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(The views expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
Ezra 9:1–4, “Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass. And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonied. Then were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been carried away; and I sat astonied until the evening sacrifice.”
It is important to remember that Israel’s major problem, throughout the entire time of the Judges and Kings, was founded on the fact that they didn’t drive out all the inhabitants of the Promised Land. In time, as the Lord well knew, these people led Israel into idolatry. The great fundamental of their faith was found in the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Ex 20: 3) They had trouble with the other people because the others didn’t believe in One God but in many gods. These people worshipped their many gods in their own way with their own idols and other cultic symbols. The Israelis were led astray as they saw these strangers worshipping their other gods. Their children were tempted to experiment with those gods as well. King Solomon suffered because he married many foreign wives and, after a while, they tempted him to worship their strange gods as well. Ezra knew that Israel, and then Judah, were sent into Exile because they followed strange gods in the Land that the True God of Heaven and Earth, the Lord their God, had given them. He was devastated to hear that the returnees were starting to go down the same pathway again by refusing to remain separate from strange gods and being seduced away from their True God.
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