Ezra 10:9
Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered themselves together unto Jerusalem within three days. It was the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month; and all the people sat in the street of the house of God, trembling because of this matter, and for the great rain.
The verse belongs to the account of the Jews' experiences at Jerusalem, marked by backsliding, humility, seeking God, and receiving faithful reproof. It stands within Ezra's efforts to separate the people from the heathen and to bring them into a spiritual condition in which they could understand the importance of rebuilding Jerusalem. The people were in a deplorable, demoralized moral condition from the rulers down, through intermarrying and otherwise mingling with the surrounding nations in forbidden alliances, and they could not be taught the law while in that condition.
The gathering around Ezra at Jerusalem was the beginning of preparation before they could be taught the law. When they saw his astonishment, shame, humiliation and earnest supplication before the Lord in their behalf, they gathered to him, began to realize their situation, and to make confession. That gathering led to a regular course of practical separation from the world before anything was done to enlighten the church. There was a general agreement to put away strange wives and their children and other heathen abominations, with a committee to whom each individual should come to have his case inquired into and decided, a work that occupied two full months. This was Ezra's reform, in which foreign wives and their children were sent away.
Thorough preparation of heart, complete separation from the world, and determination to do the commandments are essential to a proper understanding of the law. When the ear is dull to the law and the eye closed to propriety it is because the heart is waxed gross, and ignorance is the result of wickedness. The chapter gives God's clear counsel in love and mercy about marriage, that marriage must be only in the Lord. Reading it and prayerfully considering it and cheerfully obeying it gives important instruction and timely warning that spares bitter anguish of heart, painful regret for long years, and the frequent disappointments of that honorable estate, showing the need to study the duties of marriage before entering into it.