_THE HOME SACRIFICED TO THE CHURCH._
EZRA x.
Ezra's narrative, written in the first person, ceases with his prayer,
the conclusion of which brings us to the end of the ninth chapter of
our Book of Ezra; at the tenth chapter the chronicler resumes his
story, describing, however, the events which immediately follow. His
writing is here as graphic as Ezra's, and if it is not taken from
notes left by the scribe, at all events it would seem to be drawn from
the report of another eye-witness; for it describes most remarkable
scenes with a vividness that brings them before the mind's eye, so
that the reader cannot study them even at this late day without a pang
of sympathy.
Ezra's prayer and confession, his grievous weeping and prostrate
humiliation before God, deeply affected the spectators; and as the
news spread through the city, a very great congregation of men, women,
and children assembled together to gaze at the strange spectacle. They
could not gaze unmoved. Deep emotion is contagious. The man who is
himself profoundly convinced and intensely concerned with his
religious ideas will certainly win disciples. Where the soundest
arguments have failed to persuade, a single note of sincere faith
often strikes home. It is the passion of the orator that rouses the
multitude, and even where there is no oratory the passion of true
feeling pleads with irresistible eloquence. Ezra had not to speak a
word to the people. What he was, what he felt, his agony of shame, his
agony of prayer--all this melted them to tears, and a cry of
lamentation went up from the gathered multitudes in the temple courts.
Their grief was more than a sentimental reflection of the scribe's
distress, for the Jews could see plainly that it was for them and for
their miserable condition that this ambassador from the Persian court
was mourning so piteously. His sorrow was wholly vicarious. By no
calamity or offence of his own, but simply by what he regarded as
their wretched fall, Ezra was now plunged into heart-broken agony.
Such a result of their conduct could not but excite the keenest
self-reproaches in the breasts of all who in any degree shared his
view of the situation. Then the only path of amendment visible before
them was one that involved the violent rupture of home ties; the cruel
severance of husband and wife, of parent and child; the complete
sacrifice of human love on what appeared to be the altar of duty to
God. It was indeed a bitter hour for the Jews who felt themselves to
be offenders, and for their innocent wives and children who would be
involved in any attempted reformation.
The confusion was arrested by the voice of one man, a layman named
Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, who came to the assistance of Ezra as a
volunteer spokesman of the people. This man entirely surrendered to
Ezra's view, making a frank and unreserved confession of his own and
the people's sin. So far then Ezra has won his point. He has begun to
gain assent from among the offenders. Shecaniah adds to his confession
a sentence of some ambiguity, saying, "Yet now there is hope for
Israel concerning this thing."[109] This might be thought to mean that
God was merciful, and that there was hope in the penitent attitude of
the congregation that He would take pity on the people and not deal
hardly with them. But the similarity of the phraseology to the words
of the last verse of the previous chapter, where the expression
"because of this"[110] plainly points to the offence as the one thing
in view, shows that the allusion here is to that offence, and not to
the more recent signs of penitence. Shecaniah means, then, that there
is hope concerning this matter of the foreign marriages--viz., that
they may be rooted out of Israel. The hope is for a reformation, not
for any condoning of the offence. It means despair to the unhappy
wives, the end of all home peace and joy in many a household--a lurid
hope surely, and hardly worthy of the name except on the lips of a
fanatic. Shecaniah now proceeds to make a definite proposal. He would
have the people enter into a solemn covenant with God. They are not
only to undergo a great domestic reformation, but they are to take a
vow in the sight of God that they will carry it through. Shecaniah
shows the unreflecting zeal of a raw convert; an officious person, a
meddler, he is too bold and forward for one whose place is the
penitent's bench. The covenant is to pledge the people to divorce
their foreign wives. Yet the unfeeling man will not soften his
proposal by any euphemism, nor will he hide its more odious features.
He deliberately adds that the children should be sent away with their
mothers. The nests are to be cleared of the whole brood.
[109] Ezra x. 2.
[110] Ezra ix. 15.
Ezra had not ventured to draw out such a direful programme. But
Shecaniah says that this is "according to the counsel of my
lord,"[111] using terms of unwonted obsequiousness--unless, as seems
less likely, the phrase is meant to apply to God, _i.e._, to be read,
"According to the counsel of _The Lord_." Shecaniah evidently gathered
the unexpressed opinion of Ezra from the language of his prayer and
from his general attitude. This was the only way out of the
difficulty, the logical conclusion from what was now admitted. Ezra
saw it clearly enough, but it wanted a man of coarser fibre to say it.
Shecaniah goes further, and claims the concurrence of all who "tremble
at the words of the God of Israel." These people have been mentioned
before as forming the nucleus of the congregation that gathered about
Ezra.[112] Then this outspoken man distinctly claims the authority of
The Law for his proposition. Ezra had based his view of the heathen
marriages on the general character of the teaching of the prophets;
Shecaniah now appeals to The Law as the authority for his scheme of
wholesale divorce. This is a huge assumption of what has never been
demonstrated. But such people as Shecaniah do not wait for niceties of
proof before making their sweeping proposals.
[111] Ezra x. 3.
[112] Ezra ix. 4.
The bold adviser followed up his suggestion by rallying Ezra and
calling upon him to "be of good courage," seeing that he would have
supporters in the great reformation. Falling in with the proposed
scheme, Ezra there and then extracted an oath from the people--both
clergy and laity--that they would execute it. This was a general
resolution. Some time was required and many difficulties had to be
faced before it could be carried into practice, and meanwhile Ezra
withdrew into retirement, still fasting and mourning.
We must now allow for an interval of some months. The chronological
arrangement seems to have been as follows. Ezra and his company left
Babylon in the spring, as Zerubbabel had done before him--at the same
season as that of the great exodus from Egypt under Moses. Each of
these three great expeditions began with the opening of the natural
year, in scenes of bright beauty and hopefulness. Occupying four
months on his journey, Ezra reached Jerusalem in the heat of July. It
could not have been very long after his arrival that the news of the
foreign marriages was brought to him by the princes, because if he had
spent any considerable time in Jerusalem first he must have found out
the state of affairs for himself. But now we are transported to the
month of December for the meeting of the people when the covenant of
divorce is to be put in force. Possibly some of the powerful leaders
had opposed the summoning of such a gathering, and their hindrance may
have delayed it; or it may have taken Ezra and his counsellors some
time to mature their plans. Long brooding over the question could not
have lessened the scribe's estimate of its gravity. But the suggestion
of all kinds of difficulties and the clear perception of the terrible
results which must flow from the contemplated reformation did not
touch his opinion of what was right, or his decision, once reached,
that there must be a clearing away of the foreign elements, root and
branch, although they had entwined their tendrils about the deepest
affections of the people. The seclusion and mourning of Ezra is
recorded in Ezra x. 6. The next verse carries us on to the preparation
for the dreadful assembly, which, as we must conclude, really took
place some months later. The summons was backed up by threats of
confiscation and excommunication. To this extent the great powers
entrusted to Ezra by the king of Persia were employed. It looks as if
the order was the issue of a conflict of counsels in which that of
Ezra was victorious, for it was exceedingly peremptory in tone and it
only gave three days notice. The people came, as they were bound to
do, for the authority of the supreme government was behind the
summons; but they resented the haste with which they had been called
together, and they pleaded the inconvenience of the season for an
open-air meeting. They met in the midst of the winter rains; cold and
wet they crouched in the temple courts, the picture of wretchedness.
In a hot, dry country so little provision is made for inclement
weather, that when it comes the people suffer from it most acutely, so
that it means much more distress to them than to the inhabitants of a
chill and rainy climate. Still it may seem strange that, with so
terrible a question as the complete break-up of their homes presented
to them, the Jews should have taken much account of the mere weather
even at its worst. History, however, does not shape itself according
to proportionate proprieties, but after the course of very human
facts. We are often unduly influenced by present circumstances, so
that what is small in itself, and in comparison with the supreme
interests of life, may become for the moment of the most pressing
importance, just because it is present and making itself felt as the
nearest fact. Moreover, there is a sort of magnetic connection between
the external character of things and the most intangible of internal
experiences. The "November gloom" is more than a meteorological fact;
it has its psychological aspect. After all, are we not citizens of
the great physical universe? and is it not therefore reasonable that
the various phases of nature should affect us in some degree, so that
the common topic of conversation, "the weather," may really be of more
serious concern than we suspect? Be that as it may, it is clear that
while these Jews, who usually enjoyed brilliant sunshine and the fair
blue Syrian sky, were shivering in the chill December rains, wet and
miserable, they were quite unable to discuss a great social question,
or to brace themselves up for an act of supreme renunciation. It was a
season of depression, and the people felt limp and heartless, as
people often do feel at such a season. They pleaded for delay. Not
only was the weather a great hindrance to calm deliberation, but, as
they said, the proposed reformation was of a widespread character. It
must be an affair of some time. Let it be regularly organised. Let it
be conducted only before appointed courts in the several cities. This
was reasonable enough, and accordingly it was decided to adopt the
suggestion. It is easy to be a reformer in theory; but they who have
faced a great abuse in practice know how difficult it is to uproot it.
This is especially true of all attempts to affect the social order.
Wild ideas are floated without an effort. But the execution of these
ideas means far more toil and battle, and involves a much greater
tumult in the world, than the airy dreamers who start them so
confidently and who are so surprised at the slowness of dull people to
accept them ever imagine.
Not only was there a successful plea for delay. There was also direct
opposition to Ezra's stern proposal--although this did not prove to be
successful. The indication of opposition is obscured by the imperfect
rendering of the Authorised Version. Turning to the more correct
translation in the Revised Version we read, "Only Jonathan the son of
Asahel and Jahzeiah the son of Tikvah stood up against this matter:
and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite helped them."[113] Here was a
little knot of champions of the poor threatened wives, defenders of
the peaceful homes so soon to be smitten by the ruthless axe of the
reformer, men who believed in the sanctity of domestic life as not
less real than the sanctity of ecclesiastical arrangements, men
perhaps to whom love was as Divine as law, nay, was law, wherever it
was pure and true.
[113] Ezra x. 15.
This opposition was borne down; the courts sat; the divorces were
granted; wives were torn from their husbands and sent back to their
indignant parents; and children were orphaned. Priests, Levites, and
other temple officers did not escape the domestic reformation; the
common people were not beneath its searching scrutiny; everywhere the
pruning knife lopped off the alien branches from the vine of Israel.
After giving a list of families involved, the chronicler concludes
with the bare remark that men put away wives _with children_ as well
as those who had no children.[114] It is baldly stated. What did it
mean? The agony of separation, the lifelong division of the family,
the wife worse than widowed, the children driven from the shelter of
the home, the husband sitting desolate in his silent house--over all
this the chronicler draws a veil; but our imaginations can picture
such scenes as might furnish materials for the most pathetic
tragedies.
[114] Ezra x. 44.
In order to mitigate the misery of this social revolution, attention
has been called to the freedom of divorce which was allowed among the
Jews and to the inferior status assigned to women in the East. The
wife, it is said, was always prepared to receive a bill of divorce
whenever her husband found occasion to dismiss her: she would have a
right to claim back her dowry; and she would return to her father's
house without the slightest slur upon her character. All this may be
true enough; and yet human nature is the same all the world over, and
where there is the strong mutual affection of true wedded love,
whether in the England of our Christian era or in the Palestine of the
olden times, to sever the tie of union must mean the agony of torn
hearts, the despair of blighted lives. And was this necessary? Even if
it was not according to the ordinance of their religion for Jews to
contract marriages with foreigners, having contracted such marriages
and having seen children grow up about them, was it not a worse evil
for them to break the bonds by violence and scatter the families? Is
not the marriage law itself holy? Nay, has it not a prior right over
against Levitical institutions or prophetic ordinances, seeing that it
may be traced back to the sweet sanctities of Eden? What if the stern
reformer had fallen into a dreadful blunder? Might it not be that this
new Hildebrand and his fanatical followers were even guilty of a huge
crime in their quixotic attempt to purge the Church by wrecking the
home?
Assuredly from our point of view and with our Christian light no such
conduct as theirs could be condoned. It was utterly undiscriminating,
riding roughshod over the tenderest claims. Gentile wives such as Ruth the
Moabitess might have adopted the faith of their husbands--doubtless in many
cases they had done so--yet the sweeping, pitiless mandate of separation
applied to them as surely as if they had been heathen sorceresses. On the
other hand, we must use some historical imagination in estimating these
sorrowful scenes. The great idea of Ezra was to preserve a separate people.
He held that this was essential to the maintenance of pure religion and
morals in the midst of the pagan abominations which surrounded the little
colony. Church separation seemed to be bound up with race separation. This
Ezra believed to be after the mind of the prophets, and therefore a truth
of Divine inspiration. Under all the circumstances it is not easy to say
that his main contention was wrong, that Israel could have been preserved
as a Church if it had ceased to keep itself separate as a race, or that
without Church exclusiveness religious purity could have been maintained.
We are not called upon to face any such terrible problem, although St.
Paul's warning against Christians becoming "unequally yoked with
unbelievers"[115] reminds us that the worst ill-assortment in marriage
should not be thought of as only concerned with diversity of rank,
wealth, or culture; that they are most ill-matched who have not common
interests in the deepest concerns of the soul. Then, too, it needs to
be remembered in these days, when ease and comfort are unduly prized,
that there are occasions on which even the peace and love of the home
must be sacrificed to the supreme claims of God. Our Lord ominously
warned His disciples that He would send a sword to sever the closest
domestic ties--"to set a man at variance against his father, and the
daughter against her mother," etc.,[116] and He added, "He that loveth
father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me."[117] In times of
early Christian persecution it was necessary to choose between the
cross of Christ and the nearest domestic claims, and then faithful
martyrs accepted the cross even at the cost of the dear love of home
and all its priceless jewels, as, for instance, in the familiar story
of Perpetua and Felicitas. The same choice had to be made again under
Catholic persecution among the Huguenots, as we are reminded by
Millais' well-known picture, and even in a quasi-protestant
persecution in the case of Sir Thomas More. It faces the convert from
Hindooism in India to-day. Therefore whatever opinion we may form of
the particular action of Ezra, we should do well to ponder gravely
over the grand principle on which it was based. God must have the
first place in the hearts and lives of His people, even though in some
cases this may involve the shipwreck of the dearest earthly
affections.
[115] Cor. vi. 14.
[116] Matt. x. 35.
[117] Matt. x. 37.