Day 336- Today we are reading chapters 9-10 of Ezra.

• 
  Amy Longoria
  December 4, 2019 at 7:35 am  /

  Being someone who had not previously read every sentence in the Hebrew Bible, I confess to being surprised at the casualness of Ezra’s dictate of foreign born women and children being sent away. I had to look deeper. Here in 2019 I cannot fathom having a disagreement with my husband about something as major as a how to raise our children. Yet, some Hebrew men married pagan women. While I can reason through the expulsion of pagan worshipers from Judea, I struggle with the coldness of kicking them out, especially considering how far the women were from their homeland. The drastic change in reality for those women and children over a matter of a few days is where my heart keeps going back to.

  • 
    Edie Ellingson
    December 4, 2019 at 10:44 am  /

    I have struggled to understand this story in the past but in this reading I realized there must be something I have missed before.

    I think it is somewhat explained in 9:1 – “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, with respect to the abominations of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.”

    They did not separate themselves with respect to the abominations of these nations.

    Most of these are the nations that Israel should have utterly destroyed when they took the land back in Joshua’s day, so they were in their “homeland” if they were indeed of these nations (it is unclear in the Israel bible). It almost sounds like these women were taken as wives upon returning to Judah. These wives were clearly still practicing pagans. This is exactly what caused Israel and Judah to be taken away from the land to begin with – taking up the practices of these nations, more specifically child sacrifice. These women did not join themselves to Israel in the full sense of it by the sound of verse 1.

    Priests and Levites were supposed to only marry within their tribe. Priests especially. They worked in the temple of Yehovah. They ministered in the Holy of Holies. The Levites took care of the temple. The must be kept separate.

    I understand where you’re coming from, though, regarding the women and children. It reminded me of Hagar and Ishmael when Abraham sent them away. It still paints a somewhat disturbing picture.

Day 334- Today we reading chapters 5-6 of Ezra.

Day 332- Today we are reading chapters 1-2 of Ezra.