word and refers to this same strange event in Nehemiah 13:3, where he also

recorded his indignation and sorrow at a similar 'mixture' which threatened

to undo all that he had been led to do for the returned captives:

'In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of

Ammon, and of Moab: And their children spake half in the speech of

Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the

language of each people.  And I contended with them, and cursed them,

and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them

swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons,

nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.  Did not

Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was

there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him

king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause

to sin.  Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to

transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?  And one of the

sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was son in law to

Sanballat the Horonite: therefore I chased him from me' (Neh. 13:23 -

We read that Esau married two women who were Hittites (Gen. 26:34).

Seeing that these wives pleased not Isaac and Rebekah and that Jacob was

charged not to take a wife of the daughter of Canaan, he married a daughter

of Ishmael, thus adding still further to the mixture of his descendants.  One

may interpose here, and say, even so, but as Esau was not in the line either

of the Covenant nor of the Messiah it does not matter so much.  But here we

are mistaken, for in the days of David, Edom became a subject people (2 Sam.

8:14), and in 1 Kings 11:1 we read that Solomon loved many strange women ...

of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians and Hittites.  During the

time of Elisha, Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah, and made a king

over themselves (2 Kings 8:20).  But later, under the Maccabees, 'the

children of Esau finally lost their independent existence, and became

substantially merged in the house of Israel' (Imperial Bible Dictionary).

Josephus informs us that about 125 b.c., Edom was finally subdued by

John Hyrcanus, who permitted the Idumeans to stay in that country, if they

would submit to circumcision and other Jewish rites 'that they were hereafter

No Other Than Jews' (Jos. Ant. xiii. 9. 1).

Here then is a 'mixture'.  Those called 'Jews' even by so aristocratic

a Pharisee as Josephus could include Edomites, whose mothers were Hittites

and Ishmaelites!  We do know that at the time of the end there will be those

who 'say they are Jews, and are not' (Rev. 3:9), and it is certain that when

the Jews were dispersed during and at the close of the Acts, they were 'a

mixed multitude', tares mingled with wheat, not to be segregated until the

harvest.  Israel is to be sifted among the nations as corn is sifted in a

sieve (Amos 9:9).  The word translated sieve is the Hebrew kebarah, a

network, but the word 'sift' is not the verbal form of this word, but the

Hebrew nua a word meaning 'to wander up and down', 'fugitive', 'vagabond',

'scatter', and other terms which graphically picture the 'wandering Jew', and

suggests one way in which this 'sifting' will be accomplished.  This element

of mingling and mixture, necessitates the purging and the refining that must

take place before Israel can be given their land at the opening of the day of

the Lord: