Daily Lesson for September 22, 2020

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Ezra chapter 10 verses 9 through 15:

9 Then all the people of Judah and Benjamin assembled at Jerusalem within the three days; it was the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month. All the people sat in the open square before the house of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain. 10 Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have trespassed and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of Israel. 11 Now make confession to the Lord the God of your ancestors, and do his will; separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.” 12 Then all the assembly answered with a loud voice, “It is so; we must do as you have said. 13 But the people are many, and it is a time of heavy rain; we cannot stand in the open. Nor is this a task for one day or for two, for many of us have transgressed in this matter. 14 Let our officials represent the whole assembly, and let all in our towns who have taken foreign wives come at appointed times, and with them the elders and judges of every town, until the fierce wrath of our God on this account is averted from us.” 15 Only Jonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah opposed this, and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levites supported them.

This Scripture, for me, is one of the most difficult to read and accept.

The Israelites have returned to the Israel after exile. Some of them have subsequently married foreign women. With the backing of the Persian King Artaxerxes, the priest Ezra returns to the Jewish homeland to re-establish the Temple and "build a wall" around the Jewish people. He then institutes a draconian policy of dismissing the wives -- some versions add children -- of the men who married foreign women.

The irony of this is that Ezra's policy of separating the foreigners is done by force of law supported by foreign aid. Purity then seems only to have limited meaning. When I read the text I always wonder if the hard rain that is referred to in the text -- an oddity for the Bible which rarely notes weather without meaning -- is a way of telling us God wept on this sad occasion.

The Scripture says two men, Jonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah were opposed to the what took place on that day. But the Bible is ambiguous. Were they opposed to Ezra's general policy, or only to the way in which it was to be carried out?

I prefer the former, as the latter means there was no one to speak up for the sake of these families -- except, of course the whole book of Ruth, which as I already noted in my understanding of the story is actually a dissenting opinion written against Ezra's ethnocentric policies.

For, as the writer of Ruth notes, if there hadn't been foreign marriage there wouldn't have been Obed. And if there hadn't been Obed there wouldn't have been Jesse. And if there hadn't been Jesse there wouldn't have been David.

And, I might add, if there hadn't been David there wouldn't have been Jesus.

NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible through. Over the next several days we'll be reading the book of Nehemiah. Tomorrow we begin with chapters 1-5.