1. Repeated words: defiled, impurities, filthiness, abominations v.11, abominable peoples v.14
(EBC )Here it refers to both the corruption of Canaanite idolatry and the immoral practices associated with it...Their gods were like the Greek gods, glorified human beings, contentious, jealous, vindictive, lustful, and even, like El, lazy”
Reflection: The commandments that the post-exilic community had ignored was very clear about what kind of people was their local residents. Israel sinned defiantly.
2. Why Israelites disobey God and marry the pagan women?
12 永不可求他們的平安和他們的利益，這樣你們就可以強盛，吃這地的美物，並遺留這地給你們的子孫永遠為業。’
v. 12 Do not ever seek their peace or welfare, so that you may be strong and may eat the good of the land and may leave it as an inheritance for your children forever.’
(EBC) Myers (World of Restoration, pp. 88–89) proposes that economic factors motivated the members of the upper classes who were most prominent in contracting intermarriages.
(BKC) Foreign marriages contaminated Israel, fostered the foreigners’ prosperity, weakened Israel spiritually, and decreased her opportunity to enjoy the land’s crops.
Reflection: The reason why they disobeyed God defiantly was their deep conviction that by doing so they could enjoy the prosperity of the land. In other words, they had not believed that the land was given by God. What they believed had deceived them for generations until that point of time. What have deceived me for a long time so that I will disobey God defiantly?
3. What did Ezra pray about?
v. 15 Indeed, we stand before you in our guilt
(BKC) Ezra then confessed the men’s present sin of intermarriage. Ezra asked, What can we say after this? By this question he was acknowledging that the nation had no excuse before God...The conclusion Ezra reached was that God would be totally just in destroying them in His anger so that no remnant would be left (cf. “remnant” in vv. 8, 13, 15). They deserved even greater punishment than God was giving them (cf. v. 6).
Reflection: Humanly speaking, there is no remedy for our sins. What could Ezra do at that was only to admit their sins. That was the only thing that God would accept anyway (1 John 1:9).
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