Ezra 10:15 - Meaning and Application

Once the plan for dealing with this matter had been settled and the meeting dismissed, each person could return home and gather or share any needed information to move it forward. We are then told who took charge of handling the cases and bringing them properly before the appointed judges: Jonathan and Jahaziah, two active men, though it is not clear whether they were priests or ordinary people. They were probably the same men who had made the proposal in (Ezra 10:13-14), and so they were the right ones to see it carried out. Two honest Levites joined them and helped them.

Dr. Lightfoot takes the Hebrew a different way and understands it to mean that Jonathan and Jahaziah stood against this matter, with the two Levites helping them in that opposition, either to the whole issue or to this method of handling it. The original wording can bear that sense. It would not be surprising if a work like this met some resistance.

We are also told who sat as judges over the matter. Ezra served as the head, and with him were certain leading fathers, men especially fit for this work because of their wisdom and zeal. It was a blessing for them to have Ezra leading them. They could not have done the work well without his direction, but he would not act without their agreement.

We are told, too, how long the work took. They began examining the cases on the first day of the tenth month (Ezra 10:16), only ten days after this plan was proposed in (Ezra 10:9), and they finished in three months (Ezra 10:17). They stayed at the task and gave their full attention to it, or they could not have finished so many cases in such a short time. We may also think that each accused person was fairly asked whether he had any reason why the marriage should not be ended. If the wife had become a convert to the Jewish faith, she was likely not put away, and deciding that would have required careful judgment.

The names of those found guilty are recorded here to their lasting shame. Many of the priests, even some from the family of Jeshua, the high priest, were guilty in this matter (Ezra 10:18). The law had especially guarded their marriage choices so that those who were holy should not marry women who were considered unclean, or unfit for covenant life (Leviticus 21:7). Those who should have taught the law to others broke it themselves, and by their example encouraged others to do the same.

Yet since they had fallen into this sin, they did well to confess it and show repentance. They promised, in writing, to send away their foreign wives, and some think they even swore this with their hands lifted up. They also followed the way the law appointed for seeking pardon by bringing the ram required for a guilt offering, a sacrifice for wrongdoing (Leviticus 6:6). In this way they admitted their guilt, acknowledged that punishment was deserved, and humbly asked for forgiveness.

Altogether, about 113 men are named here as having married foreign wives, and it is said of some of them in (Ezra 10:44) that they had children by those wives. This suggests that not many of them had children, since God did not bless those marriages with fruitfulness. Whether the children were sent away with the mothers, as Shechaniah had suggested, is not clear. It seems they were not. In any case, it is likely that the wives who were sent away were properly provided for, according to their standing.

One might think this trouble was now fully corrected, yet we find the same problem again in (Nehemiah 13:23) and (Malachi 2:11). Such sins are easy to bring in quietly, but they are very hard to root out again. The best reformers can only do their part. But when the Redeemer himself comes to Zion, he will truly turn away ungodliness from Jacob.