Ezra 10:2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

We have trespassed against our God He says we, in the name of the people, and their several families, and his own among the rest. For this man's name is not in the following catalogue, but there we have his father Jehiel, and his father's brethren, five other sons of his grandfather Elam, Ezra 10:26. It was therefore an evidence of his great courage and disinterested faithfulness, that he durst so freely discharge his duty, whereby he showed that he honoured God more than his nearest and dearest relations, and set an admirable example of zealous integrity. And have taken strange wives Into conjugal society with ourselves. Yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing The case is sad, but not desperate: the disease threatening, but not incurable. Our ruin may yet be prevented by repentance and reformation. And there is hope that the people may be reformed, the guilty reclaimed, a stop put to the spreading of the contagion, and so the judgments which the sin deserves may be prevented. Therefore, let us not sorrow like persons without hope, or sit down in despair, but let us fall upon action, and amend our errors, and then trust to God's mercy.