In those days I also saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab;
Parallel translations
- KJV In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab:
- BSB In those days I also saw Jews who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
- NKJV In those days I also saw Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
- NASB In those days I also saw that the Jews had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
- NLT About the same time I realized that some of the men of Judah had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Nehemiah found Jews who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. It matters because intermarriage with pagan peoples threatened the covenant identity and faith of God's people.
Overview
Nehemiah discovered mixed marriages that violated God's command and endangered Israel's distinct worship. Such unions had historically drawn Israel into idolatry, so the danger was spiritual, not merely social. The concern is not ethnicity but faithfulness; the New Testament likewise urges believers to be united with those who share faith in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ezra 9:1–2Now when these things were done, the princes came near to me, saying, “The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, following their abominations, even those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.
- Neh 10:30and that we would not give our daughters to the peoples of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons;
- Ezra 10:10Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have trespassed, and have married foreign women, to increase the guilt of Israel.
- 2 Cor 6:14Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
- Neh 13:1On that day they read in the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and it was found written in it that an Ammonite and a Moabite should not enter into the assembly of God forever,
- Ezra 10:44All these had taken foreign wives; and some of them had wives by whom they had children.
- Neh 4:7But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabians, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem went forward, and that the breaches began to be filled, they were very angry;
- Ezra 9:11–12which you have commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land, to which you go to possess it, is an unclean land through the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, through their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another with their filthiness.
- 1 Sam 5:1Now the Philistines had taken God’s ark, and they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.
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Christ at the center
The rebuilt walls and renewed covenant community foreshadow the greater builder who gathers and secures a people for God, the one who declares 'I will build my church.'
How Nehemiah 13:23 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.