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Ezra 9:6–15, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Ezra 9:6–15
Ezra confesses guilt and fragile grace
Shame that includes the speaker
Ezra's prayer is first-person plural from the opening: our iniquities are over our head, our guilt is grown up to the heavens. From the fathers' days they have been in great guilt; sword, captivity, plunder, and shame came as they deserved. He does not isolate a few bad marriages as a youth problem. He puts the new trespass inside a long history of unfaithfulness that already cost them the land.
A peg, a wall, and eyes that cannot face God
For a brief moment grace has come from the Lord: a remnant to escape, a peg in the holy place, lightened eyes, a little reviving in bondage. They are slaves, yet God has extended mercy before the kings of Persia to give reviving, to set up the house, and to give a wall in Judah and Jerusalem. Now, having these things, shall they again break commandments and join the peoples of these abominations? Ezra fears there will be no remnant left. The prayer ends without a program. It is confession of fragile grace, not a theory of blood and not a warrant to treat later expulsion as a template for Christian family law.
How this should shape us
Confess as a people when the wound is a people's wound. Name mercy as small and real: a peg, a little reviving, still slaves under kings. Then refuse two false uses of this prayer—using it to prove racial purity, or using it to bless whatever harsh remedy a later meeting invents.
Teach it back
Explain Ezra 9:6–15 in your own words. Include the movement, one source-supported detail, one material uncertainty, and one misuse the context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Readers disagree over the prayer's use of Scripture, the balance of religious and ethnic identity, and its relation to chapter 10's policy. Its confessional genre and absence of a narrated divine reply are crucial controls.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Ezra 9:6–15, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic wording, morphology, names, clause relations, and translation controls.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Ezra.xml, Hebrew and Aramaic words and morphology for 9:6–15
Supports: Material lexical, grammatical, textual, Persian-period, numerical, and translation notes within the unit.
NET Bible Ezra PDF, printed pp. 760–761, translation and translator notes on 9:6–15
Supports: Directly inspected commentary on literary shape, documents, chronology, Persian administration, temple, identity, and family reform.
Smith-Christopher, Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 317–318 on Ezra 9:6–15
Supports: Torah reuse, holy seed, women and children, canonical tensions, reception, and explicit non-imitation controls.
Szechy dissertation, printed pp. 35–62, 139–142, 188–192, and 191–207
Supports: Multidimensional study of marriage dissolution, identity boundaries, women, children, costs, and alternatives.
Venter, HTS 74.4 a4854, pp. 1–4, 5–9, and 10–12
Supports: Persian Yehud, genealogy, law, temple allegiance, identity markers, holy seed, women, land, and boundary construction.
Lai dissertation, printed pp. 46–120, 172–194, and 226–254
Supports: Ethnic-consciousness alternative, Torah and covenant controls, dissent, family costs, and contextual application critique.
Usue, NGTT 53 Supplement 2, printed pp. 103–111
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Ezra 9:6–15, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew aramaic text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Ezra
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic wording, morphology, names, clause relations, and translation controls.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Ezra.xml, Hebrew and Aramaic words and morphology for 9:6–15
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Ezra with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Material lexical, grammatical, textual, Persian-period, numerical, and translation notes within the unit.
Exact location: NET Bible Ezra PDF, printed pp. 760–761, translation and translator notes on 9:6–15
Open source ↗scholarly commentary article
Ezra-Nehemiah
Daniel L. Smith-Christopher
Oxford University Press, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, edited by John Barton and John Muddiman, 2001
Supports: Directly inspected commentary on literary shape, documents, chronology, Persian administration, temple, identity, and family reform.
Exact location: Smith-Christopher, Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 317–318 on Ezra 9:6–15
Open source ↗doctoral dissertation
Reading Ezra 9-10 as Christian Scripture
Csilla Szechy
Durham University, 2009
Supports: Torah reuse, holy seed, women and children, canonical tensions, reception, and explicit non-imitation controls.
Exact location: Szechy dissertation, printed pp. 35–62, 139–142, 188–192, and 191–207
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access article
The dissolving of marriages in Ezra 9-10 and Nehemiah 13 revisited
Pieter M. Venter
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 74.4, article a4854, 2018
Supports: Multidimensional study of marriage dissolution, identity boundaries, women, children, costs, and alternatives.
Exact location: Venter, HTS 74.4 a4854, pp. 1–4, 5–9, and 10–12
Open source ↗doctoral dissertation
Re-conceiving Seed, Re-defining Foreignness: Markers of Judean Identity in Ezra-Nehemiah and Trito-Isaiah
Hung-Chuan Lai
Union Presbyterian Seminary, 2014
Supports: Persian Yehud, genealogy, law, temple allegiance, identity markers, holy seed, women, land, and boundary construction.
Exact location: Lai dissertation, printed pp. 46–120, 172–194, and 226–254
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access article
Ethnicity and the expulsion of women in Ezra 9-10: A covenant perspective for Africa
Emmanuel Usue
Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif 53, Supplement 2, 2012
Supports: Ethnic-consciousness alternative, Torah and covenant controls, dissent, family costs, and contextual application critique.
Exact location: Usue, NGTT 53 Supplement 2, printed pp. 103–111
Open source ↗