Today we read that some of the Israelites were sinning by disobeying God's command not to intermarry with the pagan peoples around them. The people decided that those who had sinned in this way should repent and send away their wives and children. Isn't this adding the sin of divorce to the sin of intermarriage already committed?
The People's Bible addresses this question. In 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 Paul tells the New Testament believers who are married to unbelieving spouses to remain married. That case is different than this one, however, because the people in Corinth had married heathen spouses while they were still heathen themselves. Also, as Gentiles, they had been under no command of God forbidding intermarriage but had entered those marriages in good faith. The situation was different in this case because the Israelites had entered unions that were illegal from the start because they were forbidden to Old Testament Jews by God's command (Deuteronomy 7:3).
The People's Bible says, "Ezra's action of dissolving these mixed marriages was more comparable to telling someone to stop living in an adulterous relationship that was wrong from the start than to forcing someone to dissolve a valid marriage. Ezra required that the people obey the commandment that God had given them for the preservation of Israel, even though this undoubtedly caused pain and hardship for some of the wives who were sent away. The blame for the tragic side effects of this action belong to those who had created the situation by ignoring God's law."
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