Ezra 10:3

_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._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

1-5 Shechaniah owned the national guilt. The case is sad, but it is not desperate; the disease threatening, but not incurable. Now that the people begin to lament, a spirit of repentance seems to be poured out; now there is hope that God will forgive, and have mercy. The sin that rightly troubles us, shall not ruin us. In melancholy times we must observe what makes for us, as well as against us. And there may be good hopes through grace, even where there is the sense of great guilt before God. The case is plain; what has been done amiss, must be undone again as far as possible; nothing less than this is true repentance. Sin must be put away, with a resolution never to have any thing more to do with it. What has been unjustly got, must be restored. Arise, be of good courage. Weeping, in this case, is good, but reforming is better. As to being unequally yoked with unbelievers, such marria...

Verse Ezra 10:3. _LET US MAKE A COVENANT_] נכרת ברית _nichrath berith, let_ _us cut_ or _divide the covenant sacrifice_. Genesis 15:10....

LET IT BE DONE ACCORDING TO THE LAW - i. e., let a formal “bill of divorcement” be given to each foreign wife, whereby she will be restored to the condition of an unmarried woman, and be free to marry another husband (see Deuteronomy 24:1). The facility of divorce among the Jews is well-known. According to many of the rabbis, a bill of divorcement might he given by the husband for the most trivial cause. Thus, no legal difficulty stood in the way of Shechaniah’s proposition; and Ezra regarded it as necessary for the moral and religious welfare of the people....

EXPOSITION REPENTANCE OF THE PEOPLE, AND COVENANT SWORN TO, ON THE RECOMMENDATION OF SHECHANIAH (Ezra 10:1). While Ezra was uttering his prayer aloud, upon his knees, in front of the temple, where the evening sacrifice was being offered upon the great brazen altar (Ezra 3:2), the people gathered about him, heard what he said, and had their feelings so stirred that numbers of them burst into tears and "wept very sore" (Ezra 10:1). When he had ended, Sheehaniah, the son of Jehiel, took the word, and suggested an

NOW THEREFORE LET US MAKE A COVENANT WITH OUR GOD,.... Renew our covenant with him, and lay ourselves under fresh obligation by promise and oath, and unanimously agree TO PUT AWAY ALL THE WIVES, AND SUCH AS ARE BORN OF THEM; he means all the strange wives, such marriages being unlawful; and such wives might the more easily be put away, since bills of divorce were in frequent use with the Jews, and the children of such also being illegitimate; and the rather they were to be put away, lest they should corrupt other children, or get into the affections of their fathers, which might lead on to receive their mothers again, and especially this was to be done as a punishment of their sin: though no doubt but a provision was to be made, and was made, for the maintenance both of wives and children: ACCORDING TO THE COUNSEL OF MY LORD; either of Ezra, whom he honours with this title, being a rul...

CHAPTER 10 _ 1. The effect of Ezra's prayer on the people (Ezra 10:1)_ 2. Ezra summons an assembly (Ezra 10:5) 3. The gathering, confession and the evil judged (Ezra 10:9) 4. The register of those who had married strange women (Ezra 10:18) Ezra 10:1. Ezra's prayer, confession and humiliation were before the house of the LORD.” The people saw his great sorrow and his tears, they heard his words confessing the nation's sins. It produced a wonderful effect among the people. “There assembled unto him out of Israel a great congregation of me

THE PEOPLE SWEAR TO PUT AWAY THEIR FOREIGN WIVES. The narrative now proceeds in the third person. Ezra 10:2. Shecaniah: a common name; not necessarily identical with the person of this name referred to in Ezra 10:26. YET NOW: _i.e._ nevertheless; the evil could be done away by making a covenant with God (see Ezra 10:3). Ezra 10:3. to put away all the wives. them: it does not seem to have struck Ezra that a better and more humane way would have been to receive the wives and children into the pale of Judaism....

SUCH AS ARE BORN. It does not appear that Shechaniah's proposal was carried out. Compare verses: Ezra 10:11; Ezra 10:14. COUNSEL. See Psalms 33:11; Psalms 73:24; Psalms 106:13.Proverbs 8:14; Proverbs 19:21.Isaiah 46:10;...

_let us make a covenant_&c. Compare other covenants undertaken by the people, e.g. 2 Chronicles 15:12; 2 Chronicles 29:10; 2 Chronicles 34:31-32; Nehemiah 10:29; Jeremiah 34:15. _to put away the wives_&c. Either legal divorce or the annulling of the marriages by public decree. The marriages had been valid, but were now declared sinful. The method of separation was forcible expulsion. The case of the wives and of their children, who had become -proselytes" and embraced the Israelite rel