Ezra 10:43

Study note

Setting — Ezra records a roster of returning exiles during the post-exilic covenant renewal when the community confronted intermarriage with foreign women. He addresses the assembled leaders and priests who gathered at Jerusalem to publicly confess and dissolve these alliances.

The words — The text begins with מִ/בְּנֵ֖י (mi./be.Nei) נְב֑וֹ (ne.Vo), literally "of the sons of Nebo," identifying a specific clan among the returnees. The subsequent proper names function as a straightforward census list without descriptive verbs or titles.

The thread — This clan appears in Ezra 2:29 as the descendants of Nebo with a census count of fifty-two, and again in Nehemiah 7:33 as the men of the other Nebo with the same number. The parallel records track the same family line through the early return and the later restoration period.

Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that covenant faithfulness requires naming and addressing specific familial alliances that compromise religious boundaries. Readers must observe how recorded names function as evidence of communal accountability rather than abstract principles.

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.