1 NOW when these things
were done, the aprinces came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the
priests, and the Levites, have not bseparated themselves
from the people of the lands, doing according to their
cabominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites,
the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians,
and the Amorites.
2 For they have taken of their
adaughters for themselves, and for their
sonsa: so that the
bholy seed have mingled themselves with the people of
those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief
in this trespass.
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2a they have taken of their daughters for
themselves, and for their sons It had been commanded that Israel
was to marry themselves among Israel and of those of their own faith by the
Lord. Over and throughout the reign of the kings over Israel and Judath, the
kings did not keep this commandment and according to the example of the kings
neither did the people of Israel. He now, after centuries of such, Ezra now
turn his heart upon the matter to resolve the dilema. As to just how pure
Judah and Israel had remained is of some question. Certainly those of Israel
- Ephraim and his companions much such intermarriage had been carried on with
the scattering and the mixing of the people of Samaria. Yet one cannot faithly
state that even those of Judah and his companions were not in a similar yet
perhaps a lesser state of the same matter. Yet being 'more purely' of 'Israel'
here now the Jews under Esra, will persue and type of cleansing of the race,
though absolutely pure it was not. Yet those who could produce a
Jewish/Israelite genealogy, though incomplete, they would be considered as
being more highly of the people of God than those who had 'lost' their
genealogy connections back to their strong Israelite ancestors.
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