Ezra 10:2

This verse follows straight on from Ezra’s long prayer of confession in Ezra 9:6–15. When Ezra reached Jerusalem he found that many of the returned exiles had married women of the peoples around them, which God’s law forbade (Deuteronomy 7:3–4). He tore his clothes, pulled out his hair and fell before God in grief (Ezra 9:3–5). All of Ezra 9 is the background to these verses. The events take place in Jerusalem some eighty years after the first exiles came home from Babylon and about sixty years after the temple was rebuilt, while the small community was still working to live again as God’s people in their own land.

Ezra “prayed”, pâlal, a verb meaning to pray or to intercede, from a root that probably meant to intervene. He stands between a guilty people and God and pleads for them. He also “confessed”, yâdâh, a verb that can mean to praise or give thanks as well as to confess. Here it is the open acknowledgement of guilt, and Ezra, himself a faithful man, owns the nation’s sin as his own. He does this “weeping”, bâkâh, which means to weep aloud, to bemoan and to make lamentation, an outward grief that others could see and hear. And he is “casting himself down”, lying face down on the ground in humility, “before the house of God”, the rebuilt temple, where the LORD had set his name and where the nation came to confess and seek him.

Shechaniah, “the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam”, is named carefully, and he steps forward at the moment of greatest grief to speak to Ezra. The list of those who had taken foreign wives closes the chapter (Ezra 10:20–44), and among the sons of Elam it names a Jehiel, probably Shechaniah’s own father. So when he says “we”, he is confessing a sin that had touched his own household. He includes himself with the guilty and speaks for the whole people.

“Trespassed” is mâʻal, a word for acting unfaithfully or treacherously, a breach of trust, especially toward God and what belongs to him. Its root sense is to cover up, to act covertly. Shechaniah names the sin first as an offence against “our God” and his covenant, and only then describes what they did.

The wives are “strange”, nokrîy, which means foreign, a foreigner. They were “of the people of the land”, the nations living around the returned exiles, whom Ezra had already listed: Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians and Amorites (Ezra 9:1).

Right after the confession comes the most striking line of the passage: “yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing.” The word for hope, miqveh, means an expectation, something waited for. Shechaniah had just admitted a grave and widespread sin, and he still saw a way back to God.

That hope rested on who God is. Through Isaiah God calls the wicked to forsake his way and return to the LORD, who will have mercy and abundantly pardon (Isaiah 55:7). Proverbs promises mercy to the one who confesses and forsakes his sins (Proverbs 28:13). God invites his people to reason with him, though their sins be as scarlet (Isaiah 1:18). Jeremiah, grieving over ruined Jerusalem, found hope in the LORD’s mercies, which are new every morning (Lamentations 3:21–23). And God says that he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but would have him turn and live (Ezekiel 18:23).

Shechaniah’s hope was tied to turning back. It rested on God’s readiness to forgive, and it led straight into action, as the next verse shows. Confession, hope and obedience belong together in his words.

“Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God.” The Hebrew speaks of cutting a covenant: the verb under “make”, kârath, means to cut and is the usual verb for making a covenant. The word for covenant, bᵉrîyth, means a covenant, alliance or league. This is a pledge the people make to God, within the covenant and law he had already given them. They bind themselves to put right what they had broken.

The pledge is “to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them”. The verb, yâtsâʼ, means to go or come out, and in this form to bring out or send out. The KJV renders it “put away”, and it means dissolving these marriages and sending the wives out of the households. The words “such as are born of them” include the children, who would go with their mothers. This was the most painful part of the proposal, and the human cost of it was immense.

The covenant was to follow “the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God”. “My lord” most likely means Ezra, whom Shechaniah addresses with respect, and whose leadership and grief had moved the people. The Hebrew word here is ʼĂdônây, the form used of the Lord God himself, so the phrase can also be heard as the counsel of the Lord. Those who “tremble” are chârêd, a word meaning fearful or reverent, people who take God’s commandment with the utmost seriousness. Godly counsel matters, for where no counsel is, the people fall (Proverbs 11:14).

“And let it be done according to the law.” Shechaniah grounds the whole proposal in God’s revealed will, so that it would be done in obedience rather than in a burst of feeling. Behind it stands the call God gave Israel long before: “be holy; for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44–45).

Shechaniah turns to Ezra with a direct appeal. “Arise” is qûwm (also written qum), to rise or stand up. Ezra was still lying in grief before the house of God, and Shechaniah calls him up from mourning to lead.

“For this matter belongeth unto thee.” The word for “matter” is dâbâr, which means a word or speech and, as a separate sense, a matter, affair or thing. Here it is the business at hand, the sin and the covenant proposed to deal with it. The task was Ezra’s because he was a priest and a scribe skilled in the law of Moses (Ezra 7:6), the man with the spiritual and legal standing to oversee such a reform. The people themselves now recognised it as his trust.

“We also will be with thee.” Shechaniah promises that the repentant people will stand behind Ezra. The task would be painful and unpopular, and he would be carrying it with the people at his side.

“Be of good courage” is châzaq, to be strong, firm or courageous, and in some forms to strengthen or encourage. It is the word of Moses to Israel and of the LORD to Joshua as they faced the conquest of the land (Deuteronomy 31:6, Joshua 1:9), and Paul calls the church to stand fast in the faith and be strong in the same way (1 Corinthians 16:13). The verse ends with the plainest words of all: “and do it.” Repentance that had begun in tears was now to show itself in deeds.

“Then arose Ezra.” The same verb, qûwm, that Shechaniah used in his appeal now describes Ezra’s answer. The man who had lain face down in grief (Ezra 9:3–5) stands up and takes charge.

He made “the chief priests, the Levites, and all Israel” swear. The spiritual leaders come first, the men who kept the law and bore the chief responsibility for the nation’s holiness, and then the whole people. The leaders set the example, and the commitment reached every part of the community.

To “swear” is shâbaʻ, to bind oneself by oath. An oath in Israel was made before God, with God as witness, and breaking it brought his judgment. God’s law says that a man who vows to the LORD must keep his word (Numbers 30:2), that he must not be slow to pay his vow (Deuteronomy 23:21), and that it is better not to vow than to vow and not pay (Ecclesiastes 5:4–5).

They swore “that they should do according to this word”. “Word” here is again dâbâr, the same Hebrew word the KJV rendered “matter” in verse 4, and it points back to Shechaniah’s proposal in verse 3. “And they sware.” The people bound themselves, and the rest of Ezra 10 tells how the reform was carried out. It was a solemn recommitment to God’s law and to being a people set apart for him, as he had said: “ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine” (Leviticus 20:26). Some years later Israel would again bind itself in writing to God’s law (Nehemiah 9:38).

Ezra interceded for a sinful people and grieved over their sin, and in this he points to Christ. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and he is the great High Priest who intercedes for his people, so that we can come boldly to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:14–16). Ezra could share the people’s shame. Christ, who knew no sin, was made sin for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The hope Shechaniah declared depended on the people turning back and keeping their oath. The hope God gives in Christ is a lively hope, born of his resurrection (1 Peter 1:3), and it rests on the proof of God’s love, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Israel swore to put away the foreign wives. Christ appeared once to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself (Hebrews 9:26).

Israel bound itself by oath to a written law that it kept only in part. God promised a new covenant in which he would write his law on his people’s hearts (Jeremiah 31:31–34), and Christ is the mediator of that better covenant (Hebrews 8:6). What the law could not do, God did by sending his Son, so that its righteousness is fulfilled in those who walk after the Spirit (Romans 8:3–4). Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, to make it holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25–27). So the call to holiness remains, “be ye holy in all manner of conversation” (1 Peter 1:15), and God seeks those who worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23–24).

The people’s weeping in Ezra 10:1 finds its answer in the gospel call to repent. John the Baptist told his hearers to bring forth fruits meet for repentance (Matthew 3:8), and Peter called Israel to repent and be converted, that their sins might be blotted out (Acts 3:19). Shechaniah’s words to Ezra have their echo too. Jesus tells his disciples to be of good cheer because he has overcome the world (John 16:33), sends them out with all authority behind them and the promise that he is with them always (Matthew 28:18–20), and promises the Comforter, so that they will never be left alone (John 14:16–18).

These verses give us repentance whole: grief that others can see, confession that owns the sin as our own, hope that rests on God’s mercy, a concrete step, and a promise kept. The order matters. Shechaniah speaks of hope before anything has been put right, because the hope rests on God and the obedience grows from it.

The passage also shows who God is. He hears the confession of his people, and even after grave unfaithfulness there is hope with him. He takes his covenant seriously, and he takes their promises seriously too. And he gives his people to one another, so that a leader called to a hard task hears “we also will be with thee”, and the courage to act comes from him.