Ezra 10:44

44. Wives by whom they had children The Hebrew reads literally, And there were of them ( הם , them, is here masculine, and seems to refer to all these at the beginning of the verse,) wives, and they set (or placed, ישׂימו , the masculine form of the verb) children. The brevity and obscurity of the text are such as to make the exact meaning very doubtful. The naked statement of our common version, which follows in sense the Septuagint and Vulgate, that some of these wives had children, seems bootless. The masculine form of the verb, as well as its peculiar meaning of setting, appointing, etc., inclines one to think that the writer here speaks of some disposition which some of these husbands, who put away their wives, made also of their children. Bertheau conjectures that וישׂימו may be a corruption of גרשׂים , ( thrust out, used of divorce in Leviticus 21:7,) and has been transposed from its proper place before wives, so that originally the text read: And some of them thrust out wives and children. While not prepared to accept this emendation of the text, we think it brings out substantially the meaning which the Hebrew writer meant to convey. For Ezra 10:3 implies that children as well as wives were put away.

The Book of Ezra ends abruptly here, but this reformation was not the end of his ministry for Israel. How long he continued at Jerusalem after the events of this chapter we have no means of knowing, but it is very supposable that he continued there at least some days, in order to instruct the people further in the knowledge of the law. Many have thought that he remained at Jerusalem as governor until the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, when Nehemiah was appointed to that office by the king. But if Ezra had been superseded by Nehemiah we should, doubtless, have had some notice of it in the history of the latter. The abrupt termination of this book, and the subsequent relapse of the Jews at Jerusalem, and their deplorable state when Nehemiah came, leads us rather to the opinion that Ezra soon returned again to Babylon. This view is favoured by the fact that his commission was only to bear the gifts of the king and his counsellors, and “to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem.” Ezra 7:14.

Several years later Ezra appears at Jerusalem again, in connexion with Nehemiah and many Levites, reading and expounding the law to a great assembly of the people. Nehemiah 8:0. The agreement of the ancient traditions in associating Ezra with the Great Synagogue, and the formation of the Old Testament Canon, may authorize us to believe at least this much, that in concert with Nehemiah and the leading Jews of his time he did collect and arrange the books of the Old Testament Canon in substantially the form in which we now possess them. He lived at a time when such a work could best be done, and he had facilities for doing it which no later age possessed. And it may be added, he alone of all the Jews of his age was most competent to perform a work of such responsibility and care. How long he lived after this is uncertain. Josephus says he died at an advanced age, and was buried with distinguished honours at Jerusalem; but other traditions have it that he died on his way back to Persia, and his reputed tomb is still shown on the banks of the Tigris, about twenty miles above its junction with the Euphrates.

Ezra was unquestionably one of the greatest men of his age, and his mighty influence upon his people is attested by the almost innumerable traditions of his character and works, which afterwards sprung up among the Jews, and still linger about his name. He is said to have introduced the square character into Hebrew writing, and also to have established the office of dragoman, or interpreter, whose duty it was to translate and explain the words of the Scriptures as they were read in the synagogue. He is said to have been the founder and first president of the Great Synagogue, and, in fact, of the entire system of synagogue worship as it afterwards prevailed among the Jews of all lands. To him has been attributed the authorship of several books of the Old Testament, [Chronicles, Nehemiah, Esther,] besides this one which bears his name.