(18-44) List of the transgressors.
(19) They gave their hands. — The four members of the high priest’s family were peculiarly dealt with. They gave their distinct pledge, and offered each a special trespass offering. It is one among a multitude of similar tokens of authenticity in the history; and inventor would have given some reason for the peculiarity.
(22) Pashur. — Comparing Ezra 2:36-39, we find that all the priestly families that returned with Zerub-babel were implicated in the national offence.
(25) Of Israel. — Of the laity eighty-six are mentioned, belonging to ten races which returned with Zerubbabel.
(34) Bani. — Probably this should be some other name, as Bani occurs before. The peculiarly large number of the representatives of his race suggests that there is some confusion in the present text.
(44) All these had taken strange wives. — Though the numbers are not summed up and distributed, it is evident that this closing sentence is emphatic. Ezra ends his history with a catalogue of the delinquents — strong testimony to the importance he attached to the reformation. The last words — literally, and there were of them wives who had brought forth children — tend in the same direction. Not even this pathetic fact restrained the thoroughness of the excision. But the Book of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 13:23 seq.) will show that it was thorough only for a time.