Ezra 10 Devotional

Hope Spoken Over Guilt

“Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, an Elamite, said to Ezra: “We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the people of the land, yet in spite of this, there is hope for Israel.”Ezra 10:2 (BSB)

Ezra's prayer draws a large crowd who weep bitterly with him (10:1). Then Shecaniah speaks. They have been unfaithful to God, he says, and even so there is hope for Israel (10:2). He proposes a covenant to send away the foreign wives and their children, according to the Law (10:3). The Law had forbidden these marriages because they would turn hearts from the LORD to other gods (Deuteronomy 7:3-4), and the chapter names the issue as faithfulness to God (10:2, 10:10-11).

The text does not hide the cost. The people sit trembling in heavy rain (10:9), a few oppose the plan (10:15), the cases take three months (10:16-17), and the closing list notes that some of these marriages had produced children (10:44). The chapter records this community's covenant and lets the hard details stand. It shows a holy God whose claim on his people is total, and a people who believed that, even under guilt, hope was still found in him. That hope remains open to anyone who turns to him honestly.

To think about: Where do you need to hear that, even after real failure, there is still hope with God?