Now it came to pass, when they had heard the law, that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude.
All Commentaries on Nehemiah 13:3 Go To Nehemiah 13
Bede
AD 735
It is known that the Moabites and the Ammonites, because they were born from incest, figuratively represent heretics, whose authors through their faulty understanding corrupt the teaching of the Fathers from which they themselves were instructed, just as the daughters of Lot secretly and in darkness and illegitimately use the seed of their father; and for this reason the offspring of such ones (i.e., adherents of heresies) can never have any part in the Lord’s church. For those who are set straight from these heresies will no longer be the offspring of such mothers. Now they would meet the children of Israel with food and water as they are coming from Egypt if they themselves, living well and dwelling in catholic peace, were to bestow the solace of God’s Word on those who, recently rescued from the servitude of sins through the water of baptism as if through the waves of the sea, are panting for the freedom of the celestial homeland.
