Deeper Commentary
Ezra 9:1 Now when these things were done- There is an intended anticlimax here, a juxtaposition of God's amazing grace to the exiles in Ezra 8 now contrasted with their fall into sin. The same thing happens at Acts 5:1, and often in the Biblical record.
The
princes drew near to me saying, The people of Israel, and the priests and
the Levites, have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands
and are following their abominations, even those of the Canaanites, the
Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the
Egyptians, and the Amorites-
See
on :14; Ezra 6:21. Ez. 42:20 commands for the restored Kingdom: “He
measured it by the four sides: it had a wall round about, five hundred
reeds long, and five hundred broad, to make a
separation
between the sanctuary and the profane place”.
This reflected the difference between God’s people, His “sanctuary” (Ps.
114:2), and the surrounding world. But Judah did not ‘separate’
themselves from the surrounding tribes but instead married them and
worshipped their idols (s.w. Ezra 9:1 “The people of Israel... have not
separated themselves from the people of the land, doing according to their
abominations...for they have
taken of their daughters for themselves”). The same word for
“abominations” occurs in the same context in Mal. 2:11: “Judah hath dealt
treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem;
for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath
married the daughter of a strange god”. Yet it had been emphasized that
the temple system Ezekiel described was to be free of all the
“abominations” [s.w.] previously committed by Israel (Ezekiel 43:8;
44:6,7,13).
Ezra 9:2 For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for
their sons, so that the holy seed have mixed themselves with the peoples
of the lands. Yes, the hand of the princes and rulers has been chief in
this trespass- These relationships and children are defined as being
part of mixing with the abominations of the peoples (:1). And
"abominations" always refers to idol worship. So it could be that the
relationships with "their daughters" were a result of sleeping with cult
prostitutes and having children thereby. There was therefore far more to
what happened than simply marrying out of the faith. To 'take daughters
for themselves' may not mean marriage itself, but could refer to the kind
of cultic relationships which went along with idol worship at the shrines.
This is why the separation from these women with whom they had had
children (Ezra 10:3) would not then be quite the same as breaking up
marriage and full blown family life. Israel are only specifically
called "the holy seed" in Is. 6:13, where the idea was that after their
experience of judgment, those who survived would be a "holy seed" who
would shoot forth the Messianic "Branch" from the decaying stump of the
house of David. But now the "holy seed" had corrupted themselves; for they
were the minority preserved from judgment, and now they had corrupted
their holiness. So the possibilities of the reestablishment of the Kingdom
of God in Israel which the prophets were full of... was now precluded.
They failed to see themselves and their offspring as anything so "holy" to
Yahweh. This is the root of all sin- a failure to appreciate our holy
standing in His eyes, our sanctification in Christ.
Ezra 9:3 When I heard this thing, I tore my garment and my robe, and
plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down confounded-
The
temple still lay “waste” (Hag. 1:4,9) just as it had lain “desolate” [s.w.
Jer. 33:10,12] after the Babylonian destruction. The ‘restoration’ was in
fact not really a restoration at all, in God’s eyes. Thus Ezra sat down
desolate [s.w. "confounded"] at the news of Judah’s apostasy in having
children by the
surrounding women; using the very same word as frequently used to describe
the ‘desolate’ / 'confounded' Jerusalem that was to be rebuilt (Ezra 9:3 cp. Is. 49:8,19;
54:3; 61:4). He tore his priestly garment (Ezra 9:3), as if he realized
that all Ezekiel’s prophesies about those priestly garments now couldn’t
come true (s.w. Ez. 42:14; 44:17,19). Is. 58:12,13 prophesied that the
acceptable rebuilding of Zion was dependent upon Judah keeping the Sabbath
acceptably; and yet Nehemiah’s record makes clear their tragic abuse of
the Sabbath at the time of the restoration; and this therefore meant that
the rebuilding of the temple and city were not going to fulfill the
Messianic prophecies about them which existed.
The Lord would have meditated upon the way righteous men had taken upon themselves the sins of their people. Thus Jeremiah speaks as if he has committed Israel's sins; Ezra rends his clothes and plucks off his hair, as if he has married out of the Faith (Ezra 9:3 cp. Neh. 13:25; the Lord received the same sinner's treatment, Is. 50:6). Moses' prayer for God to relent and let him enter the land was only rejected for the sake of his association with Israel's sins (Dt. 3:26).
Ezra 9:4 Then were assembled to me all who trembled at the words of the
God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been carried
away; and I sat confounded until the evening offering- See on :7. The
double reference in Is. 66:1-5 to trembling at Yahweh’s word is a definite
prediction of the situation in Ezra 9:4; 10:3, where the same rare Hebrew
word is used regarding how those of the exiles who repented for their
marriage out of the Faith trembled before the word in repentance. Then, at
that point, the Kingdom blessings could have been brought about, as
described in the rest of Is. 66. But again, there was no staying power in
their repentance. By Nehemiah’s time, and by Malachi’s time even after
his, marriage out of the Faith was still their weakness.
Ezra 9:5 At the evening offering I arose up from my humiliation, even with
my garment and my robe torn; and I fell on my knees, and spread out my
hands to Yahweh my God- "Rose up / arose" is a word used often of the
'rising up' of the exiles to rebuild Jerusalem (Ezra 1:5; 3:2; 9:5; Neh.
2:18; 3:1). This was a fulfilment of the command to "Arise... Jerusalem!"
(Is. 51:17; 52:2; 61:4). Perhaps Ezra was motivated by these prophecies to
now "arise", hoping that somehow his people would still be raised up. But
this 'arising' was to be associated with the dawning of Zion's light in
the form of Yahweh's glory literally dwelling over Zion (Is. 60:1). This
didn't happen at the time, because the appearance of 'arising' by the
exiles was only external and wasn't matched by a spiritual revival. Ezra
was driven to appeal to God directly and solely from himself with his
priestly garments now in ruins. I have noted earlier that his focus upon
teaching the law of Moses was rather missing the point- that the old
covenant had been broken by Judah, and they could only throw themselves
upon the grace of the new covenant.
Ezra 9:6 and I said, My God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to
You, my God; for our iniquities have increased over our head, and our
guiltiness has grown up to the heavens- The description of Ezekiel's Temple was to be given to the captives in
Babylon by Ezekiel, to lead them to repentance and to assure them of what
could be if they repented. Then when the invitation to leave Babylon and
return came in the time of Ezra, they ought to have been motivated to
return to the land and build the temple which Ezekiel had explained to
them. But sadly most of them weren’t very deeply motivated at all; they
wanted to build a temple, but not to the extent Ezekiel had outlined.
Consider in this light Ez. 43:10-11: “Thou son of man, shew the house to
the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let
them measure the pattern. And if they be ashamed of all that they have
done, shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the
goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof,
and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the
laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole
form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them”. Then,
when the temple was built, they were to be obedient in all the ways in
which they hadn’t been obedient in the past, with the result that they
were now sitting in captivity (E. 44:24). This was the tragedy felt by Ezra,
when he realized the exiles were not living as they should be: “O my God,
I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God; for our
iniquities are increased” (Ezra 9:6). Israel would only be able to build
the temple properly if they were “ashamed of their iniquities” (Ez.
43:10). And Ezra knew they weren’t. And thus he sought to take upon
himself that shame, believing that God would accept his shame on
behalf of the people. Note in passing how he speaks of blushing before
God. You only blush in someone’s presence. And this was how close and real
Ezra felt his God to be. Perhaps this repentance of a remnant
explains why in fact the record of Ezekiel's temple was written down at
all- for Ez. 43:11 seems to say that it would be written down if
Judah were ashamed of their sins. Ezekiel's opening chapters record him
being forewarned by God that they would not generally be responsive to his
ministry; and yet some were, like Ezra, and maybe this was eagerly seized
upon by God as the basis for allowing the writing down and preservation of
the specifications we have in Ez. 40-48.
Isaiah 45 is as clear a prophecy as any could wish. God categorically
stated that Cyrus would be raised up by Him in order to release the
captives in Babylon, and to enable the building of Jerusalem (Is. 45:12);
all because God had formed the land [AV “earth”] of Israel to be inhabited
and not to be left without His people dwelling upon it. And this happened;
the captives were released (although most preferred to stay put in
Babylon), and the building of Jerusalem was enabled (although the work was
not done very enthusiastically by Judah, and they preferred to build their
own houses rather than Yahweh’s). But the prophecy goes on in Is.
45:13-17: “I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all
his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for
price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts. Thus saith the LORD, The labour
of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature,
shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after
thee; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee,
they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee; and
there is none else, there is no God...They shall be ashamed, and
also confounded, all of them: they shall go to confusion together
that are makers of idols. But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an
everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded
world without end”. But the Egyptians and Ethiopians didn’t come and fall
down before Judah, as the Queen of Sheba had before Solomon. Nor did they
accept Yahweh as the only God, and ditch their idols. Instead, the
returned Jews worshipped the idols of Egypt, and married their women (Ezra
9:1). And thus Israel were ashamed and confounded in the future.
The same Hebrew words for “ashamed [and] confounded” occur in Ezra 9:6,
where as a result of Ezra realizing that Judah had married the local women
and broken covenant with Yahweh, he admits: “I am ashamed and
blush [s.w. ‘confounded’] to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our
iniquities are increased....”. The words of Is. 45 could have had their
fulfilment in the time of Cyrus; the surrounding nations could have come
and worshipped before Judah, and the whole earth quit their idols and look
unto Yahweh as a just God and a saviour. But Judah would not. Judah in the
new temple would not “defile” Yahweh’s Name any more (Ez. 43:7,8); but
they were lazy to keep the uncleanness laws, they did defile
Yahweh by touching dead bodied and then offering the sacrifices (Hag.
2:13,14 s.w.), just as Israel previously had been defiled by touching the
dead bodies of their kings and then offering sacrifices (Ez. 43:7); but
now, Judah thought they were above God’s law, and therefore did exactly
the same things which had caused the temple to be destroyed in the first
place. The promise that Yahweh would dwell in the new temple was
conditional on them not touching dead bodies (Ez. 43:9); but Hag. 2:13
makes it apparent that they did this very thing at the time of the
restoration.
Ezra 9:7 Since the days of our fathers we have been exceeding guilty to
this day; and for our iniquities we, our kings and our priests, have been
delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to
captivity, to plunder and to confusion of face, as it is this day- The sins of those who returned are styled "the transgression of those
that had been carried away" (Ezra 9:4). Yet those who returned to the land
weren't mainly the generation who had been carried away. The intended
confusion is surely to suggest that those who returned committed the same
sins as had led Judah into captivity a generation earlier. And Ezra
comments on this fact here in his subsequent prayer.
Ezra 9:8 Now for a little moment grace has been shown from Yahweh our God,
to leave us a remnant to escape- See on :13. Ezra saw that “little moment" or
"space” as a time when they received grace; he understood the
prophecy of the figs in Jer. 24, that it was only through the captivity
and the fact God had graciously not destroyed them but rather preserved
them there, that there was the opportunity for a remnant to re-establish
the Kingdom. What may appear to some as forsaking is in fact God’s grace
to us, when spiritually discerned- whether it be deep within our own
lives, or in the state of affairs upon this planet. Yet it should be noted
that the prophecy of Jer. 24:6,7 about the good figs seems not to have
come true at the restoration- although it could potentially have done so.
Ezra 9:9 For we are bondservants; yet our God has not forsaken us in our
bondage- Although the Apocryphal book of Baruch isn’t
inspired, it gives a significant window into the mindset of the exiles in
Babylon. Baruch 1:10 mentions how the attitude was that the majority
wanted to send funds to support the ‘good work’ going on in Judah- but
didn’t want to return there themselves. Like the book of Esther, this
indicates that the exiles had soon quit languishing by the rivers of
Babylon, and had quickly acquired wealth and some degree of prosperity.
Inspired prophecies had warned them of the fall of Babylon, and their need
to flee out of it and return to Judah. And yet Baruch 1:12 records the
exiles praying “that we may live long under the protective shadow of [the]
king of Babylon”. This is in sad contrast to Daniel’s prophecies that the
sheltering tree of Babylon was to be cut down! There ought to have been an
urgency about the need to flee from Babylon. Zech. 2:10 speaks of the need
to "flee" and "escape"- the language of crisis. And the call "Ho!" means
quite literally "Hey!!". The urgency to flee was spiritual rather than
physical- for there's no evidence that when Babylon fell to the Persians,
the Jews were punished. Indeed they appear [from Esther] to have prospered
even more. Hence the urgent appeal was to flee from the spiritual crisis
which they faced in Babylon. And yet they didn't perceive the danger, just
as so many today don't. For the call to leave Babylon is applied in New
Testament passages like 2 Cor. 6 to our call to leave the world in which
we live. The urgency of 'fleeing' from Babylon was understood by Nehemiah,
when he referred to those who had returned to the land as those who has
"escaped" from Babylon (Neh. 1:2)- even though they had returned with
every blessing from the authorities. He perceived as few did the vital
danger of remaining in the soft life of Babylon. Ezra likewise had
referred to the Jews in Babylon as those "in bondage... bondmen" (Ezra
9:9)- when historical records, as well as the book of Esther and the fact
Nehemiah the Jew was the king's cupbearer, show that the Jews were very
far from being servants in Babylonian society. Yet Ezra perceived the
spiritual poverty and servanthood of remaining in that affluent society.
But has extended loving kindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins- "To give us a reviving" uses the same word for "put" when we read of God putting a new heart and spirit in His revived people if they entered the new covenant at the restoration: “And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you” (Ez. 36:27-29). They revived the stones out of the heaps (Neh. 4:2). A new spirit was potentially given to them, God put in the heart of men like Nehemiah to revive the work (Neh. 2:12 s.w.). But this didn’t force them to be obedient. They chose not to be.
Ezekiel 37 had its primary fulfilment in the return under Ezra. Then, Israel was given “a quickening” (Ezra 9:9 LXX), in fulfilment of how the dry bones in captivity were revived. At that time, Judah could have fully revived. But most of them chose to stay in Babylon. If there had been a full revival, then the events of Ezekiel 38 and 39 would have taken place. It has been suggested that there was a primary fulfilment of Ezekiel 38/9 in an unrecorded invasion of the land at the time of the restoration. However, historical evidence for this is severely lacking . And yet the Scythian tribes such as Magog, Gomer, Meshech, Tubal etc. are all recorded as being the scourge of the Middle East at that time. They were marauding into more prosperous areas “to take a spoil”, especially “cattle and goods”, at around Ezekiel’s time. They could so easily have turned their attentions toward Israel. That invasion could have happened; but it didn’t. But because Israel were not faithful the temple was not built properly, and therefore the Ezekiel 38 invasion didn’t happen, and therefore Yahweh’s intervention and establishment of His Kingdom as described in Ezekiel 39 didn’t occur.
And to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem- Zech. 2:4 had foretold that “Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein”, seeing that Yahweh Himself would be as a wall of fire around her to protect her from her adversaries (Ezra had recognized this promise, that God would be a wall to them- Ezra 9:9). Note how this prophecy is introduced by an Angel with a measuring reed measuring out the rebuilt Zion (Zech. 2:1), just as we have in Ezekiel 40. But Judah disbelieved the promise of a Divine wall of fire, and insisted on building a physical wall to protect them; and the record in Nehemiah has plenty of reference to their setting up of bars and gates in their fear (Neh. 3:3,6,13-15). By doing so they disallowed the fulfilment of Ezekiel 38:11, and thereby precluded what was prophesied as subsequently following. If they had trusted Him and paid their tithes, their cattle would have multiplied, and the Scythian tribes would have come down to seek to take them, as Ezekiel 38:12,13 foretold. But as it happened, their cattle were diseased and their agriculture not blessed because of their dilatory attention to Yahweh’s house that lay waste (Haggai 1:11). So therefore there was no invasion, and no victory against the nations, and no Kingdom established at that time.
Ezra 9:10 Now, our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken
Your commandments- Again we note Ezra's total identity with his
sinful people. This is proof enough that there is no "guilt by
association" as believed by so many groups. Rather there is to be the very
opposite- freewill association of ourselves with the guilt of sinners,
that we might thereby appeal to them and intercede for them. And this was
in fact the very basis of our redemption through the work of the Lord
Jesus.
Ezra 9:11 which You have commanded by Your servants the prophets saying,
‘The land, to which you go to possess it, is an unclean land through the
uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, through their abominations, which
have filled it from one end to another with their filthiness- The people were warned that the temple had been destroyed because of
their previous “abominations”, and that the rebuilt temple was not to
feature any such abominations (Ez. 43:8; 44:6,7,13). “let it suffice you
of your abominations” they were told- and were then told not to allow the
uncircumcised into the temple, as they had been doing (Ez. 44:6,9). This
sounds as if the prophecy of Ezekiel was more command than prediction- to
those of his own day. But they returned, and committed the abominations
[s.w.] of the Gentiles (Ezra 9:1,11,14) and married their daughters; to
the extent that Malachi commented upon this: “Judah hath dealt
treacherously, and an abomination [s.w.] is committed in Israel and in
Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he
loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god” (Mal. 2:11).
Ezra 9:12 Now therefore don’t give your daughters to their sons, neither
take their daughters to your sons, nor seek their peace or their
prosperity forever; that you may be strong, and eat the good of the land,
and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever’- This
command directly addressed the human tendency to think that 'it won't
happen to me / my family'. The "abominations" of the land (:11) were
idolatry. Intermarriage was seen as inevitably involving the people in
idolatry, as we saw in :2,3. The implication is that marriage is the most
intimate of human relationships, and the spiritually weaker party will
almost inevitably bring down the spiritually stronger party to their
level. Solomon is the parade example. But it seems the lesson is never
learnt- because there is an inbuilt
Ezra 9:13 After all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our
great guilt, since You, our God, has punished us less than our iniquities
deserve, and has given us such a remnant- Ezra said that God had punished them less than
their iniquities deserved, somehow alluding to the prophecy of Is. 40:2,
which said that at the time of Zion’s restoration, God would admit to
having punished her “double for all her sins”. Yahweh in His love and pity
felt that He had punished them twice as much as they deserved; but Ezra
realized that in reality it was less than what they deserved. See on :8.
There are evident similarities between the vocabulary and style of
Zechariah, Job and the prophets of the restoration. Thus both Job and
Zechariah refer to the ideas of the court of Heaven, "the satan" etc. My
suggestion is that Job was rewritten during the exile, hence the many
points of contact between Job and Isaiah's prophecies about the
restoration. When we read that Job has suffered less than his iniquities
deserve (Job 11:6), this is the very term used to describe Israel's
sufferings in Babylon (Ezra 9:13). Job, "the servant of the Lord", is
being set up as Israel, just as that same term is used about Israel in
Babylon throughout the latter part of Isaiah. Job's mockery by the Arabian
friends perhaps parallels the Samaritan and Babylonian mockery of Judah;
his loss of children is very much the tragedy of Judah at the hands of the
Babylonians which Lamentations focuses upon. And Job's final revival and
restoration after repentance would therefore speak of the blessed
situation which Judah could have had at their return to the land. Job's
response to the words of God and Elihu would then speak of Judah's
intended repentance as a result of God's word spoken to them by prophets
like Haggai and Zechariah. There are many connections between Job and the
latter parts of Isaiah which speak about the restoration.
Ezra 9:14 shall we again break Your commandments, and join in affinity
with the peoples that do these abominations? Wouldn’t You be angry with us
until You had consumed us, so that there should be no remnant, nor any to
escape?-
The
covenant was not to be broken; the temple had been destroyed before
because of breaking covenant with Yahweh (Ez. 44:7). But Judah broke
covenant [s.w.] with Yahweh at the time of the restoration by marrying
Gentiles and worshipping their gods (Ezra 9:1,14). They were themselves
the remnant, and Ezra recognizes that now they too deserved to be
destroyed, leaving God as it were with no Israel (:15). His spiritual mind
however might have been driven to reason further, and perceive that indeed
Israel would no longer be Yahweh's people- and therefore He would seek
another people, on a different covenant basis. And that in fact was what
the restoration prophets had been saying, although Ezra's obsession with
the old covenant and teaching it had rather blinded him to that.
Ezra 9:15 Yahweh, the God of Israel, You are righteous- True
confession of sin always involves this recognition that God is right.
For we are left a remnant that has escaped, as it is this day. Behold, we are before You in our guiltiness- We must soberly ‘think of ourselves’ as someone who has something to contribute to the rest of the body, even if first of all we are not sure what it is (Rom. 15:3-8). We feel their weaknesses as if they are our own. Self interest must die; their wellbeing becomes all consuming. This is why men like Daniel and Nehemiah could feel that “we have sinned...”- not ‘they have sinned’. Ezra said that because we have sinned, we cannot lift up ourselves before Yahweh. And he cast himself down before Yahweh in demonstration of how much he was with his people in this (Ezra 9:15; 10:1)!
For we cannot remain before You because of this- Is. 66:22 and Ez. 44:15 use the same word: “But the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me [s.w. “remain before You”] to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord GOD”. But Ezra had to confess, using these very words of Isaiah and Ezekiel which he would have been familiar with, that they could not remain before Yahweh. They hadn’t lived the Kingdom life, and therefore the Kingdom prophecies could not come true in them. It makes a profitable exercise to consider all the times that Ezra and Nehemiah allude to the words of Isaiah and Ezekiel. It must have been heartbreaking for them to see the possibility of fulfilment within their grasp, and yet to know that their people didn’t see the wonder of it all.
"Remain before You" effectively means 'we cannot any longer be your people'. As discussed on :14, Ezra recognizes that now they too deserved to be destroyed, leaving God as it were with no Israel. His spiritual mind however might have been driven to reason further, and perceive that indeed Israel would no longer be Yahweh's people- and therefore He would seek another people, on a different covenant basis. And that in fact was what the restoration prophets had been saying, although Ezra's obsession with the old covenant and teaching it had rather blinded him to that.
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