In Ezra, chapter ten, verse three, Ezra required divorce for the following reasons: Marrying heathen women had constituted an act of unfaithfulness to God and His Word, as in verse ten, and chapter ten, verse two. True repentance required separation to rectify the evil. Divorcing heathen wives was necessary to maintain Israel’s purpose as a holy nation separated from God. Divorce was essential to prevent the people from adopting the idolatry and immoral ways of the nations. Moses stated in Deuteronomy seven, verses three to four, “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. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.” Divorce, for this instance, was radical surgery required to stop the rippling consequences of compromise that would inevitably lead another generation into apostasy and subject them to the severe judgment of God.
Shecaniah says we, in the name of the people and their several families, and his own among the rest. The man’s name is not in the following catalog, but there we have his father Jehiel and his father’s brethren, five other sons of his grandfather Elam, as in Ezra ten, verse twenty-six. It was the evidence of his great courage and disinterested faithfulness that he durst so freely discharge his duty whereby he showed that he honored God more than his nearest and dearest relations and set an admirable example of zealous integrity.
The case is sad but not desperate: the disease is threatening but not incurable. However, our ruin may end through deliverance by repentance and reformation. And there is hope that the people may reform and the guilty reclaimed, a stop put to the spreading of the contagion, and so the judgments which the sin deserves may be prevented. Therefore, let us not sorrow like persons without hope or sit down in despair, but let us fall upon action, amend our errors, and trust in God’s mercy.