Ezra 10:41

Study note

Setting — Ezra writes a continuation of the administrative roll call of Israelite men who had married foreign women and were summoned to Jerusalem. The list operates during the post-exilic covenant renewal when the community was required to separate from non-Israelite wives.

The words — עֲזַרְאֵ֥ל ('a.zar.'El) literally means “God helps,” and שֶלֶמְיָ֖הוּ (she.lem.Ya.hu) means “Yahweh is peace.” The Hebrew text records these theophoric names as plain proper nouns without descriptive qualifiers.

The thread — The names appear strictly within the Ezra 10:40–42 roster of returned exiles, functioning as a direct continuation of the preceding and following lists. Parallel genealogical records of these same names occur in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7.

Why it lands — The text requires the reader to acknowledge that covenant obedience is enacted by specific, named individuals rather than anonymous crowds. It asks for a sober accounting of who was included in the post-exilic reform and what concrete boundaries they were ordered to uphold.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.