Ezra 10:3 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

To put away all the wives, and such as are born of them If this seem to any to have been an act of great severity, if not injustice, “let it be observed that the law (Deuteronomy 7:1, &c.) was express, and enforced with weighty reasons against these pagan marriages; and, therefore, since whatever is done contrary to law is, ipso facto, null and void, these marriages with idolatrous women, which were strictly forbidden by God, were, properly speaking, no marriages at all; and the children which proceeded from them were in no better condition than those whom we call bastards. No interposition of civil authority was therefore needful to dissolve these marriages; the infidelity and idolatry of the party espoused were as much an interdiction as any the most proximate degree of consanguinity, which, by the laws of all civilized nations, is known to vacate the marriage. But even suppose the civil authority thought proper to interpose in this matter, yet wherein had the Jews any reason to complain, if, in just punishment of their wilful breach of a known and positive law, they were excluded from cohabiting with these illegal wives; those Jews, who, for every light and trivial cause, made no scruple to give even their lawful wives a bill of divorcement, and might, therefore, with much less difficulty, be supposed willing to repudiate those whom the laws of their God, for fear of their catching the infection of idolatry, had forbidden them to live with?” Dodd. See Selden, Uxor. Hebrews, 50:3, c. 18. It may be observed further here, that these wives and children were only cast out of the commonwealth of Israel, but were not utterly forsaken: probably care was taken by authority that they should have some provision made for them. For all was to be done according to the counsel of Ezra, and other good men, who feared God, and would not enjoin or advise any thing that was unjust or unmerciful. They would also probably take care that the children should be educated in the Jewish religion.