Biblical Theology XII: Ezra-Nehemiah

What is often broken into two books actually forms a single book that argues that restoration is sanctification. Ezra-Nehemiah relates how the people needed purification and restoration, not just the city and temple, and it does so by interweaving the two together throughout the narrative.

Theology: Ezra-Nehemiah makes the argument that to rebuild God’s people means to rebuild God’s temple and city as a symbol of Israel’s holiness. The irony of the book is that in the reestablishing of the temple and the city this symbol of holiness instead serves as a contrast to the uncleanness of the people, and the need for the people to be cleansed and “rebuilt” in the same way that the temple and city are reestablished. Ezra ends with a call for the people to repent by divorcing their foreign wives.

The success of building the city and the temple correspond to the faithfulness, or lack thereof, of God’s covenant people. If they are unfaithful again, they will be scattered again. The threat that would prevent the rebuilding corresponds to the threat that prevents the people’s holiness. This ties the city and temple to Israel itself. Hence, Nehemiah argues that the people are in disgrace and in trouble because there is no wall/border/boundary marker between them and their enemies (1:3). This is, therefore, both literal and symbolic in the book. The work ends with the temple and city, together with its wall, restored, the people repenting, reading the law and recounting the history of Israel together with a recommitment to the Mosaic covenant. God has restored His people, but, as the work states, they are still slaves in their own land, so exile, to some degree, continues until Israel is completely faithful and has completed the atonement for their iniquity.

Ethics: The building of the temple and the city, and the threats against their restoration serve as a symbol for the internal threats against the restoration of Israel (i.e., the building of the covenant people via covenant children) perpetrated by the unfaithful. In Ezra, it is marrying foreign wives and having children with them. In Nehemiah, it is oppressing the poor via excessive taxation so that they cannot feed their children. Both intermarriage with pagans and trying to get as much money from the people of God as one can is evil.

Therefore, as in the Deuteronomistic History, and throughout the Bible, to marry a foreign wife is to commit apostasy and to attack the purity of God’s people. It is as anticreational as oppressing the poor. This is a constant concern in post-exilic literature, as it was the sin that is seen as the catalyst leading to idolatry and Israel’s downfall. One might argue that God has been faithful in preserving Israel via a remnant, that strict records have been kept to ensure this fact, and this is true, but the author is arguing that to marry foreign wives is not only to undermine God’s work in this regard, but puts Israel’s children at risk. Hence, the main concern is faithfulness to the religion of YHWH more than it is an ethnic concern, since many Israelites have married foreign women who converted throughout Israelite history. The primacy of the religious concern is seen in the following passage.

 “The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites have not separated themselves from the local residents who practice abominable things similar to those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. Indeed, they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy seed  has become intermingled with the local residents. Worse still, the leaders and the officials have been at the forefront of all of this . . . Shall we once again break your commandments and intermarry with people of these abominations? Would you not be so angered by us that you would wipe us out, with no survivor or remnant?  (Ezra 9:1-2, 14)

The issue, then, is one that concerns covenant faithfulness. The “holy seed,” which is a concern for whether the children will be brought up in the covenant or go off to other gods or alternate forms of Yahwism that God has not authorized via revelation. In essence, to marry an unbeliever is not creational because it threatens the prospect of faithful covenant children.

The answer, under a polygamous system, was to divorce the unbelieving wives and to have children with believing wives instead. In this situation, this is the most creational move to make. This differs from Paul’s teaching, not because both authors disagree, but because both are looking to fulfill what is most creational (i.e., what fulfills the creation mandate the best in the situation without sinning against God further). Under monogamy, to stay with an unbelieving spouse is more creational. Under polygamy, when marrying another woman is not considered adultery yet, to remove the unbelieving woman and have children with believing wives is more creational. Hence, after much deliberation, the elders in Ezra decide that this is the best route to take in repentance.

The work is filled with prayers and acts of repentance, arguing that repentance has both an aspect of confession before God and a course of action to take so that one does not continue on in the sin, and therefore, becomes holy. Hence, the proper response to rebuke is to repent and to obey God’s commandments. It is also a corporate concern and not merely a matter of one’s private business. The thrust of all of this is that God’s people are to be holy, and they will not be restored fully in the land until they become so. The book, therefore, contributes to the later eschatological idea that those who are restored to the land/earth are those who are made holy by their worship of God, which is through faith in the covenant, repentance, and obedience to what He has commanded. One cannot exist without the other.