“Now make your confession to God, the God of your ancestors, and do what he wants you to do: Separate yourselves from the people of the land and from your foreign wives.”” (Ezra 10:11, The Message)
An exercise in pain here in Ezra 10. Many of those who returned (although it was a very small percentage) had married foreign wives against God's express command (Deut 7.3,4), and obviously had not learned the lesson of 70 years in exile! Ezra prays a prayer of community repentance in Ezra 9; then, as the pericope heading states in Ezra 10: "Ezra takes charge."
He obviously had a strong personality.
Was it God's will that they take this step? Ezra prays a prayer of repentance for the sin of the people, however there is never a clear word from the Lord instructing him to take the next step...except what is clearly written in the law of Moses. One presumes that this was all the "word" that Ezra needed, and it is instructive that the people all agreed with him.
This must have been a very painful scene and aftermath, but that is the nature of clearing out sin. It is painful and it is costly. There is no mention of what provision is made for the divorced wives and kids. One assumes that the fiscal responsibility still rested on the fathers who had married foreign wives, so that they felt the pain of their sin for a long time afterward, but we can't be sure because the text doesn't say.
God takes sin very seriously. We should also.
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