SELECTED REFORM RESPONSA

When the Israelites entered Canaan , they intermarried with the local inhabitants and served other gods(Judges 3:6). The most striking example of such a mixed marriage was that of Samson and Delilah(Judges 14:1). She was a Philistine , and became responsible for his downfall. Later Solomon married many foreign women as part of royal alliances(I Kings 11:1ff), and they, too, led him astray in his old age. If we look at the subsequent record of the kings of Judah and Israel we may be surprised at the paucity of mixed marriages. Among the nineteen kings of Israel who ruled for two hundred forty-one years we find only Ahab , who was married to Jezebel (I Kings 16:31). Among the twenty kings of Judea who ruled for three hundred ninety­three years we have only Jehoram (II Chronicles 21:6), and possibly Jehosaphat(IT Chronicles 18:1), whose mother’s name may have been omitted because she was not an Israelite (Leopold Loew, “Eherechtliche Studien,” Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 3, pp. 138ff.).

The Book of Proverbs contains a number of references against associating with loose or foreign women(Prov. 2:16-17, 5:3-20, 7:5­

27). These are horatory statements, not prohibitions. The prophet Malachi denounced such marriages(Mal. 2:11).

The clearest statements against mixed marriage appeared at the end of the Biblical period in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah , when we find specific legislation prohibiting such marriages and demanding that Israelites separate themselves from foreign wives(Ezra 9:12, 10:10ff). Ezra scrutinized the marriages of the citizens of Jerusalem and neighboring villages. Considerable time was taken to complete this task against some opposition. A list of priests, Levites, and other Israelites who had intermarried and relinquished their foreign wives was provided(Ezra 10:18ff). Among those listed by Ezra as having engaged in intermarriage we find priests, ten Levites and eighty-six Judeans . The problem was not entirely solved as the same difficulty arose again in the days of Nehemiah , who railed against those who had taken wives from Ashdod , Ammon, and Moab. Nehemiah did not

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