Ezra 10:16

AND THE CHILDREN OF THE CAPTIVITY DID SO

"And the children of the captivity did so. And Ezra the priest, with certain heads of fathers' houses, after their fathers' houses, and all of them by their names, were set apart; and they sat down in the first day of the tenth month to examine the matter. And they made an end with all the men that had married foreign women by the first day of the first month."

The opposition did not delay the repudiation of the foreign wives. Only about a week elapsed between the decision to do so and the first session of the commission appointed to execute it. "The case of each city (or village) was taken separately. The male inhabitants of full age attended, and the `elders and judges' heard each case separately. The neighbors of each person investigated were available for questioning; and when a mixed marriage was proved, the wife was repudiated. In 112 cases, the commission decided that the foreign wives and the children born to them were to be sent away."[18] An emendation in the RSV results in the number being reduced to 111.

In any case, the number is surprisingly small. Out of at least 20,000 men, only a few more than a hundred were guilty of having violated God's law in this matter. However, the importance of it was greatly intensified and augmented by the high social position and importance of the violators. If these had remained unpunished, or if their unlawful marriages had been allowed to stand, there is no way that Israel could have continued to maintain their distinction as a separate nation. Ezra's listing the violators as to their distinction as priests, Levites, etc., doubtless had this very fact in focus. The whole project was completed in three months' time, which allowed the better part of a whole day for the investigation of each one convicted.