Nehemiah 13:23

NEHEMIAH FACES THE RECURRENCE OF SINFUL MARRIAGES WITH PAGANS

"In those days also saw I the Jews that had married women of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: and their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the language of Judah, but according to the language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons, nor for yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, and he was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel.' nevertheless, even him did foreign women cause to sin. Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to trespass against our God in marrying foreign women?

"And one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Elisashib the High Priest, was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite: therefore I chased him from me. Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood, and of the Levites.

"Thus cleansed I them of all foreigners, and appointed charges for the priests and for the Levites, every one in his work; and for the wood-offering, at times appointed, and for the first-fruits. Remember me, O my God, for good."

"Remember me, O my God, for good" (Nehemiah 13:31) This is the fourth of these little prayers in this chapter; and this proliferation of Nehemiah's earnest appeals to God may be understood to indicate his recognition of the desperate extremity into which the Chosen People had fallen. Candidly, there was little that any human being, or that even God Himself, could do for Israel that had not already been done, over and over again.

Not only had a son of the High Priest married a pagan; but Eliasbib the High Priest himself was "allied with Tobiah," probably by marriage; and the profaning of the priesthood was by no means restricted to these two violations. Again, we refer to Malachi 2:2 as the verdict of God Himself regarding Israel's priests. By the times of Christ, the party of the Sadducees (among the priests) were outright atheists, not believing in angels, spirits, the resurrection or anything else that the word of God teaches (Matthew 22:23); and they had preempted unto themselves alone the office of the High Priest. They along with the Herodians and Pharisees were the false shepherds who seduced and destroyed the vast majority of the Chosen People (Zechariah 11).