Mourning over sin is necessary, but insufficient to true conversion. As the Heidelberg Catechism says, we must “hate and flee from” sins (Lord’s Day 33, A. 89). Or as Paul says: “godly sorrow worketh repentance to salva­tion” (2 Cor. 7:10). In Ezra 9, the people joined Ezra in mourning over their sin of intermarrying with the surrounding people. But how would they break with this sin?

Ezra 10 shows us how they did. It began with the heart, as they wept before the Lord (v. 1); then it moved to the lips, as they pledged obedience to the Lord (v. 12); then, finally, it stretched to the hand, as they signed their names to do the Lord’s bidding (v. 19). Their repentance involved the whole man, as it must.

Repentance of Heart⤒🔗

After Peter denied the Lord, Jesus looked on him and he went out and wept bitterly (Luke 22:62). Some 500 years earlier, a great congregation also wept bitterly (v. 1). They, too, sinned against God’s grace (Ezra 9:8). They provoked His great wrath (Ezra 10:14). Through the leadership of Ezra, they became sensible of their sin. Their hearts were broken as they heard Ezra own their sin and vindicate the righteousness of God.

From out of these broken hearts tears of sorrow poured forth. As Zechariah prophesied, the Lord poured forth the spirit of grace and of supplications, and thus the people began to “mourn” and be “in bit­terness” (Zech. 12:10-14). The Lord did not leave these people utterly to themselves. Instead, He used Ezra to bring them to godly sorrow.

Such tears of sorrow are a good sign. In fact, they are a sign of hope. As our passage says, “now there is hope” (Ezra 10:3). When hope is lost from man’s side, true hope is born. God does not despise “the broken and the contrite heart” (Ps. 51:17). And if God does not despise such brokenness, that means that He regards it. In fact, such tears are what the Lord puts in His bot­tle and writes in His book (Ps. 56:8).

This is the first step towards breaking with sin.

Repentance of Lips←⤒🔗

The second step was a public confession. A certain Shechaniah took the lead. He called for a national covenant with God to annul all these illegitimate mar­riages (Ezra 10:3). Ezra was to lead in this action (Ezra 10:4). Ezra secured the cooperation of the chief priests, Levites, and all the rest (Ezra 10:5), and they made proclamation that all who wished to join this national covenant had to come to Jerusalem at a set time (Ezra 10:6-8). Despite the fact that there were heavy rains, the people gathered together (Ezra 10:9). Then Ezra stood up and called for a public confession from the people and an agreement to the covenant (Ezra 10:11).

What follows is very significant:

Then all the con­gregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so must we do. Ezra 10:12

The people publicly submitted themselves to the will of the Lord. They canceled out their own will and aligned themselves verbally and publicly with the Lord’s perfect will. As Ezra had said, they must seek to “do his pleasure” (Ezra 10:11).

We have here what we also find in the third peti­tion of the Lord’s prayer: “Thy will be done.” The people renounced their own will and resolved to obey God’s will without murmuring (see Heidelberg Cate­chism, Q. 124). And they did this publicly, before many witnesses.

Today, when people make public confession of faith, they pledge before the church “to conduct themselves conformably to the doctrine of the Scriptures, faithfully, honorably, and beyond reproach.” Or when people make public confession of guilt, they pledge “to forsake the particular sin and the world, and to live in a Christian way in the future.”

We see this same public and verbal confession in Ezra 10. We should encourage this of each other, as we see in our chapter.

This is the second step in breaking with sin.

Repentance of Hands←⤒🔗

The third and final step was actual obedience itself. We see this in verse 19: “And they gave their hands that they would put away their wives.” Not only were their hearts and lips involved, but their repentance extended further. They signed a document with their hands. “Moreover, with their hands, they offered a ram for their trespass” (v. 19). And with their hands, they sent the wives away. They followed through with their pledges.

People have a hard time understanding why Ezra would have stipulated the divorce of these foreign wives. This seems severe and harsh, and even unbibli­cal. Does God not “hate divorce,” as Malachi 2:16 says?

In order to properly understand what is happening we need to look carefully at Malachi 2:11-16. This passage stems from exactly the time of Ezra or perhaps shortly before. Note the following things:

Malachi accused Judah and Jerusalem of profaning the holiness of the Lord by marrying “the daughter of a strange god” (Mal. 2:11). Thus we see that these intermarriages were bringing idolatry within the ranks of the congregation.

In the process, the people had been divorcing their original (Jewish) wives. Malachi mentions “the wife of his youth.” It must have become fashionable to put away one’s Jewish wife and marry someone from outside the community of faith. In Nehemiah 6:18 we read of alliances between people in Judah with those on the outside that were sealed by marriages between the families. Just as Solomon would make alliances with other nations and take a wife from their royal family, so these Jews were sealing their agreements with outside families by marriages (see Neh. 13:26).

When God declared his hatred of divorce (Mal. 2:16), He had in mind the original marriage, which cer­tain Jews were abandoning in favor of some cosmo­politan arrangement.

Yes, God hates unbiblical divorces. Therefore, Ezra called the people to put away their foreign wives, and thus return to the wives of their youth. The only way back was for those who had offended God’s law and broken their original vows to go back and disannul their secondary vows and keep their primary ones. Thus we see that Israel fully repents. They not only mourn over sin, but they renounced it, and actually broke with it. They returned to the Lord and their covenant with Him and disannulled their covenant with the foreign nations through intermarriage. The Lord accepted His returning bride for Christ’s sake.

Questions←⤒🔗

1. Why does unfaithfulness to God often show itself in human relationships, such as marriage and family?
    
2. The people wept bitterly under a sense of God’s fierce wrath. Do we still understand the adverb “bitterly” and the adjective “fierce”? How do the two go together? And how can there be “hope” (v. 2) precisely here?
    
3. What is the role of leaders in the Christian church in issues of corporate repentance? What did the leaders do in this chapter?
    
4. What does it mean to “do the Lord’s pleasure” (v. 11)?
    
5. What light does Malachi 2:11-16 shed on Ezra 10?
    
6. What does Paul in the New Testament instruct believers who are married to unbelievers (1 Cor. 7:12-17)?