Return to Jerusalem and Return to God

Today we see in this scripture the genealogy of all of those that went with Ezra from Babylon back to Jerusalem during the reign of King Artaxerxes. Ezra gathered all the people together by the river that runs to Ahava (which means love), they stayed there for three days. Ezra took inventory of the people that were in their group and realized that they didn’t have any Levites. For some reason none of the Levites had volunteered. Ezra had to have them recruited. I wonder if the Levites had forgotten their special calling or maybe they were discouraged. This makes me think about how we, as a church, tend to let the world do our job. Maybe we should be more willing to do what ever it is that God has called us to do.


Ezra proclaimed a three day fast to God there at the Ahava Canal. He wanted God’s leadership in which way they should travel and his protection for the journey. They had a lot of gold and silver with them, that robbers would love to take. They also had their wives and children with them, so they wanted to make sure they were safe. Ezra wanted to rely fully on God for their protection and didn’t want to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen. He had told the king that the hand of God was upon them so he wanted to prove it. Ezra and the people fasted and prayed for the protection and guidance along the way and Go heard them.

Next we read about the leaders going to Ezra to tell him about the people of Israel, the priests and the Levites marrying daughters of the people groups around them. This was a bad thing because it brought in things that were ungodly into their homes and ways of life. This is why God said in 2 Corinthians 6:14 not to be yoked together with an unbeliever. A marriage is the coming together of a man and woman to become ONE. Faith will be an issue and if you’re not on the same page someone or both will have to compromise his or her beliefs for the sake of the marriage.


The people were returning to the very thing that caused them to be driven out of Jerusalem to start with and to be taken into captivity. The horrible part about it is that the very religious leaders were taking part in these practices. They were supposed to be setting an example.

Ezra was so upset when he heard this that he tore his clothes and pulled his hair out of his head and out of his beard. At the evening sacrifice Ezra fell on his knees and lifted his hands to God and prayed to God saying he was ashamed of the sins that we, your people have committed. Did you notice the humility of Ezra in including himself in the prayers. Ezra begged God for mercy on his people.

Then the people come to their senses. A large group of Israelites gathered and saw Ezra praying and confessing to the Lord. They saw him weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God. This is where it starts to get a little confusing to me. They decided to get rid of all the wives and children that were of the land, the pagans.

God had warned them not to mingle with these people and now they were in a mess. Ezra told them they had to confess to God and do his will by separating themselves from their foreign wives. This affected over 100 families. How sad.

I really had a difficult time with this last chapter of Ezra. I know that God hates divorce so what was happening here? Malachi 2:16a: "I hate divorce, says the Lord God of Israel." “So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate” (Matthew 19:6) I read some notes on this text that explained that some of the practices of the pagan culture was to just live together as if being married. That sounds like today’s society. So, does that mean it wasn’t an actual divorce? My heart breaks every time I hear about divorce and especially when there are children involved. Even now my heart aches at the thought. How difficult was this for them to all decide to send away their wives and children? I did read in my study notes that these “marriages” were something that could be compared to a Christian marrying a devil worshiper. Above all else God must be first. He should be our everything and the people of Israel had done a terrible thing. To be with these pagan women was committing spiritual adultery. The good thing about this is that they did what they needed to do to make their hearts right with God, for themselves and for the good of their people. I do hope to get some more insight on this part or Ezra. Lord, thank you for your Word.