God’s Word for You

Ezra 10:44 Their crosses and ours.

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, August 5, 2025

44 All these had married foreign wives, and some of the wives had even given birth to children.

There is perhaps a problem with the Hebrew text in this final verse. The issue is with the second phrase, which says: “Some of them (masculine) were women, and they (masculine) ‘made’ sons.” There is a parallel verse in the Apocryphal 1 Esdras that is more clear: “All these men had married foreign wives, and they dismissed them along with their sons” (1 Esdras 9:36). Should we change the Hebrew text of the verse (a) to get the genders of the women correct, or (b) to match a later paraphrase from the apocryphal period, a few hundred years later? Neither is a good solution. The transmission of the Hebrew Bible from the original texts to the present moves through these five periods:

I, 1400-300 BC. The individual books were written. Some spellings changed over the centuries; there was a change at the very end of this period (after Ezra’s time) from the old, archaic Phoenician script to the more recognizable “square” Hebrew script.

II, 300 BC-135 AD. Translation of the Old Testament into Greek; some very slightly different text families emerged as the Hebrew text was copied in Galilee (“Tiberian”), Judea (“Palestinian”), and along the Euphrates (“Babylonian”). Of these, the Tiberian school was eventually accepted as generally superior and more reliable.

III, 135-1000 AD. Talmudic period. Many private copies of Old Testament books were made, many were paraphrased into Aramaic (the Targums), and paragraph and verse divisions were made. The marginal notes were made by scribes known as Masoretes. Accents were added to the text in imitation of the Greek accents used in the Christian New Testament to aid in public reading. Some short books (treatises) about the Masoretic notes were made by scholars.

IV, 1000-1450 AD. Generally by this time only the Masoretic text was being copied with only very minor changes, usually regarding vowels, vowel letters, or accent marks.

V, 1450-Present. After the invention of the printing press, printed editions have become more and more common. Anyone who can afford a book can afford to own a Hebrew Old Testament if they wish. Modern critical editions began following the Lutheran Reformation.

Due to the patience and painstaking work of the Hebrew scribes over the centuries, it is remarkable that we have an Old Testament text today which, in Hebrew, is virtually identical with the one written by Moses and the Prophets, including Ezra. Seen in this light, the spelling of two verbs in the last phrase of this book is a relatively minor issue. Most likely, this was a simple error by a copyist who had a general knowledge of Hebrew but did not speak Hebrew as his first language. The result is the kind of phrase we would recognize as “nearly correct” but slightly foreign in modern English, such as “How do you doing today?” or “How is your wife? I hope he is fine.”

The final sentence of the book reminds us of the heavy burden these men and woman carried, and also their children. This kind of burden was painful in the same way that a repentant gambler suffers when he gives up gambling but doesn’t get his money back. This is a consequence of sin. It is necessary, and it is necessarily painful, but it is not punishment for the sin, even as painful as it is. All of the punishment for every sin was already carried by Jesus Christ on the cross. “He forgave us all our sins” (Colossians 2:13). “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him” (Isaiah 53:5), done by Pilate the governor, who thought, “I will punish him and then release him” (Luke 23:16), but who punished him and killed him, releasing his dead body for burial instead (Mark 15:45; John 19:38).

But what about our crosses? Our Lutheran Confession states: “When in the midst of troubles terrified consciences see only God’s punishment and wrath, they should not feel that God has rejected them but they should be taught that troubles have other and more important purposes.” As hard as they are, the Lord uses these troubles to draw us closer to him, drawing us also with his Word and sacraments. “He lets us suffer the consequences of our sins so that we may be warned against continuing in them. He lets us experience the chastening hand so that we may treasure all the more the forgiving hand.” So to build up our spiritual muscles, to prepare us for the next test in life, and the next one, and the next, he tells us, “Take up your cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). He carried the cross of our salvation. We carry the crosses of our sanctification. Ezra’s preaching and Ezra’s writing teach us the same message. God is gracious, and he is with us even when life seems hardest, cruelest, and most bitter. Our God proves again and again the promise of Jesus our Savior: “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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