Mass Divorce

Ezra 7 to 10

Today, we wrestled with the anticlimactic end of the book of Ezra. Granted, Ezra is just the first half of a book (Nehemiah is the second half). Regardless, the ending is quite bothersome. It begins with Ezra, who was sent by Artaxerxes, leading another round of Israelites back to Jerusalem. He was highly regarded as a Torah scholar and had a priestly pedigree (descendant of Aaron). Knowing the Torah as well as he did, he observed that exiled men returned and married the locals, pagans, who we aren’t exactly sure about who they were and where they were from but we know that they were pagan. Ezra saw this as an egregious sin against the Torah equating the locals to Canaanites and calling for repentance and divorce. All this at first glance is troublesome because this is how the book ends. And yet we know that God hates divorce. How can this happen? While we may not have all the answers, we are certain of this, marriage is important to God, and God takes who we marry seriously. Marriage is about the glory of Christ not a function of our preferences. Marriage is a symbol pointing to God’s relationship with his people and, by consequence, with humanity. And so if we see divorce, let it be a reminder of the fracture that humanity has with God, the need that we have for God to bring us all to restoration, and the hope that there is a marriage to come the will consummate humanity back to God through Christ.