Nehemiah 13:23

FOREIGN MARRIAGES DISSOLVED, Nehemiah 13:23-31.

“The sin of mixed marriages was one of the crying sins of the Jews at this time. The greatness of the sin arose from the fact that it tended to defeat one of the purposes of the Mosaic economy. God isolated the Jews from all other nations that they might be a nursery for the great ideas of religion that were to be elaborated in the history of the world, and a stock from which he would bring forth the Messiah. All mingling with other nations, who had not been trained in this way and preserved for this purpose, tended to defeat this design. Especially was this true of matrimonial alliances. Heathen women retained a natural longing for the indulgences of their own religion, and easily led their husbands into guilty compliances. The women of Moab and Philistia, and the wives of Solomon, furnish mournful proofs of this fact. They led their infatuated husbands and paramours into the grossest idolatry. They, therefore, who chose heathen wives, thereby rejected the God of Israel.” T.V. Moore.

23. Saw I Jews That is, he observed, or his attention was called to, certain Jews who had contracted foreign marriages. Perhaps he observed this during some journey through the province, for these Jews seem not to have lived in Jerusalem.

Had married wives Literally, had caused to dwell. An expression originating in the custom of the husband’s bringing his wife home to dwell in his own house.

Ashdod One of the principal cities of the Philistines. See on Joshua 11:22.