When a list comes out, everybody wants to know where they stand. The list of who made the team and who got cut. Grammy nominees. The Forbes 500. Academy award winners. The most livable cities. The most dangerous jobs. The FBI’s most wanted. One hit wonders. Let’s face it, we love lists. At the end of the book of Ezra, we read a very important list (Ez 10:18-44). It’s the final inventory of the Jewish men who’ve been found guilty of shacking up with local pagan hotties. You won’t believe who’s on it! It includes some of the best and brightest. It includes some of most influential Hebrew families. Yet we see God at work, doing what He does best. Returning, rebuilding, and restoring.
Ezra has just overseen a three-month investigation of blatant sexual sin among the returning exiles (Ez 10:16-17). Just after the second phase of God’s resettlement of the Promised Land after 70-plus years of exile (Ez 8:31-32), Ezra gets tipped off that some of Jewish dudes are hooking up with unbelieving local ladies (Ez 9:1-2). This is a major violation of God’s commandments for His people (Ex 34:11-16; Dt 7:1-6). It’s not that Yahweh has anything against other people groups, but He knows that the quickest way to draw His people out of a relationship with Him is for them to hop in the sack with folks who worship false gods. This is particularly heartbreaking to Ezra because God was using this priest to reestablish the sacrificial worship at the temple. After confessing the people’s sin for them (Ez 9:5-15) and seeking His guidance about what to do (Ez 10:6), he launches a massive investigation into the national scandal (Ez 10:16-17). After three months, he posts the final list. He cuts and pastes this infamous roster into the final pages of the book that bears his name (v18-44).
The final list of the guilty includes the names of 113 men. There’s some disagreement over this number. Not whether there are 113 men who’ve been found to hopped in the sack with pagan girlfriends, but whether this is a complete list. It appears that about 50,000 folks returned with Zerubbabel and Jeshua (Ez 2:64-65). Another 7,000-8,000 people made the trip from Babylon to Judah with Ezra leading the way (Ez 8:1-14). In the big picture, are the sexual escapades of only 113 men really such a big deal? Yes. It’s a very big deal. Their sin is having a corrosive effect on the entire culture. As the days, weeks, and months pile up, the number of Hebrew people turning away from God and toward idols grows. The list of “only” 113 names is a VERY big deal. Jesus warns His posse about the “leaven of the Pharisees” (Mt 16:6). He’s not worried about buy their tainted baked goods. Christ knows that little things can have a big impact. Such as these 113 men.
Ezra sorts and divides these names into some very familiar categories. Priests (v18-22), Levites (v23-24), and the citizens of Israel (v25-43). Again, he’s a priest with a passion to reestablish biblical sacrificial worship to the rebuilt temple. He’s broken his previous rosters down by their various positions of priests, Levites, temple servants, and general population (Ez 2:2-58). One more time, he makes sure we know what crime this investigation has found these men guilty of. They “had married foreign women” (v18). The Big E doesn’t use the usual Hebrew term for marriage but one that simply describes giving someone a home. In other words, they were shacking up. These weren’t legit marriages but illicit sexual relationships.
The list begins with “some of the sons of the priests who had married foreign women” (v18). In other words, this sex scandal goes all the way to the top. The priesthood is involved. Just another example of why it was important to get to the facts. Included in this list are “some of the sons of Jeshua the son of Jozadak and his brothers” (v18). These are the descendants of the high priest who returned with Zerubbabel (Ez 2:2; 3:2, 8-9; 4:3; 5:2; Hag 1:1, 12; 2:4; Zech 3:1; 6:11)! What a powerful warning to anybody in leadership who thinks their family is immune to sin. It’s critical to raise our children in God’s standards so that one day they can develop their own relationship with Jesus. Matt Chandler calls it stacking kindling. But it’s also a reminder that parents can only do so much to raise their kids in following Christ. As Franklin Graham says, God has no grandchildren. Each person is responsible for their own spiritual walk. We don’t scoot into salvation on mom and dad’s ticket.
The priestly family members lead the way in confession and repentance. “They pledged themselves to put away their wives, and their guilt offering was a ram of the flock for their guilt” (v19). They openly agree to break up with their pagan girlfriends. But they didn’t stop there. They knew that an appropriate sacrifice must be made for their sin. “Their guilt offering was a ram of the flock for their guilt” (v19). They are simply following the sacrificial rules God set in place with Moses. Each of them needed to provide “a ram without blemish” that the LORD prescribed in Leviticus 5:6, 15; 6:4-6. And this was almost certainly what each man on the list brought as a sacrifice. As spiritual leaders in the Hebrew community, they lead the way in confession and repentance. Leaders lead in all sorts of ways. Even confession and repentance. ESPECIALLY confession and repentance!
Among some of the other notables on this infamous list are the “sons of Parosh” (v25). Ezra has noted this family a couple of other times (Ez 2:3; 8:3). We’ll even read them over in the sequel, the book of Nehemiah (Neh 7:8). Again, this sex scandal went to the top. We also see Jehiel on the roster (v26). Flip back over to Ezra 10:2 and you’ll see that his boy Shecaniah played a brief but very important role. Despite knowing that his own father had a girlfriend on the side, he steps up to encourage Ezra to lead God’s people out of this hot mess (Ez 10:2-4). The priest lists a couple of other familiar families, the “sons of Bani” (v29; Ez 8:11) and the “sons of Pahath-moab” (v30; Ez 8:4). Again, nobody is immune. Our families may look great from the curb. But one look inside the front door reveals that every family puts the funk in dysfunction.
The book ends concludes, “All these had married foreign women, and some of the women had even borne children” (v44). We never sin in a vacuum. There is always collateral damage. In this case it’s not only the ladies they hooked up with but the children they fathered. Think for a moment at the impact of what is happening. These are real people. Each one created in the image of God. Now these Jewish men must face the consequences of their disobedience to the LORD’s commands. People are going to be hurt. We don’t sin in a vacuum.
Let’s close the book of Ezra with a few important observations. I have to say that much of what follows comes from the Life Application Study Bible. Credit where credit is due. As the curtain rises in the book of Ezra, the temple is a pile of rubble and the Jewish people are almost 1,000 miles away in Babylonian exile. We read of the LORD’s incredible work of grace to resettle His people home to the Promised Land, rebuild and renovate the temple, and restore worship at the temple. God is able to do this in our lives too. He’s able bring us home. He’s able to rebuild and renovate the rubble of our broken lives. He can restore our relationship with Him so that we can worship once again. Nobody is too far gone for God. Jesus does for us what we can never do for ourselves. He lives the perfect life that we’ve completely failed to live. He dies the brutal death for our sin that we should have died. He rises to a glorious new life that we don’t deserve. There is forgiveness. There is rebuilding. There is renovation. There is restoration. In Jesus.
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