Chapter 13
While Ezra prays and weeps, the people also turn to repentance, and with unanimous counsel they separate from foreign wives. (1 Esdras 10)
[Ezra 10:1] -- Therefore, as Ezra prayed and implored, etc. The effectiveness of Ezra's prayer, weeping, and lamentation is shown when immediately a very large assembly of both sexes and all ages is reported to have gathered to him. They wept, either those who had sinned, repenting of their guilt, or those who had remained chaste, grieving over the transgression and fall of their brothers. But whether these, or those, or both wept, they are all shown greatly troubled by the prayers and lamentations of their priest, such that even women, along with children, are said to have been present. It can also be understood with this discretion, that first the innocent and upright gathered to him, when he said: And all who feared the word of the God of Israel assembled to me because of the unfaithfulness of the exiles (1 Esdras 9); now even those who had sinned with their wives and children gather to act in repentance.
[Ezra 10:2] -- And Sechenias responded, etc. Josephus says that this Sechenias was the first of the Jerusalemites, and he himself, as befits a leader, with the greatest authority, soon helped Ezra's intention, both by confessing that the people had sinned together with him, and by advising that repentance should be made, by casting off foreign wives, along with the children born from them.
[Ezra 10:2] -- And now if there is repentance in Israel concerning this, etc. He says, if the people perfectly repent of this transgression, first let us turn to the Lord and promise correction, and ask for pardon; then turning back to ourselves, let us root out and excise from us all the actions and roots of the crime committed, namely by casting out the wives along with all their unlawful offspring; for this is truly to repent, and to turn wholly inwardly in the heart to the Lord, and outwardly to cut off all matters of sin from their very origin. And what follows:
[Ezra 10:4] -- Arise, it is your task to decide, etc. He very fittingly teaches how it should be conducted among the elders in council, so that each person may state what seems best according to their understanding, or what they have seemed to have understood; and yet leave the decision to him who has the power, ready to obey all that he has determined to be done according to the will and law of God.
[Ezra 10:5] -- And Ezra rose before the house of God, etc. Eliasib was the high priest of that time, since after Jesus the son of Jozadak, his son Joachim, and after him his son Eliasib, carried out the rank of high priest, as both the subsequent sections of this sacred history and the Jewish history of Josephus prove.
[Ezra 10:6] -- He did not eat bread, etc. Here they will have an excellent example not only of weeping and praying, but also of fasting for those who have sinned; and since blessed are those who mourn, who weep for their own sins, because after receiving remission, they are comforted, how much more are they to be believed blessed, who also mourn for the errors of their brothers; and this to such an extent that they do not even want to touch bread and water, which is the nourishment of those who abstain, nor enter their house, or ascend to their bed, but rather prefer to pray throughout the night in the courtyards of the house of the Lord. For there was the house of the priest, which, as evening came, Ezra is reported to have entered. Finally, another Edition instead of Johanan's bedchamber, has Johanan's vestry, by which name Scripture often refers to the porticoes surrounding the temple on all sides, in which the ministers and guards of the same temple used to reside. They also mourn now for the transgression of those who came from captivity, who grieve for those who, having been recently rescued from sins through repentance, have again fallen into sin, by which they might be once more captured by the devil. Regarding whose seducers, as about parents of impure wives, the apostle Peter speaks: For, speaking arrogant words of vanity, they entice by lusts of the flesh, those who have barely escaped (II Peter II). And a little later he speaks about those who, as if ascending from captivity, are nonetheless captured by luxury: For if, he says, those who have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first (Ibid.).
[Ezra 10:7] -- And a voice was sent into Judah and Jerusalem, etc. While it is said that the sons of Judah and Benjamin gathered, it is clearly evident that those who were defiled by the marriage of foreign wives were from the first migration, which was from these tribes, and through Jesus and Zerubbabel, they were recalled to the house, as we have previously mentioned.
[Ezra 10:9] -- He is the new moon, on the twentieth day of the month, etc. The ninth month is the same which the Hebrews call Casleu, and the Romans call December, which comes in the middle of winter and is rainy and stormy, as anyone would know. Therefore, it should be noted more diligently that when the people gathered in mid-winter, they were reminded to tremble from sin and rains. For when they saw that rains were falling even more than usual during the season of rains, they returned to their conscience and understood this to be due to their crimes and feared the celestial wrath that would come, being warned by the disturbance in the atmosphere. Therefore, they did not presume to conduct their affairs in private houses but gathered in the square of the house of the Lord, having assumed the habit of penitence and humility. This is mentioned for those who, although the elements are disturbed, and either by the noise of the winds, the flooding of the rains, the heaps of snow, the heat of drought, or even the ruin of men or animals increasing from above, and with the same Judge by clear signs threatening the force of His wrath, do not inquire at all about the correction of morals, by which they might please the Judge and evade the impending plague, but only diligently consider by what skill they might either avoid or overcome the adversities that rage outside due to sins. But the people sat in the square of the house of God, that is, around the priest’s court, which was surrounded everywhere by the house of God itself, as we taught above; having around it on every side in a square the spacious houses of the courts, in which the people could stand when necessary due to the rains and still see what was happening at the temple gates or around the temple. For the inner walls were made with columns up to the ground, and the outer walls were solid.
[Ezra 10:10] -- And Ezra the priest arose and said, etc. This passage corresponds to what was previously mentioned: And Ezra arose before the house of God and went to the chamber of Johanan the son of Eliashib, and he went there, he did not eat bread, and he did not drink water; for he was mourning. Here the devotion of the high priest is to be noted, who, mourning, praying, and fasting for the transgression of the people, remained for three days in the courtyards of the temple; nor did he wish to enter his own house before he saw the people, having given their consent, wholly repentant and turned to the Lord with all their heart. The other leaders also seem to have shared in his devotion, as they are said to have gone to the houses of their fathers after the assembly was finished. For if the sacred history writer did not wish to signify this with that statement, what was the point of writing that, after the discussion was completed, Ezra and the heads of the families went from the courtyards of the temple to the houses of their fathers, when everyone would know that they would do this even without Scripture saying it? What was the point of adding, And all by their names, when this too would be well-known to all, except that he wanted it to be understood that they were such whose names and deeds should rightfully be kept in memory and handed down to be known by posterity?
[Ezra 10:16] -- And they sat on the first day of the tenth month, etc. Note that the number three is very commonly used in mystical figures. It was previously said that in three days all the sons of the diaspora should come to Jerusalem; and now in three months, namely the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth, they are punished by foreign wives. For there are three virtues without which we cannot attain life: faith, hope, and charity. Coming into the world at the third time of the age, the Lord bestowed upon us the grace of the Gospel. For the first time was before the law with the patriarchs, the second with the prophets under the law, in the third He Himself came with grace; because redeeming us by His passion, He rose from the dead on the third day; through whose grace, both by being joined in fellowship with the holy Church and by being cleansed from the allurements of vices, aptly the sons of the diaspora, having to be corrected from their errors in three days, convened in Jerusalem, and in three months completed their task of correction. But also literally, the leaders of the families and the Levites worked opportunely and salutarily so that before the beginning of the first month all those who were stained by profane marriage were completed; that is, they were cleansed from such a crime, so that they could enter the first month, in which the Passover was to be held, pure, and could celebrate the Paschal feast pure, and could begin and continue the year pure. This is also suitable for us to imitate every year in Lent in preparation for Easter, so that as the solemnities of the Lord's Resurrection approach, we cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, so that we may also be able to be partakers of the Resurrection.