Nehemiah 9:2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The seed of Israel separated themselves From all unnecessary society with the heathen, and particularly from those strange women whom some of them had married. For although Ezra had effected this separation formerly, as far as he had knowledge of the faulty persons, and power to reform them; yet it seems there were some criminals who either had escaped his knowledge, or were beyond the reach of his power; or there were some new delinquents that since that time had fallen into the same error, and now showed the truth of their repentance by forsaking their beloved sins and dearest relations. And the iniquities of their fathers Which they confess, partly as one cause of their present sufferings; and partly because they, by their practices, had justified their father's sins, and made them their own.