The people were able to complete the divorce proceedings in three months (vv. 9, 17). A total of 113 Israelites had married and now divorced their foreign wives, only a fraction of the total number of Jews then living in Judah. Of these, 16 were priests and 10 were Levites, about 25 percent of the total. Perhaps Jewish women had not married Gentile men. A more likely possibility is that since women could not divorce their husbands in Israel the Jewish women who had married Gentiles did not get divorces.
Was this plan one that God approved? The text does not give any statement from a prophet or other representative who spoke for God either way. However for the reasons explained above and since the writer devoted two chapters in this inspired book to the record of this incident, I think it was God's will.
". . . although the law in general was known to the exiles, the finer distinctions and the interpretation of certain stipulations could have escaped them. Ezra was sent to teach them these distinctions and to interpret the law for them (7:10). It is this lesson they had to learn in order to realize that their marriages to foreign women were wrong."142
This reformation resulted in the continued racial and, more significantly, spiritual purity of Abraham's descendants for another generation. However, Nehemiah faced a recurrence of the problem of mixed marriages only a few years later (Neh. 10:30; 13:23).
"The Book of Ezra-Nehemiah presents Ezra as a strong personality. He did not emphasize the law as an end in itself; rather, he was convinced that the covenant community needed to return to God by taking seriously his revelation and applying it to every aspect of life."143
