October 7

Ezra 9:1-15, 10:1-44

I wish God would interject himself here.  I know Ezra is a great teacher of the law.  But I'd feel more comfortable if God would just throw in the occasional, "That's right, Ezra.  Preach on."  Just so I knew what's God's view was.  

I'm confident God didn't want them marrying into foreign cultures.  It's written in 1 Kings 11:2 of Solomon's many wives that: 

They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods."  

I'm confident about the Lord's command.  I'm just not confident that Ezra's solution (actually it's Elam's suggestion to Ezra) to the problem is God's solution.  Elam calls for the men to "make a covenant before our God to send away all these women and their children, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commands of our God."  Ezra 10:3

And so they do.  Only Jonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah, supported by Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite, opposed this.  Ezra 10:15

I may have been standing with the wrong camp on this one.  I can't imagine that sending away wife and children is what a loving God wanted.  Especially when the widowed and fatherless are chief among the groups he makes special provision for.  First, he didn't want them to intermarry with certain cultures.  Having done that, I would have thought it enough not to worship those foreign cultures gods.  But to walk away from your family.  I confess.  I would have had to ask God his forgiveness for my willful sin.  For me, this too much like those who profess that to truly repent from remarrying after the sin of divorce, a man must leave his new family and return to his first wife.  It's the letter of the law and not the spirit.  It's solution reasoned with man's head and not his heart.  I know I open myself to criticism with this view that I'm suggesting we follow the whims of our heart which are often contrary to God's will.  But then, what God truly wants is to rule in our heart.

Figure it out.  That's what life is about.