And the descendants of Israel separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers.
Read Chapter 9
Bede
AD 735
One should note the devotion of the people reformed after the captivity: when the feast that had been commanded by the Lord’s law had been duly completed, after just one day’s intermission, they immediately came together of their own accord with fasting and with repentance, and they diligently carried out what on the days of sacred readings and rejoicing they had heard must be done by separating themselves in mind and body from the fellowship of those who were proven to be alienated from the Lord and his worship, lest through the association and examples of the wicked they should again fall into the evils of captivity and hardship that, they discerned, they had just at that time barely escaped after long revolutions of times and ages. And what are we to reflect on mystically about these matters except that, following the examples of such people, whatever we have learned in a public meeting or reading should be done, we should reflect on again with mutual discussion among ourselves, and...
Stranger; idolatrous woman. (Haydock)
True repentance requires the works of mortification, and particularly the removal of all occasions of sin and disorderly pleasures. (Worthington)
The reformation had been commenced under Esdras, but some had relapsed, 1 Esdras x. 3. (Calmet)
The true born Israelites would have no society with the sons of infidels. (Tirinus)
Fathers, that they might not be punished for them, Exodus xx. 5. (Calmet)
