_FOREIGN MARRIAGES._
EZRA ix.
The successful issue of Ezra's undertaking was speedily followed by a
bitter disappointment on the part of its leader, the experience of
which urged him to make a drastic reformation that rent many a happy
home asunder and filled Jerusalem with the grief of broken hearts.
During the obscure period that followed the dedication of the
temple--a period of which we have no historical remains--the rigorous
exclusiveness which had marked the conduct of the returned exiles when
they had rudely rejected the proposal of their Gentile neighbours to
assist them in rebuilding the temple was abandoned, and freedom of
intercourse went so far as to permit intermarriage with the
descendants of the Canaanite aborigines and the heathen population of
neighbouring nations. Ezra gives a list of tribal names closely
resembling the lists preserved in the history of early ages, when the
Hebrews first contemplated taking possession of the promised land;[96]
but it cannot be imagined that the ancient tribes preserved their
independent names and separate existence as late as the time of the
return--though the presence of the gypsies as a distinct people in
England to-day shows that racial distinction may be kept up for ages
in a mixed society. It is more probable that the list is literary,
that the names are reminiscences of the tribes as they were known in
ancient traditions. In addition to these old inhabitants of Canaan,
there are Ammonites and Moabites from across the Jordan, Egyptians,
and, lastly, most significantly separate from the Canaanite tribes,
those strange folk, the Amorites, who are discovered by recent
ethnological research to be of a totally different stock from that of
the Canaanite tribes, probably allied to a light-coloured people that
can be traced along the Libyan border, and possibly even of Aryan
origin. From all these races the Jews had taken them wives. So wide
was the gate flung open!
[96] Ezra. ix. 1.
This freedom of intermarriage may be viewed as a sign of general
laxity and indifference on the part of the citizens of Jerusalem, and
so Ezra seems to have regarded it. But it would be a mistake to
suppose that there was no serious purpose associated with it, by means
of which grave and patriotic men attempted to justify the practice. It
was a question whether the policy of exclusiveness had succeeded. The
temple had been built, it is true; and a city had risen among the
ruins of ancient Jerusalem. But poverty, oppression, hardship, and
disappointment had settled down on the little Judæan community, which
now found itself far worse off than the captives in Babylon. Feeble
and isolated, the Jews were quite unable to resist the attacks of
their jealous neighbours. Would it not be better to come to terms with
them, and from enemies convert them into allies? Then the policy of
exclusiveness involved commercial ruin; and men who knew how their
brethren in Chaldæa were enriching themselves by trade with the
heathen, were galled by a yoke which held them back from foreign
intercourse. It would seem to be advisable, on social as well as on
political grounds, that a new and more liberal course should be
pursued, if the wretched garrison was not to be starved out. Leading
aristocratic families were foremost in contracting the foreign
alliances. It is such as they who would profit most, as it is such as
they who would be most tempted to consider worldly motives and to
forgo the austerity of their fathers. There does not seem to have been
any one recognised head of the community after Zerubbabel; the
"princes" constituted a sort of informal oligarchy. Some of these
princes had taken foreign wives. Priests and Levites had also followed
the same course. It is a historical fact that the party of rigour is
not generally the official party. In the days of our Lord the priests
and rulers were mostly Sadducean, while the Pharisees were men of the
people. The English Puritans were not of the Court party. But in the
case before us the leaders of the people were divided. While we do not
meet any priests among the purists, some of the princes disapproved of
the laxity of their neighbours, and exposed it to Ezra.
Ezra was amazed, appalled. In the dramatic style which is quite
natural to an Oriental, he rent both his tunic and his outer mantle,
and he tore his hair and his long priestly beard. This expressed more
than the grief of mourning which is shown by tearing one garment and
cutting the hair. Like the high-priest when he ostentatiously rent his
clothes at what he wished to be regarded as blasphemy in the words of
Jesus, Ezra showed indignation and rage by his violent action. It was
a sign of his startled and horrified emotions; but no doubt it was
also intended to produce an impression on the people who gathered in
awe to watch the great ambassador, as he sat amazed and silent on the
temple pavement through the long hours of the autumn afternoon.
The grounds of Ezra's grief and anger may be learnt from the
remarkable prayer which he poured out when the stir occasioned by the
preparation of the vesper ceremonies roused him, and when the
ascending smoke of the evening sacrifice would naturally suggest to
him an occasion for drawing near to God. Welling up, hot and
passionate, his prayer is a revelation of the very heart of the
scribe. Ezra shows us what true prayer is--that it is laying bare the
heart and soul in the presence of God. The striking characteristic of
this outburst of Ezra's is that it does not contain a single petition.
There is no greater mistake in regard to prayer than the notion that
it is nothing more than the begging of specific favours from the
bounty of the Almighty. That is but a shallow kind of prayer at best.
In the deepest and most real prayer the soul is too near to God to ask
for any definite thing; it is just unbosoming itself to the Great
Confidant, just telling out its agony to the Father who can understand
everything and receive the whole burden of the anguished spirit.
Considering this prayer more in detail, we may notice, in the first
place, that Ezra comes out as a true priest, not indeed officiating at
the altar with ceremonial sacrifices, but identifying himself with the
people he represents, so that he takes to his own breast the shame of
what he regards as the sin of his people. Prostrate with
self-humiliation, he cries, "O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift
up my face to Thee, my God,"[97] and he speaks of the sins which have
just been made known to him as though he had a share in them, calling
them "_our_ iniquities" and "_our_ trespass."[98] Have we not here a
glimpse into that mystery of vicarious sin-bearing which is
consummated in the great intercession and sacrifice of our Lord?
Though himself a sinful man, and therefore at heart sharing the guilt
of his people by personal participation in it, as the holy Jesus could
not do, still in regard to the particular offence which he is now
deploring, Ezra is as innocent as an unfallen angel. Yet he blushes
for shame, and lies prostrate with confusion of face. He is such a
true patriot that he completely identifies himself with his people.
But in proportion as such an identification is felt, there must be an
involuntary sense of the sharing of guilt. It is vain to call it an
illusion of the imagination. Before the bar of strict justice Ezra was
as innocent of this one sin, as before the same bar Christ was
innocent of all sin. God could not really disapprove of him for it,
any more than He could look with disfavour on the great Sin-bearer.
But subjectively, in his own experience, Ezra did not feel less
poignant pangs of remorse than he would have felt if he had been
himself personally guilty. This perfect sympathy of true priesthood is
rarely experienced; but since Christians are called to be priests, to
make intercession, and to bear one another's burdens, something
approaching it must be shared by all the followers of Christ; they who
would go forth as saviours of their brethren must feel it acutely. The
sin-bearing sacrifice of Christ stands alone in its perfect efficacy,
and many mysteries crowd about it that cannot be explained by any
human analogies. Still here and there we come across faint likenesses
in the higher experiences of the better men, enough to suggest that
our Lord's passion was not a prodigy, that it was really in harmony
with the laws by which God governs the moral universe.
[97] Ezra ix. 6.
[98] _Ibid._
In thus confessing the sin of the people before God, but in language
which the people who shared with him a reverence for The Law could
hear, no doubt Ezra hoped to move them also to share in his feelings
of shame and abhorrence for the practices he was deploring. He came
dangerously near to the fatal mistake of preaching through a prayer,
by "praying at" the congregation. He was evidently too deeply moved to
be guilty of an insincerity, a piece of profanity, at which every
devout soul must revolt. Nevertheless the very exercise of public
prayer--prayer uttered audibly, and conducted by the leader of a
congregation--means that this is to be an inducement for the people to
join in the worship. The officiating minister is not merely to pray
before the congregation, while the people kneel as silent auditors.
His prayer is designed to guide and help their prayers, so that there
may be "common prayer" throughout the whole assembly. In this way it
may be possible for him to influence men and women by praying with
them, as he can never do by directly preaching to them. The essential
point is that the prayer must first of all be real on the part of the
leader--that he must be truly addressing God, and then that his
intention with regard to the people must be not to exhort them through
his prayer, but simply to induce them to join him in it.
Let us now inquire what was the nature of the sin which so grievously
distressed Ezra, and which he regarded as so heavy a slur on the
character of his people in the sight of God. On the surface of it,
there was just a question of policy. Some have argued that the party
of rigour was mistaken, that its course was suicidal, that the only
way of preserving the little colony was by means of well-adjusted
alliances with its neighbours--a low view of the question which Ezra
would not have glanced at for a moment, because with his supreme faith
in God no consideration of worldly expediency or political diplomacy
could be allowed to deflect him from the path indicated, as he
thought, by the Divine will. But a higher line of opposition has been
taken. It has been said that Ezra was illiberal, uncharitable,
culpably narrow, and heartlessly harsh. That the man who could pour
forth such a prayer as this, every sentence of which throbs with
emotion, every word of which tingles with intense feeling--that this
man was heartless cannot be believed. Still it may be urged that Ezra
took a very different view from that suggested by the genial outlook
across the nations which we meet in Isaiah. The lovely idyll of Ruth
defends the course he condemned so unsparingly. The Book of Jonah was
written directly in rebuke of one form of Jewish exclusiveness. Ezra
was going even further than the Book of Deuteronomy, which had allowed
marriages with the heathen,[99] and had laid down definite marriage
laws in regard to foreign connections.[100] It cannot be maintained
that all the races named by Ezra were excluded. Could it be just to
condemn the Jews for not having followed the later and more exacting
edition of The Law, which Ezra had only just brought up with him, and
which had not been known by the offenders?
[99] Deut. xxi. 13.
[100] Deut. xxiii. 1-8.
In trying to answer these questions, we must start from one clear
fact. Ezra is not merely guided by a certain view of policy. He may be
mistaken, but he is deeply conscientious, his motive is intensely
religious. Whether rightly or wrongly, he is quite persuaded that the
social condition at which he is so grievously shocked is directly
opposed to the known will of God. "We have forsaken Thy commandments,"
he exclaims. But what commandments, we may ask, seeing that the people
of Jerusalem did not possess a law that went so far as Ezra was
requiring of them? His own language here comes in most appositely.
Ezra does not appeal to Deuteronomy, though he may have had a passage
from that book in mind,[101] neither does he produce the Law Book
which he has brought up with him from Babylon and to which reference
is made in our version of the decree of Artaxerxes;[102] but he turns
to the prophets, not with reference to any of their specific
utterances, but in the most general way, implying that his view is
derived from the broad stream of prophecy in its whole course and
character. In his prayer he describes the broken commandments as
"those which Thou hast commanded by Thy servants the prophets." This
is the more remarkable because the prophets did not favour the
scrupulous observance of external rules, but dwelt on great principles
of righteousness. Some of them took the liberal side, and expressed
decidedly cosmopolitan ideas in regard to foreign nations as Ezra must
have been aware. He may have mentally anticipated the excuses which
would be urged in reliance on isolated utterances of this character.
Still, on a survey of the whole course of prophecy, he is persuaded
that it is opposed to the practices which he condemns. He throws his
conclusion into a definite sentence, after the manner of a verbal
quotation,[103] but this is only in accordance with the vivid,
dramatic style of Semitic literature, and what he really means is that
the spirit of his national prophecy and the principles laid down by
the recognised prophets support him in the position which he has taken
up. These prophets fought against all corrupt practices, and in
particular they waged ceaseless war with the introduction of
heathenish manners to the religious and social life of Israel. It is
here that Ezra finds them to be powerful allies in his stern
reformation. They furnish him, so to speak, with his major premiss,
and that is indisputable. His weak place is in his minor premiss,
viz., in the notion that intermarriage with Gentile neighbours
necessarily involves the introduction of corrupt heathenish habits.
This he quietly assumes. But there is much to be said for his
position, especially when we note that he is not now concerned with
the Samaritans, with whom the temple-builders came into contact and
who accepted some measure of the Jewish faith, but in some cases with
known idolaters--the Egyptians for instance. The complex social and
moral problems which surround the quarrel on which Ezra here embarks
will come before us more fully as we proceed. At present it may
suffice for us to see that Ezra rests his action on his conception of
the main characteristics of the teaching of the prophets.
[101] Deut. vii. 3.
[102] Ezra vii. 14.
[103] Ezra ix. 11.
Further, his reading of history comes to his aid. He perceives that
it was the adoption of heathenish practices that necessitated the
severe chastisement of the captivity. God had only spared a small
remnant of the guilty people. But He had been very gracious to that
remnant, giving them "a nail in His holy place";[104] _i.e._, a
fixture in the restored sanctuary, though as yet, as it were, but at
one small point, because so few had returned to enjoy the privileges
of the sacred temple worship. Now even this nail might be drawn. Will
the escaped remnant be so foolish as to imitate the sins of their
forefathers, and risk the slight hold which they have as yet obtained
in the renewed centre of Divine favour? So to repudiate the lessons of
the captivity, which should have been branded irrevocably by the hot
irons of its cruel hardships, what was this but a sign of the most
desperate depravity? Ezra could see no hope even of a remnant escaping
from the wrath which would consume the people who were guilty of such
wilful, such open-eyed apostasy.
[104] Ezra ix. 8.
In the concluding sentences of his prayer Ezra appeals to the
righteousness of God, who had permitted the remnant to escape at the
time of the Babylonian Captivity, saying, "O Lord, the God of Israel,
Thou art righteous; for we are left a remnant that is escaped, as it
is this day."[105] Some have supposed that God's righteousness here
stands for His goodness, and that Ezra really means the mercy which
spared the remnant. But this interpretation is contrary to usage, and
quite opposed to the spirit of the prayer. Ezra has referred to the
mercy of God earlier, but in his final sentences he has another
thought in mind. The prayer ends in gloom and despondency--"behold,
we are before Thee in our guiltiness; for none can stand before Thee
because of this."[106] The righteousness of God, then, is seen in the
fact that _only_ a remnant was spared. Ezra does not plead for the
pardon of the guilty people, as Moses did in his famous prayer of
intercession.[107] As yet they are not conscious of their sin. To
forgive them before they have owned their guilt would be immoral. The
first condition of pardon is confession. "_If we confess_ our sins, He
is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness."[108] Then, indeed, the very righteousness
of God favours the pardon of the sinner. But till this state of
contrition is reached, not only can there be no thought of
forgiveness, but the sternest, darkest thoughts of sin are most right
and fitting. Ezra is far too much in earnest simply to wish to help
his people to escape from the consequences of their conduct. This
would not be salvation. It would be moral shipwreck. The great need is
to be saved from the evil conduct itself. It is to this end that the
very passion of his soul is directed. Here we perceive the spirit of
the true reformer. But the evangelist cannot afford to dispense with
something of the same spirit, although he can add the gracious
encouragements of a gospel; for the only true gospel promises
deliverance from sin itself in the first instance as from the greatest
of all evils, and deliverance from no other evil except on condition
of freedom from this.
[105] Ezra ix. 15.
[106] Ezra ix. 15.
[107] Exod. xxxii. 31, 32.
[108] 1 John i. 9.