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Ezra 10 · a question people ask

Who "stood up against this" (10:15), and was the chapter for them or against them?

In the text

The chapter names them and says no more: "Only Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahzeiah the son of Tikvah stood up against this; and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite helped them" (10:15). It doesn't say what they were against, whether the covenant itself or the plan of 10:14 that comes just before; it doesn't give their reasons; and it gives no verdict on them. The next words are "The children of the captivity did so" (10:16). A Meshullam is also named in the list, "Of the sons of Bani: Meshullam" (10:29); the chapter doesn't say whether he is the Meshullam of 10:15, and these notes don't either.

The verses

“Of the sons of Bani: Meshullam, Malluch, Adaiah, Jashub, Sheal, and Jeremoth.”
Ezra 10:29 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Ezra 10

Ezra 10: We have trespassed

Ezra 10 opens with a people weeping before God's house (10:1) and a man who says "We have trespassed" and "Yet now there is hope for Israel" in one breath (10:2). Its list begins with the priests (10:18), and every family it names "Of Israel" is named in Ezra 2's list of those who came up out of the captivity.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions