Ezra 9:1 Commentary and Bible Study

This chapter gives us a tremendous lesson on repentance: repentance of personal sin; repentance of sin in the church. It is soon after 458 BC. The second return of Israelites from Babylon to Jerusalem has just taken place – a four-month journey, a thousand-mile journey, not as the crow flies but by the route the people were compelled to take. The first return consisted of some 42,000 plus people. That was 80 years previously. Now there are altogether about 8000, and here they have arrived in Judah, in Jerusalem. They are led by Ezra, who was appointed by the king of the Medo-Persian Empire to be the governor for the time being, of Jerusalem and Judah. It's been an astonishing series of provisions from the Lord that has led to this. Now they are settled, and some of the more earnest princes among the people drop this great bombshell. One presumes that those who came to Ezra were among the more earnest (verse 4), because many of the princes were guilty of what is going to be described. They report that there has been a great swerving away from the standards which the people should have followed. Very curiously, it is not the people of the lands who are described. It is the ancient Canaanite enemies of the people who occupied the land before it was given to the children of Israel. So there are the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the other previous occupants who are mentioned. It is likely that representatives of these different peoples were still present so many years later in the regions around Jerusalem, but that cannot be why these names are mentioned. Ezra is so good at making accurate lists, keeping accounts, naming the heads of families. Why doesn't he name the nations around? He says, ‘They have not separated themselves from the people of the lands’, then he mentions the ancient Canaanites. But putting it that way would have made a great impact upon his hearers when he came to rehearse these things and charge the people, because the naming of these people takes Ezra’s mind and the minds of all the people in due course, back to the time of Moses and the giving of the law. Ezra is going to be talking about the law of Moses that has been, not just broken, but shattered. He is going to use a very strong word for it. So the nations which he names are not the literal neighbours, but the ancient neighbours. The sin is so bad, it is directly against the commands of God concerning those ancient nations. Israel was to have nothing to do with their evil practices. But they have adopted the lifestyle of the Canaanites, so to speak, around them. They have adopted their culture; they have adopted their idols. How long has it taken for them to do this? It is eighty years since the first return – plenty of time for deterioration and decay – and people have drifted far from the mark. They have forgotten the law of separation. They have forgotten even the cause of their punishment as a nation, and their ever being carried away to Babylon in captivity; they’ve forgotten why God treated them in this way.