Lessons from the intermarriage crisis – our priorities (Ezra 10)

Recently when discussing Ezra 9-10, someone mentioned to me the plight of African chiefs with several wives who came to Christ and were encouraged by missionaries to divorce them, a tragic fate for those women. This situation seems far removed from our Western context, but a student of mine told me of a man who lived with a woman and, when he came to faith, was troubled about what to do. Was he to marry her, a non-Christian, or should they break up the relationship? I cannot recall if he had children by her, but if so, would or should that make a difference to his decision? There are in life challenges which do not have an easy resolution. It is right that we should seek an answer from Scripture but evaluating what we read takes some wisdom.

Are the exiles’ solution an example to follow?

Our instinct as Christian readers is often to take biblical stories as examples to follow or avoid, but this can be an unhelpful strategy because stories in the Bible are not didactic (i.e. they do not explicitly state the lesson to be learnt from them). Rather, they tell of events in such a way that we identify with the people, feel their struggles, and are forced to ponder the different angles of their dilemmas. It is as we recognise their challenges as somehow our own that we are shaped by how they face and resolve them. This is a much more demanding process than simply lifting a command or prohibition from an event to live by.

In this instance, knowing the larger framework of Scripture also helps us see that this is not the only way to deal with mixed marriages. The same issue crops up in Neh 13:23-31, where Nehemiah does not enforce divorce. Moreover, Jesus is emphatic about keeping marriages together even though he recognises the legitimacy of divorce in some cases (Matt 19:3-9). Further, Paul rules that a Christian who came to faith after marriage should stay in the relationship and not seek divorce unless the unbelieving spouse wants to leave (1 Cor 7:12-13, 15). All this relativises the Ezran solution as one among several answers to this difficult question (and one that, as I shall explore in my next post, is problematic).

Repentance and a turning away from sin

Nevertheless, there are positive lessons to be learnt from the exiles’ story, namely, that they were deeply distressed about sinning against God (Ezra 10:1). In today’s world where most shrug off and minimise sin to the point that the word has largely disappeared from our thinking, as has God against whom we sin, the exiles’ recognition that the Lord’s will matters is to be prized. Neither is this decision imposed on them by Ezra but is reached in response to his teaching and affirmed by the whole community (Ezra 10:3, 12).[1]

Emotion, however, is not enough and the exiles show that their repentance is genuine by their willingness to make painful changes to their lives. Arriving in Jerusalem in the rainy winter season (December), trembling from cold and fear (Ezra 10:9), they undergo an investigation over three months (Ezra 9:16-17). The 110 found guilty are largely from families who returned early (see list in Ezra 2) with enough time to marry and even have children (Ezra 10:44). As we read, Scripture probes our heart too: when was the last time we allowed God to convict us of sin so that we made significant changes to how we live?

Where are our priorities?

Seeing the plight of the women and children, I cannot help but feel their tragedy and I suspect I am not alone in this. At the same time, it is troubling how much this accords with the priorities of the postmodern world where humanistic concerns take precedence over religious commands so that God’s will is trumped by human need and fulfilment. By contrast, Puritan interpreters like Mathew Henry applauded the exiles’ commitment to God and utterly ignored the human tragedy and Ezra 10 is likewise silent on the latter. I am not advocating the Ezran solution, by any means, but wonder if both sides have developed a blind spot: the exiles (and the Puritans) when it came to human concerns, we, postmodern readers, about the need to be faithful to God. Like Jesus’ harsh sayings about gouging out eyes and cutting off limbs that offend, this story goads us out of complacency and forces us to consider our priorities.[2]

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[1] Although we read of some opposition (Ezra 10:15), it is unclear what the men mentioned were against. H.G.M. Williamson notes that Meshullam is probably the same leading man who returned with Ezra (Ezra 8:16) and he, as well as Shabbethai were in Ezra’s close circle supporting him (Neh 8:4, 7), so that it is doubtful that they opposed the divorces. Rather, it is more likely that they wanted immediate action rather than the drawn-out process suggested by the assembly in Ezra 10:13-14. Ezra, Nehemiah, WBC 16 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1985), 156-57.

[2] The main arguments in this post are taken from my PhD dissertation and summarised in the concluding chapter. Csilla Saysell, “According to the Law”: Reading Ezra 9-10 as Christian Scripture, JTI 4 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2012), 218-224.

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