Ezra 9:12

Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth for ever: that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

9:5-15 The sacrifice, especially the evening sacrifice, was a type of the blessed Lamb of God, who in the evening of the world, was to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Ezra's address is a penitent confession of sin, the sin of his people. But let this be the comfort of true penitents, that though their sins reach to the heavens, God's mercy is in the heavens. Ezra, speaking of sin, speaks as one much ashamed. Holy shame is as necessary in true repentance as holy sorrow. Ezra speaks as much amazed. The discoveries of guilt cause amazement; the more we think of sin, the worse it looks. Say, God be merciful to me sinner. Ezra speaks as one much afraid. There is not a surer or saddler presage of ruin, than turning to sin, after great judgments, and great deliverances. Every one in the church of God, has to wonder that he has not wearied out the Lord's patience, and brought destruction upon himself. What then must be the case of the ungodly? But though the true penitent has nothing to plead in his own behalf, the heavenly Advocate pleads most powerfully for him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Saying - The words which follow in this verse are not quoted from any previous book of Scripture, but merely give the general sense of numerous passages. Compare the marginal references.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Ezr 9:5-15. Prays to God.

5-15. I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God—The burden of his prayer, which was dictated by a deep sense of the emergency, was that he was overwhelmed at the flagrant enormity of this sin, and the bold impiety of continuing in it after having, as a people, so recently experienced the heavy marks of the divine displeasure. God had begun to show returning favor to Israel by the restoration of some. But this only aggravated their sin, that, so soon after their re-establishment in their native land, they openly violated the express and repeated precepts which commanded them to extirpate the Canaanites. Such conduct, he exclaimed, could issue only in drawing down some great punishment from offended Heaven and ensuring the destruction of the small remnant of us that is left, unless, by the help of divine grace, we repent and bring forth the fruits of repentance in an immediate and thorough reformation.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Nor seek their peace; but root them out, as I have commanded you to do; which also they have abundantly deserved, both of mine and of your hands. See Deu 7:2.

That ye may be strong: although you may fancy that this way of making leagues and marriages with them is the only way to establish and settle you, yet I assure you it will weaken and ruin you, and the contrary course will make you stronger.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons,.... That is, in marriage, see Deuteronomy 7:3, where the prohibition is expressed in the same language:

nor seek their peace or their wealth for ever; that is, as long as they continue in their idolatries and impurities, see Deuteronomy 23:6,

that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever; that they might be strengthened and established in the land into which they were brought, and enjoy all the good things it produced, and leave their children in the possession of it, to hold at least until the Messiah came, see Isaiah 1:19.

Geneva Study Bible

Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth for ever: that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

12. Now therefore give not, &c.] This sentence reproduces the substance of Deuteronomy 7:3 ‘Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son’.

nor seek their peace or their wealth for ever] R.V. … or their prosperity.… This phrase is found in Deuteronomy 23:6 ‘Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever’, where the Ammonites and Moabites are especially referred to. The words had probably become almost proverbial. Here its application is destitute of any reference to the context in Deuteronomy 23. The thought reproduces the prohibition of Exodus 23:32 ‘Thou shalt make no covenant with them (i.e. the inhabitants of the land) nor with their gods’. Compare Jeremiah 29:7 ‘And seek the peace of the city, whither I have caused you to be carried away captive’.

that ye may be strong] The same blessing is promised Deuteronomy 11:8 ‘Therefore shall ye keep all the commandment … that ye may be strong’. The power to maintain God’s gift was the measure of their true prosperity.

and eat the good of the land] Isaiah 1:19 ‘If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land’. The present enjoyment of the gift. The clause, in spite of the reference to ‘the land’, has no verbal parallel in the Pentateuch.

and leave it for an inheritance] The blessing perpetuated. Practically equivalent to ‘That thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee’. Cf. Deuteronomy 11:9. The allusion to Proverbs 13:22; Ezekiel 37:25 can only be of the most shadowy kind.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 12. - Give not your daughters, etc. Here Deuteronomy 7:3 is plainly referred to, though not verbally quoted. This is the sole place in the Law where the double injunction is given, Exodus 34:16 referring to the taking of wives only. Nor seek their peace or their wealth for ever. So Moses had enjoined with special reference to the Moabites and Ammonites (Deuteronomy 23:6). With regard to the other idolatrous nations, the exact command was "to make no covenant with them" (Exodus 23:32; Exodus 34:12), i.e. no terms of peace. Much the same was probably meant by both injunctions. That ye may be strong. See Deuteronomy 11:8. And eat the good of the land. These words are taken from Isaiah 1:19. And leave it for an inheritance, etc. No single passage seems to be referred to here, but the clause embodies the idea found in Deuteronomy 11:9; Proverbs 10:27; Ezekiel 37:25, and elsewhere. Ezra 9:12

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Namely, the 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 people of the lands, through their abominations, wherewith they have filled it from one end to another through their impurity. And now give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons (for wives), nor seek their peace nor their wealth for ever; that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever." The words of the prophets introduced by לאמר are found in these terms neither in the prophetical books nor the Pentateuch. They are not, therefore, to be regarded as a verbal quotation, but only as a declaration that the prohibition of intermarriage with the heathen had been inculcated by the prophets. The introduction of this prohibition by the words: the land unto which ye go to possess it, refers to the Mosaic age, and in using it Ezra had chiefly in view Deuteronomy 7:1-3. He interweaves, however, with this passage other sayings from the Pentateuch, e.g., Deuteronomy 23:7, and from the prophetic writings, without designing to make a verbal quotation. He says quite generally, by His servants the prophets, as the author of the books of Kings does in similar cases, e.g., 2 Kings 17:23; 2 Kings 21:10; 2 Kings 24:2, where the leading idea is, not to give the saying of some one prophet, but to represent the truth in question as one frequently reiterated. The sayings of Moses in Deuteronomy also bear a prophetical character; for in this book he, after the manner of the prophets, seeks to make the people lay to heart the duty of obeying the law. It is true that we do not meet in the other books of Scripture a special prohibition of marriages with Canaanites, though in the prophetical remarks, Judges 3:6, such marriages are reproved as occasions of seducing the Israelites to idolatry, and in the prophetic descriptions of the whoredoms of Israel with Baalim, and the general animadversions upon apostasy from the Lord, the transgression of this prohibition is implicitly included; thus justifying the general expression, that God had forbidden the Israelites to contract such marriages, by His servants the prophets. Besides, we must here take into consideration the threatening of the prophets, that the Lord would thrust Israel out of the land for their sins, among which intermarriage with the Canaanites was by no means the least. Ezra, moreover, makes use of the general expression, "by the prophets," because he desired to say that God had not merely forbidden these marriages one or twice in the law, but had also repeatedly inculcated this prohibition by the prophets. The law was preached by the prophets when they reiterated what was the will of God as revealed in the law of Moses. In this respect Ezra might well designate the prohibition of the law as the saying of the prophets, and cite it as pronounced according to the circumstances of the Mosaic period.

(Note: It is hence evident that these words of Ezra afford no evidence against the single authorship of the Pentateuch. The inference that a saying of the law, uttered during the wanderings in the wilderness, is here cited as a saying of the prophets the servants of Jahve, is, according to the just remark of Bertheau, entirely refuted even by the fact that the words cited are nowhere found in the Pentateuch in this exact form, and that hence Ezra did not intend to make a verbal quotation.)

The words: the land into which ye go, etc., recall the introduction of the law in Deuteronomy 7:1, etc.; but the description of the land as a land of uncleanness through the uncleanness of the people, etc., does not read thus either in the Pentateuch or in the prophets. נדּה, the uncleanness of women, is first applied to moral impurity by the prophets: comp. Lamentations 1:17; Ezekiel 7:20; Ezekiel 36:17, comp. Isaiah 64:5. The expression מפּה אל־פּה, from edge to edge, i.e., from one end to the other, like לפה פּה, 2 Kings 10:21; 2 Kings 21:16, is taken from vessels filled to their upper rim. ועתּה introduces the consequence: and now, this being the case. The prohibition וגו תּתּנוּ אל is worded after Deuteronomy 7:3. The addition: nor seek their peace, etc., is taken almost verbally from Deuteronomy 23:7, where this is said in respect of the Ammonites and Moabites. תּחזקוּ למאן recalls Deuteronomy 11:8, and the promise: that ye may eat the good of the land for ever, Isaiah 1:19. לבניכם והורשׁתּם, and leave it for an inheritance to your children, does not occur in this form in the Pentateuch, but only the promise: that they and their children should possess the land for ever. On הורישׁ in this sense comp. Judges 11:24; 2 Chronicles 20:11.