Ezra 10:16

Resolving the issue

16 Then the returned exiles did so. Ezra the priest chose certain men, heads of families, each representing their family houses. Each of them was designated by name. On the first day of the tenth month they sat down to examine the matter.

Ezra 10:16 Meaning and Commentary

Ezra 10:16

And the children of the captivity did so
Put away their strange wives:

and Ezra the priest, with certain chief of the fathers, after the house
of their fathers, and all of them by their names, were separated;
from all their other business, and gave themselves up to attend to this wholly:

and sat down in the first day of the tenth month;
the month Tebeth, which answers to part of December and January; this was ten days after the assembly of all the people met and broke up: these took their places in the great court, and there sat

to examine the matter;
the accounts brought in from the several cities by the magistrates thereof, and recorded them.

Ezra 10:16 In-Context

14 Let our leaders represent the entire assembly. Let all in our towns who have taken foreign wives come at appointed times, along with the elders and judges of every town, until God's great anger at us on account of this matter be averted."

15 Only Jonathan, Asahel's son, and Jahzeiah, Tikvah's son, opposed this; Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levites supported them.

16 Then the returned exiles did so. Ezra the priest chose certain men, heads of families, each representing their family houses. Each of them was designated by name. On the first day of the tenth month they sat down to examine the matter.

17 By the first day of the first month, they had come to the end of all the men who had married foreign women.

18 Of the family of priests, there were found the following who had married foreign women—of the family of Jeshua, Jozadak's son and his brothers: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah.

Footnotes

• [a]. 1 Esdr 9:16; Syr; Heb And there were separated
• [b]. December–January, Tevet