August 10

Sorry about this week. Cole started school on Monday and Matthew is very busy getting ready to leave next Wednesday for college. Add to that the general chaos that is my life and things get squirrelly. I will try to do better.

OT -- Ezra 10:1-44
While I knew about this pitiful part of Jewish history, I did not realize just how hard it would hit me. The basic story is that when Ezra and his band of priestly yahoos show up in Jerusalem to finish the Temple and really bring back the 'true worship' of the Lord, Ezra discovers that the previously returned Exiles and the ones left behind had intermarried with 'foreign women'. An abomination. So awful that Ezra rips his clothes and quits eating in the rain.
To placate him, the priests come up with the plan to 'separate the wives and children from the Jewish men'.
Here is my problem with this whole scenario. The women and especially the children probably had NOTHING to do with the marriage. Marriage in Ezra times was a strictly financial or lustful transaction and women had very little if any to say about it.
A woman who was 'separated' from her husband was worthless and useless. Probably penniless as well. Her family was not likely to take her back because how would they get rid of her then?
And the children! Who made those beings? Not the women by themselves.

Now, I am not a total jerk. I get the whole thing about God telling Moses not to let the men intermarry with the Canaanites. I also get the idea that women are the ones who pass on religion in the homes. It was true then and I think it is true now. If the mother doesn't go to church, it is really hard for the kids to go.

But once the marriage has happened, once the children have been born, there really is no going back. You just have deal with the consequences. And I recognize that the consequences are not good.
But to leave the women. To leave the children is utterly despicable in my mind. And makes me HATE this so-called High Priest Ezra. And to couch it in terms of 'God made me do it or He will bring destruction on us' is hideous.

Feel differently? Feel free to comment or email.