Were the exiles concerned about racial purity in marriages? Part II.
Ezra 9:1-15
In the first part of this question (Were the exiles concerned about racial purity in marriages? Part I), I explored the reason in Deuteronomy 7, which the exiles used to condemn intermarriages with non-Jews. I now turn to the explanation given further that ‘the holy seed has intermingled with the peoples of the lands’ (Ezra 9:2). It is unhelpful that English translations replace ‘seed’ with ‘race’, which immediately evokes the spectre of racism. Although both refer to physical descent, ‘race’ carries the assumptions of racism and predisposes readers to see these in the passage, even though in our explorations so far, we have not detected them.
Seed and holy seed elsewhere in the OT
The Hebrew zeraʿ (‘seed’) can refer to the seed of a plant (Gen 1:11), infrequently to semen (Lev 15:16), and most often to descendants. It is prominent in the story of Abraham (Gen 12:7; 15:3-5, etc.) and used of priestly descendants (the ‘seed of Aaron’; Lev 21:21; 22:4). In the postexilic period ‘seed of Abraham’ (2 Chron 20:7) or ‘seed of Israel’ (1 Chron 16:13; Neh 9:2) refer to the nation and place the emphasis on descent from the patriarchs.
‘Holy seed’, however, is a rare expression that only occurs in Ezra 9:2 and Isa 6:13. The latter describes how God’s judgment will come on Israel because of their sins, so that they will be like a tree felled with only a stump remaining which will experience further burning (i.e. chastisement and cleansing) and this remnant stump is the ‘holy seed’. Given the metaphor of a plant, ‘seed’ is a useful expression to portray the hope of a new start. Psalm 106, which recounts key points from Israel’s history, speaks of exile as God casting ‘their seed among the nations’ (Ps 106:27), and later describes how ‘they mingled with the nations and learned their practices’ (Ps 106:34-35), that is idolatry and child sacrifice, which made Israel unclean. ‘Mingling’ here suggests social interaction and the impurity is the result of engaging in sinful practices. These examples of ‘seed’ highlight that using such an expression does not automatically mean a preoccupation with the purity of the bloodline.[1]
Threatened identity and physical descent
For the exiles, physical descent was undoubtedly important as evidenced in the frequent genealogical lists in postexilic books like Ezra-Nehemiah and 1-2 Chronicles, though it was not the only criterion (see my post Were the exiles racist in their identity?). As a minority under foreign domination who felt the threat of assimilation and feared losing their distinctiveness, they would have drawn the line around their identity much more firmly than a people living independently in their own land, confident in who they were. Additionally, belonging to a particular people group largely defined one’s religion in the ancient world, so it should not surprise us that a concern for preserving faithfulness to God would become linked to ethnicity, all the more so as Israel is called to be ‘holy’, set apart to God.
The implications of the ‘holy seed’ rationale
Beyond this basic outline, it is uncertain what the exiles thought were the implications of the holy seed intermingling. Holiness, by definition, required separation and Israel’s laws used everyday practices that reinforced the necessity of doing so. As they distinguished between clean and unclean food (Lev 11:46-47), did not breed two kinds of domestic animals together, did not sow two kinds of seed in the same field nor wear clothing of mixed materials (Lev 19:19), these simple acts became reminders and signposts to the larger commitment to be separate, distinct and holy in a moral sense and in their worship of God.
We get a hint of what is at stake when we read Deut 22:9, which explains that mixing seeds in agricultural terms will lead to the defilement of their produce and this law in later Jewish literature (closer to the time of Jesus) is interpreted metaphorically to forbid intermarriages. The language in Ezra 9:2 may be an earlier example of such an interpretation. Interestingly, when Paul reflects on marriages where one spouse became a believer while the other did not, he encourages the believer to stay in the marriage because the unbelieving partner is sanctified through the believer, so that their children are holy rather than unclean (1 Cor 7:14).[2] Although the direction of influence is reversed, Paul clearly operates here with Jewish categories that are rooted in the Old Testament.
A rationale not fully worked out
Returning to Ezra, we simply do not know how the exiles thought of these marriages. We may infer that what they feared was defilement, but it is far from clear how they understood the process. Was it automatic by virtue of marrying non-Jews who worshipped other gods? Was it inherited through physical descent by the children? Or are we really talking about religious influence? Apart from the one mention of ‘holy seed’ in Ezra 9:2, there is no further reference to the bloodline or to its defilement in the two chapters dealing with the mixed marriage crisis (Ezra 9-10). This explanation is tagged on to the main reason why intermarriages are seen as problematic without the argument developed fully.
The main reason: unfaithfulness to God’s covenant
Ezra 9 focuses primarily on the issue of disobedience to God’s command in Deuteronomy 7:1-3 that led to sins (Ezra 9:13-14). In Israel and Judah’s history and in the prophets, these sins are the worship of other gods and immoral practices (see e.g. 2 Kings 17:7-19; Ezek 36:16-21) and this is echoed in Ezra 9:1 in the language of ‘abominations’, which is typically used of idolatry.
Further, Ezra’s prayer alludes to Lev 18:24-30, so that the reason for the ban on mixed marriages has to do with defilement of the land (Ezra 9:11-12). The Canaanites polluted it with their sins (idolatry and sexual immorality) and God threw them out of it. If then Israel intermarries with these peoples and learns their practices, then they, too, will defile the land and be evicted.
Their sin in Ezra is summed up as ‘unfaithfulness’ (Hebrew maʿal; Ezra 9:2, 4; 10:2, 6, 10), which can denote sacrilege (Lev 5:15), but its most common meaning by far is unfaithfulness whether through adultery in human marriage (Num 5:12) or against God and His covenant (Josh 22:16; 1 Chron 10:13; 2 Chron 29:6; Ezek 39:26-27). Since idolatry defiles God’s holy temple and profanes His holy name (Lev 20:3), it is possible that covenant breaking also carries with it the association of sacrilege.
Overall then, it is difficult to maintain that the exiles’ issue with mixed marriages was the purity of the bloodline in a racist sense, though we shall see later that the solution they came up with proved to be deeply problematic.
For anyone interested, my PhD thesis deals with some of these issues and more, published as Csilla Saysell, “According to the Law”: Reading Ezra 9-10 as Christian Scripture, JTI 4 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012).
[1] There is one further example in Mal 2:10-16, which suggests another intermarriage crisis, where it seems that some have divorced their Jewish wives (v.15) to marry foreign women (‘daughter of a foreign god’, v.11). The Hebrew of v.15 is obscure but there is a reference to seeking ‘godly offspring’ or literally ‘a seed of God’ (Elohim). In other words, those who stayed with their Jewish wives were seeking godly (meaning perhaps holy) offspring.
[2] Paul’s statement that the believer sanctifies the unbeliever in the marriage should not be taken triumphalistically as if Christians were immune to corrupting influences (note the strong warning in 2 Cor 6:14-18). Neither is the argument meant to encourage Christians to marry unbelievers, as is clear from 1 Cor 7:39. Rather, he wants to reassure these Christians who came to faith after becoming married that they can stay in the marriage with a good conscience because preserving this union is God’s will and He provides protection and support for the believer.
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