Ezra 10:1 says, Now when Ezra had prayed, and when he had confessed, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, there assembled unto him out of Israel a very great congregation of men and women and children: for the people wept very sore. Ezra prayed. He didn’t just kneel down and bow his head to pray, but he confessed while crying from a broken heart and throwing himself down before the house of the Lord. He wasn’t just going through the motions without any real feeling but truly repented and was grieved by the sins of the people, and even his own, before God. I think we can say he knew that sin was real otherwise there would be nothing to confess to God. We don’t often grieve like this over the sins of the nation, but even if we do, we cannot do so from an air of superiority. We will always be sinners by our own merit, but we can be forgiven sinners if we put our faith in Jesus Christ and accept Him as our Savior and Lord.
Verse two adds, And Shechaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered and said unto Ezra, We have trespassed against our God, and have taken strange wives of the people of the land: yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. One of the men there, Shechaniah, confessed to Ezra that the people of Israel had trespassed against God, and the one way that he singled out was that they had taken wives of the people of the land, which God had told them not to do. If we have strayed away from God, it doesn’t matter what our sin is, because all sins are serious sins to God, so we need to confess and be brokenhearted before God. Even though all our sins are forgiven when put our faith in Jesus Christ, that doesn’t mean that we can ever take them lightly.
Verse three continues, Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law. Shechaniah proposed that they make a covenant with God to put away their foreign wives and the children born of them and do it according to the law. According to the law, they shouldn’t have been married to them to start with. Matthew Henry points out that from other scripture we see that Shechaniah was not married to a foreign wife, but his father was. He also states that if we are married to sin that we must divorce ourselves from it. Since divorce is also against God's law and He expects his people to provide for their children, I have to wonder if this was God's plan or Shechaniah’s, since we aren’t told that God led Him to this solution. I guess my concern is that I don’t think we should ever break one of God’s laws to correct our failure t keep another.
Verse four says, Arise; for this matter belongeth unto thee: we also will be with thee: be of good courage, and do it. Shechaniah then told Ezra to arise and be of good courage and do as he had suggested. I believe that since Ezra was humbling himself in prayer before God that God could have spoken to him directly to give him the answer. Something needed to be done, but I am not sure this was the best way to do it, and we still don’t have any statement that God was the One Who devised this plan. As Matthew Henry also points out, a believer should not divorce a non-believing wife unless she wants a divorce. To me, it would seem having the men take responsibility and remove any idols from the home and to teach their children to worship God alone would have been a better solution, though that is but my opinion.
Verse five adds, Then arose Ezra, and made the chief priests, the Levites, and all Israel, to swear that they should do according to this word. And they sware. Ezra then got up and made the chief priests, the Levites, and all the people of Israel swear by this resolution. I don’t think we can force people to do the right thing and it be very effective, especially when it comes to a right relationship with God. Once more, we are not told that Ezra made them do what God had commanded, but to follow the resolution that Shechaniah had proposed. Again, that would be my understanding of the situation. I do know that we cannot force people to repent and accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord. All we can do is present the gospel to them and invite them to accept Him, and if you haven’t, I will invite you to do so today.
No comments:
Post a Comment