Never yield to the temptation of interracial relationships
In the first year of Cyprus, king of Persia, Jehovah manipulated Cyprus into decreeing that the Hebrews were to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. This was great news and the prophet Ezra led everyone back to Jerusalem where they were counted, then spent a bunch of time praying and fasting and such.
Once all this stuff was taken care of, the local princes went to Ezra with a disturbing report. They said something like: um, you know how not absolutely everyone was taken away to live in Persia? Well, the people who stayed here kinda, mingled with the locals. Yeah they’ve been taking wives from the non-holy races and mixing their holy sperm with those impure women. They’re making babies with them! It’s totally interracial! They are even worshiping the local gods instead of the great Jehovah.
As you would expect, as soon as Ezra heard the terrible news, he tore his clothes, ripped out his beard, ripped out the hair on his head, and sat down; completely astonished.
Ezra sat on the ground all day, overcome with astonishment. When the time for the evening sacrifice rolled around, Ezra finally stood up. He then launched into a moving speach about how awful the local population was: how sinful and wicked, naughty and . . . well, bad; just bad – iniquitous even.
After Ezra wrapped up his monologue, a huge group of people gathered around him; men, women, and children. One of the men spoke up and said, “. . . We have trespassed against our God, and have taken strange wives of the people of the land: yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law (Ezra 10:2-3, KJV).”
This whole idea of kicking everyone of “impure” blood out of the community appealed to Ezra so he send out word that everyone of Hebrew ancestry needed to gather at Jerusalem. Once everyone was together, Ezra explained how all the “impure” women and the half-breed children needed to be cast out of the community so they could live according to Gods will again. Everyone was moved by the spirit of the Lord so when Ezra said, “Now therefore make confession unto the Lord God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives (Ezra 10:11, KJV).” The men all answered and said, “As thou hast said, so must we do (Ezra 10:12, KJV).”
Because there were so many non-Hebrew women and mongrel children, it took three and a half months to identify and kick them all to the curb and for every offending man to kill a ram by way of apology.
However, after all those weeks of righteous toil, the impurities were finally removed and the Kingdom of Israel was once again pure in the eyes of God.
Moral: Just because God’s prophet is living in another city, it doesn’t mean you can go chasing tail among the local population.
Ref: Ezra 1:1-2 & Ezra 9-10
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