Ezra – a Second Moses
In later Jewish tradition Ezra was seen as a second Moses – leading the people back to the Promised Land and delivering the Law. And Ezra is a leading OT exponent of the art of interpreting the word of God and applying it in the light of new circumstances. So, where the law forbids marriage with people from the Canaanite tribes, Ezra interprets this as applying to the non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine in his own day. It’s a different group of people, but the underlying principle, the need to maintain the holiness of God’s people, and their undiluted loyalty to God, remains the same.
Commentators argue about the rights and wrongs of sending away the wives and children of these ‘mixed’ marriages. At the very least we can say that this was a drastic response to a specific situation, at the beginning of the restoration of Israel in the Promised Land. Here are some other considerations: No mention is made of what provision may have been made for the women and children involved. They may simply have returned to their families. There is evidence from Malachi (see Malachi 2:11-14) that in some cases men had divorced their Jewish wives in order to marry non-Jewish wives. And there is a particular focus on the leaders of the nation here – they have a special responsibility to set an example of loyalty to God.
In the New Testament we find the same call to holiness (see especially 2 Corinthians 6:14 – 7:1, ‘Do not be yoked together with unbelievers …’). However, those already married to non-believers are encouraged to stick with them and to try to win them over with the Christlikeness of their behaviour (see 1 Corinthians 7:12-14 and 1 Peter 3:1-2).
