Ezra 10:15, commentary and pictures

Ezra 10:15 stands in the settling of the transgression of taking strange wives, after all had assembled at Jerusalem within three days on the twentieth day of the ninth month and sat in the street of the house of God trembling because of the matter and the great rain. Ezra charged the assembly with transgressing by taking strange wives to increase the trespass of Israel, and called them to make confession to the Lord God of their fathers and do His pleasure and separate themselves from the people of the land and from the strange wives. The people agreed they must do as he said, but since they were many and it was a time of much rain and they were not able to stand without, and since the work was not of one day or two because many had transgressed, they arranged for portions to come at appointed times until all in the transgression had cleared themselves. The work proceeded as a practical separation from forbidden foreign alliances by examining each person's case with a committee deciding what should be done. It took two whole months, from the first day of the tenth month until the first day of the first month.

This separation prepared the people to be taught the law. This effort to separate the returned Jews from the heathen restored them to a spiritual condition in which they could recognize the importance of rebuilding Jerusalem, as part of carrying out the decree to restore the city.

The chapter gives God's clear counsel about marriage in love and mercy, to be read and prayerfully considered and cheerfully obeyed for important instruction and timely warning. It teaches marriage only in the Lord and that the duties of marriage are to be studied before entering it, so that bitter anguish of heart, painful regret for long years, frequent disappointments, and too-soon and too-late repentance are escaped.