In Ezra, chapter nine, verse one, the past failure of the people of God to separate themselves from the sinful societies around them had led them into idolatry and immorality, and it eventually caused their captivity and exile, as in Second Chronicles thirty-six, verses fourteen through twenty-one. Now, after God had brought a small remnant back to the land, as in verses eight to nine, the chosen people were once again transgressing God’s fundamental precept of separation from the lifestyle of the ungodly.
Ezra reached Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month, as in chapter seven, verses nine, and rested three days in chapter eight, verse thirty-two, and on the fourth day of the same month, he made over the vessels to the temple authorities. It was not till the seventeenth day of the ninth month that, on Ezra’s motion, the matter of the mixed marriages was taken in hand in Ezra ten, verses eight and nine. Yet, it is unclear if the action slowed down after the matter came to Ezra’s knowledge. The civil heads of the community, whom Ezra found at the head of affairs on his arrival and whose authority he did not wholly supersede, as in Ezra ten, fourteen, and sixteen. The idolatrous nations in the land inhabiting the districts adjoining Palestine: Egyptians and Amorites on the south, Moabites and Ammonites on the east, Canaanites probably towards the north and the northwest.
Doing according to their abominations. Or rather, “in respect of their abominations.” The complaint was not so much that the people of God had as yet adopted idolatrous functions as they did not keep themselves distant from them. The foreign wives would introduce idolatrous rites into their very houses. Today, we see how mixed marriages, especially with different backgrounds or contrasting beliefs, can influence the spouse to follow that culture.