Kislev 16 – I sat astonished until the evening sacrifice…

Kislev 16, 5786; from sunset December 5, 2025, to sunset December 6, 2025

(The sixteenth day of the ninth month)

This is the name “Ezra” (עֶזְרָא) the Scribe as seen in the Dead Sea Scrolls; written by a scribe over two thousand years ago.

Ezra left Babylon in the springtime, during the first month (Nisan). He later arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month (Av), in the heat of summer. He was there to celebrate the fall feasts and bring the word of the LORD to the people. It’s now the beginning of winter and, today, the leaders of the people have come before him…

When these things were done, the leaders came to me, saying, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, with respect to the abominations of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, so that the holy seed is mixed with the peoples of those lands. Indeed, the hand of the leaders and rulers has been foremost in this trespass.”

So when I heard this thing, I tore my garment and my robe, and plucked out some of the hair of my head and beard, and sat down astonished. Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel assembled to me, because of the transgression of those who had been carried away captive, and I sat astonished until the evening sacrifice. – Ezra 9:1-4 (NKJ)

Now, “Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel.” (Ezra 7:10) He knew that the LORD had commanded the children of Israel to make no covenant nor intermarry with the peoples of the lands. Ezra understood the gravity of what had just been said in his hearing.

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the LORD your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the LORD will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.” – Deuteronomy 7:1-4 (NKJ)

(The timing of today’s event was determined by working backwards from the date listed in Ezra 10:9.)

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