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Ezra 9 · a question people ask

Ezra quotes "your servants the prophets" in 9:11-12. Where are those words?

In the text

Ezra says the commandments came "by your servants the prophets" (9:11), and doesn't say which ones. Two passages of the Law come close. For the daughters and the sons, "Now therefore don’t give your daughters to their sons. Don’t take their daughters to your sons" (9:12), the Law has "You shall not give your daughter to his son, nor shall you take his daughter for your son" (Deuteronomy 7:3). For "nor seek their peace or their prosperity forever" (9:12), it has "You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever" (Deuteronomy 23:6), which speaks of the Ammonite and the Moabite (Deuteronomy 23:3); in Hebrew, seek, peace and prosperity are the same three words in both. For the land "to which you go to possess" (9:11), Deuteronomy 7:1 has "the land where you go to possess it" (Deuteronomy 7:1). The words are close, not the same, and these notes don't say which passage Ezra meant.

The verses

“which you have commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land to which you go to possess is an unclean land through the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, through their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another with their filthiness. Now therefore don’t give your daughters to their sons. Don’t take their daughters to your sons, nor seek their peace or their prosperity forever, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.’”
Ezra 9:11-12 · World English Bible
“When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you go to possess it, and casts out many nations before you—the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite—seven nations greater and mightier than you;”
Deuteronomy 7:1 · World English Bible
“You shall not make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to his son, nor shall you take his daughter for your son.”
Deuteronomy 7:3 · World English Bible
“An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the LORD’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one belonging to them enter into the LORD’s assembly forever,”
Deuteronomy 23:3 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Ezra 9

Ezra 9: A remnant that has escaped

Ezra 9 is a confession that asks for nothing. Told that the leaders were first in the trespass (9:2), Ezra prays "our iniquities" (9:6), names mercy in the middle, "our God has not forsaken us in our bondage" (9:9), and ends, "you are righteous; for we are left a remnant that has escaped" (9:15).

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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