Nehemiah 9:2 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

From all strangers; from all familiar and unnecessary society with the heathens, and particularly from those strange women whom some of them had married. For though Ezra had done this formerly, Ezr 10, as far as he had knowledge of the persons faulty, and power to redress their faults, yet, it seems, there were some criminals, who were either without his knowledge, or out of his power; or these were some new delinquents, that since that time had fallen into the same error, and showed the truth of their repentance by the forsaking of their beloved sins and dearest relations. See again Nehemiah 13:3. 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 fathers sins, and made them their own.