In those days I also saw Jews who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
Parallel translations
- WEB In those days I also saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab;
- KJV In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of 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 9:1–2After these things had been accomplished, the leaders approached me and said, “The people of Israel, including the priests and Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the surrounding peoples whose abominations are like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites.
- Neh 10:30We will not give our daughters in marriage to the people of the land, and we will not take their daughters for our sons.
- Ezra 10:10Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful by marrying foreign women, adding to the guilt of Israel.
- 2 Cor 6:14Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership can righteousness have with wickedness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?
- Neh 13:1At that time the Book of Moses was read aloud in the hearing of the people, and in it they found the passage stating that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God,
- Ezra 10:44All these men had married foreign women, and some of them had children by these wives.
- Neh 4:7When Sanballat and Tobiah, together with the Arabs, Ammonites, and Ashdodites, heard that the repair to the walls of Jerusalem was progressing and that the gaps were being closed, they were furious,
- Ezra 9:11–12that You gave through Your servants the prophets, saying: ‘The land that you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the impurity of its peoples and the abominations with which they have filled it from end to end.
- 1 Sam 5:1After the Philistines had captured the ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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.