In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab:
Parallel translations
- WEB In those days I also saw the Jews who had married women 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 to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even 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 unto the people of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons:
- Ezra 10:10And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel.
- 2 Cor 6:14Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
- Neh 13:1On that day they read in the book of Moses in the audience of the people; and therein was found written, that the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into the congregation of God for ever;
- Ezra 10:44All these had taken strange wives: and some of them had wives by whom they had children.
- Neh 4:7But it came to pass, that when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth,
- Ezra 9:11–12Which thou hast commanded by thy servants the prophets, saying, The land, unto which ye go to possess it, is an unclean land with the filthiness of the people of the lands, with their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another with their uncleanness.
- 1 Sam 5:1And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it from Ebenezer unto 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
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