatrous Jezebel. "It came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him" (1 Kings 16:31). The Israelites were expressly forbidden to inter-marry with the corrupt nations of Canaan; "thy daughter shalt thou not give to his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take to thy son. "The inevitable consequences of disobedience in this respect were divinely stated: "they will turn away thy son from following Me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of Jehovah be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly" (Deut. 7:3-4). Here there is no suggestion that a God-fearing husband or wife might win for the truth an ungodly partner; the very opposite result in sure. The influence of a woman over a man is considerable; it is of the greatest importance therefore that every one who knows God should be divinely mated. Many a man besides Ahab has been ruined by a marriage contract entered into in defiance of the Word of God. A great contrast to Jezebel is found in Abigail. Well might David, after she had restrained him from violence, say, "Blessed be Jehovah the God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me, and blessed be thy advice" (1 Sam. 25:32). Happy is the man who in any age and in any land, meets an Abigail!

Did not some of Bethlehem-Judah take wives of the daughters of Moab, and that, too, without rebuke? Did not Joseph, in his marriage, deviate from the holiness of Abraham, and Moses from the ordinances of the law? Was not Rahab, though a daughter of the uncircumcised, adopted of Judah, and so conspicuous in the ancestry, after the flesh, of David's Lord? And did not Samson take to wife a woman of Timnath, that belonged to the Philistines?

The people of God were not in due order on the occasions of those strange events; and this is the moral vindication. The light of divine wisdom in divine dispensation becomes the judge, rather than ordinances. The Jews were now in the dispersion. Joseph, if we please so to express it, is in Egypt again, Moses in Midian, and the sons of Bethlehem-Judah in Moab; and Esther is as much unrebuked for going in unto the king of Persia, as Joseph for marrying Asenath, or Moses for marrying Zipporah, or Mahlon for marrying Ruth; and each and all of them stand without reproach or judgment before God in these things, just as David did when he ate the showbread. Nay, these things were of God, as Samson's marriage with a Philistine woman seems distinctly to be so recognized (Judges 14:4).

(a) The first part treats of marriage with a captive taken in war, — a distinct permission, of course, of marriage with a Gentile, where there was not the hindrance of such a ban as rested upon Canaan.

It may be doubted whether, to the one that loved and nursed it, "the baby" ever entirely ceases to be an object over which protection and authority (modified indeed) should be exercised. At least it was so with Miriam. When Moses had been many years arrived at maturity, he married an Ethiopian bride. Miriam did not at all approve and went about "saying things," which Aaron encouraged. Was Moses the only one by whom the Lord had spoken? Had he not also spoken by them? The passage is very fine. Moses, "meek above all the men that were upon the face of the earth," does nothing to resent this (and indeed we should, remembering that childish care by the Nile's bank long before, be distressed if we read that he had done so). But Jehovah intervenes with a sudden and terrible chastisement. Aaron, the weak-natured and misled one, is leniently dealt with; but Miriam is of a different character and greater responsibility. They are both sternly rebuked, and Miriam is smitten with leprosy!

The same thing we see in Moses. He too was separated from his brethren. And still more, he earned Zipporah. He rescued her from oppression, then opened the well to her and her flock, and then her father owned his claim to her hand. So with his second wife. He had to take her at the expense of his good name with his own kindred; she was a black Ethiopian, and did not suit the thoughts of his brother and sister. But he bore the reproach, and married the Ethiopian.

"God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth" — another truth that unbelief disowns — that God is not only the maker but the Lord, the master and disposer, of all — "He dwells not in temples made with hands." Thus the apostle finds himself at issue with both the Gentiles and the Jews. "Neither is worshipped (served) with men's hands, as though he needed anything," — contrary to all religion of nature, wherever and whatever it may be. "Seeing he gives" (such is His character) "to all men life and breath and all things; and has made of one blood:" here again he is at issue with man's ideas, especially with those of Hellenic polytheism, for the unity of the human race is a truth that goes with that of the true God. It was seen among men that various races had each their own national god, and thus naturally the falsehood of many gods was bound up with and fostered the kindred pretension of many independent races of men. This was a darling idea of the pagan world. They held themselves to have sprung from the earth in some singularly foolish manner, at the same time maintaining that each was independent of the other. On the other hand, the truth which divine revelation discloses is that which man's mind never did discover, but, when propounded, at once brings conviction along with it. Is it not humbling that the most simple truth about the simplest fact should be entirely beyond the ken of the proudest intellects unaided by the Bible? One would think that man ought to know his own origin. It is just what he does not know. He must know God first, and when he does all else becomes plain. "He has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth."

The command to the nation of Israel at the very beginning was to keep the way of the Lord very particularly as to marriage. They were by no means either to give their daughters to the sons of the Canaanites, or take the Canaanites' daughters for their sons. Deut. 7:3. If they did so, it would be on the pain of being no longer owned of the Lord. Joshua 23. According to this, the apostate days of Solomon are marked by disobedience to this very thing (1 Kings 11); and afterwards, no real recovery to God could be admitted, without a return to the observance of this principle in their marriages. Ezra 10; Neh. 10.