BUT a great sin was going on, and Ezra must take it up in sorrow and shame before God if haply repentance might work recovery.
“Now when these things were done, the princes drew near unto me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests and Levites, have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, 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 peoples of the 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 astonished. Then were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the trespass of those of captivity; and I sat astonished until the evening oblation. And at the evening oblation I arose up from my humiliation, even with my garment and my mantle rent; and I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto Jehovah my God; and I said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over [our] head, and our guiltiness is grown up unto the heavens. Since the days of our fathers we [have been] exceeding guilty unto this day; and for our iniquities have we, our kings, [and] our priests, been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to spoiling, and to confusion of face, as [it is] this day. And now for a little moment grace hath been [shown] from Jehovah our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage. For we [are] bondmen; yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the ruins thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem. And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken thy commandments, which thou hast commanded by thy servants the prophets, saying, The land, unto which ye go to possess it, is an unclean land through the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, through their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another with their filthiness. Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their prosperity forever: that ye may he strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave [it] for an inheritance to your children forever. And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great guilt, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities, and hast given us a remnant, shall we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the peoples that do these abominations? Wouldest not thou be angry with us till thou hadst consumed [us], so that [there should be] no remnant, nor escaping? O Jehovah, the God of Israel, thou [art] righteous; for we are left a remnant that is escaped, as [it is] this day: behold, we [are] before thee in our guiltiness; for none can stand before thee because of this” (vers. 1-15).
After all the mercy shown to the remnant returned from captivity, after long patience with shortcomings and protection from their adversaries, the princes announced to Ezra that the people of Israel and the priests and the Levites, far from keeping themselves separate from the heathen round about them, were living in open disobedience of God's word and rebellion against His authority. For they had taken of their daughters for themselves and their sons, and thus mingled the holy seed with the peoples of the lands, the princes and rulers being first or chief in this unfaithfulness. What evil more deadly for a Jew, unless it were worshipping other gods? And to this it habitually tended. It was in itself a fundamental violation of Jehovah's will, an abandonment of that separateness to Himself from the nations which was essential to their standing as His people. It was not only the surrender of their own privilege as the sole nation of His choice, but rebellion against His rights and glory Who had thus favored them.
No doubt a most solemn and humiliating change had come through their idolatry. The government of God had no longer its center in Israel, while recognizing other nations around though ignorant of Him. When even Judah and the kings of David's house definitively gave Him up for other gods, like heathen nations though far more guiltily, the God of heaven brought in the world-power system, from Babylon down to the Roman beast in its last and still future phase, till the Lord judge its apostasy and anti-Christianism. For that system is but provisional, and will give place to His resumption of power in His displayed glory, when He shall reign, alike King over Israel and in Zion, and Son of man in universal and everlasting dominion, and all the peoples, nations, and languages shall serve Him in a kingdom which shall not be destroyed. Every believing Jew knew more or less clearly of that glorious consummation, as well as of their past departure from God which had brought in their present ruined estate. All was intended to bear on their souls and their ways before God in producing self-judgment but withal confidence in His mercy and submission to His will. To disown the Gentile power He had set up was false ground; to forget that they were but a remnant, restored to the land in His grace, was evil. What was it to set up, a handful (as were the returned Jews in such circumstances) to claim the place and authority of unbroken Israel with the throne of David, yea the throne of the kingdom of Jehovah over Israel? It would have been the vainest presumption without conscience and heart in opposition to God till Messiah come and change all things.
The spirit of this is one of the perils of Christendom. Those who see and hold aloof from antiquated claim and gross iniquity are exposed, when they learn ever so superficially what the church is, to imitate its forms and arrogate authority without power, trusting in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these. The pretension, avowed or implied, to set up the church again in its primitive order and the official authority which was of old, is at once a grievous affront against God and shameless insensibility to the low condition of His saints. Scripture nowhere warrants any such spirit, never sanctions such a course, in a day of ruin. It is at bottom the same self-confidence that led to the ruin which assumes to rectify it. If really humbled in heart because of the anomalous state of things, our place is in dependence on God to seek His will in view of the ruin, with grace to obey in the circumstances. He in His goodness has provided for our guidance now quite as clearly as for Ezra and his companions of old. To acquiesce in the evil we know—to compromise—is not and never was of God; neither is it of Him to claim authority beyond our power, but to obey His word humbly and to own the title of Christ's members, looking to Him to work in His grace and power. Wherever there is the assumption to restore the church, the first act, or one of the first always occurring, is to nominate elders, without apostolic authority direct or indirect. Thus men fall into open antagonism to the word of God, the one standard, and grand test for the grievous times of the last days. This is to eat leavened bread from the beginning; as the spirit, which led up to it, is fleshly pride which will soon become a prey of Satan in other error and evil.
Here we find lowly unpretentious fidelity in Ezra, and deep sense of the trespass among the returned from captivity. Overwhelmed he sat till the evening oblation. Then with clothes rent he spread out his hands to his God and owned the guilt, “our guiltiness,” thoroughly. Not a moment's thought that the Jews then could do all that Moses or Joshua, that David or Solomon, did in their days, but seeking to do all that God's word authorized them to do in their actual circumstances. “For,” said he, “we [are] bondmen” (ver. 9), as the context and even verse requires; instead of “were,” as the A. V. has it and people are so apt to think in their forgetfulness of God's ways and His people's sin. But we shall have more to weigh when we read the practical issue that followed. The all-important condition is a just sense of where God's people are, and the heart humbly set on obedience, instead of our own thoughts and self-confidence to put all things right.