A transition in the discourse is marked at this point by the combination of the connective conjunction and an indication of the passage of some time: After these things had been done. The phrase does not mean that these things happened immediately after the commissions had been delivered to the authorities at the end of the preceding chapter. The events in chapters 9 and 10 take place four months after the arrival of Ezra and company in Jerusalem (see 10.9).

The officials approached me and said: A group of people came to Ezra to make a serious accusation. They were “leaders of the people of Israel” as Good News Translation specifies. Contemporary English Version calls them “Jewish leaders.” They were undoubtedly heads of families or of clans (compare Ezra 8.20). Their accusation is quoted in the form of direct quotation in Revised Standard Version. Good News Translation, however, renders it in indirect quotation. Translators must choose the form of quotation that is most appropriate for bringing this serious accusation to Ezra.

These leaders bring an accusation against The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites. This may refer to three categories of people: laity, priests, and Levites (so Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, Bible en français courant, New Jerusalem Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible). The conjunction and between The people of Israel and the priests can also be understood to mean “including” so that there is only one category of people: “The people of Israel, including the priests and Levites” (so New International Version, Revised English Bible). For people see the comments at Ezra 1.3 and 8.15.

The accusation is that the people have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations. The Hebrew form of the verb for have … separated expresses a reflexive sense, that is, of “separating themselves from.” This is the second time that this expression occurs in the book of Ezra (also 6.21). Being separate is an important concept in the Old Testament (see Gen 1.12; Lev 19.19; Deut 22.9). Here again it refers to separating oneself from something that is not good, from something that will pollute or defile. It may be translated “they have not withheld themselves from,” “they have not kept themselves from,” or “they have not kept a distance between themselves and.”

The Hebrew word for abominations is used three times in this book, all in this chapter (verses 1, 11, 14), but this noun and related verbal forms are used quite often in the Old Testament (see 2 Kgs 21.2; 23.13; 2 Chr 28.3). It is a very strong word that refers to something that is disgusting, repulsive, or loathsome, something that evokes a sense of horror when one sees it. In Gen 43.32 the Egyptians considered eating with foreigners to be an abomination. In Lev 18 (especially verses 24-30), acts that defile a person are called abominations. In Psa 88.8 David uses a form of this word to describe himself as “a thing of horror to them” (Revised Standard Version). It may be translated with an equivalent adjective and noun, for example, “detestable practices” (New International Version), “disgusting practices” (New Jerusalem Bible), or “abhorrent practices” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). Or they may be described as “acts that cause loathing,” “acts that are repulsive,” or “acts that cause people to turn away in utter disgust.”

The peoples of the lands were those who had taken possession of the land in Judah after the exile to Babylonia in 586 B.C. The Hebrew term that is used here for peoples is a word that is used for nations other than Israel in Ezra and Nehemiah (see Ezra 3.3). In Hebrew these people are not explicitly identified as the Canaanites and other peoples who are cited in the list that follows (contrary to Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation). Rather, the people in the lands practiced the abominations of those peoples who used to live in the land and in neighboring countries (see New International Version “neighboring peoples with their detestable practices, like those of the Canaanites…”; similarly Revised English Bible). Their abominations were worshiping false gods and having foreign religious practices. They did not worship the God of Israel and they had their own religious customs. Those customs and practices were a potentially dangerous influence on the Jews.

The Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites: Using the pattern of lists that is found repeatedly in this book, the writer lists eight names representing various peoples (similarly Neh 9.8). This is an expansion and modification of the lists of between five and ten peoples that occur in the Pentateuch and in some of the historical books with reference to the inhabitants of the land of Palestine before the time of the Israelites (see Gen 15.19-21; Exo 3.8; Josh 9.1). These names often represented the traditional enemies of the Israelites. The list given here is a combination of names that are found in Deut 7.1-4 and 23.3-8. Many of these peoples no longer existed in the time of Ezra, but the people in the land in his time were like the people who are listed.

The Canaanites were the descendants of Canaan, one of the sons of Ham (Gen 10.6, 15-19). They were the earliest Semitic inhabitants of the territory that was known as Canaan in pre-Israelite times and that later came to be called Palestine. They were associated with the worship of the Baals, Astartes and the fertility goddess Asherah. Sometimes the term Canaanites is identified with the Phoenicians who lived along the Mediterranean coast of Palestine. The Hittites are identified in Gen 10.15 as the descendants of Heth, the son of Canaan. They were a powerful non-Semitic people originally from Asia Minor who lived in the area of Canaan and to the north from 1600 to 700 B.C. It was from a Hittite that Abraham bought land and a cave for his wife Sarah’s burial (Gen 23). The Perizzites are identified as people who lived in the land of Canaan as well, but little is known about their origins. Their descendants were included among Solomon’s slave laborers (1 Kgs 9.20-21). Some commentators consider that the name may refer to people who lived in unwalled cities or in the more rural areas of the country. The Jebusites were the early inhabitants of Jerusalem. The name Jebus was both their name as a people and the early name of the site that came to be known as Jerusalem (Josh 15.8).

The Ammonites were traditionally regarded as the descendants of Benammi, the son of Lot and his younger daughter (Gen 19.38). They lived in the region called Ammon east of the Jordan River and worshiped the god Moloch. Their name is the origin of Amman, the name of the modern-day capital of Jordan. The Moabites were traditionally regarded as the descendants of Moab, the son of Lot and his elder daughter (Gen 19.37). They lived in the region east of the Dead Sea and worshiped a god named Chemosh. The Egyptians were the people who lived in the land of Egypt and who were considered to be the descendants of Egypt, one of the sons of Ham (Gen 10.6). The Egyptians were known to worship a variety of deities, including Osiris the god of the Nile and Re (or, Ra) the sun god. The Amorites were a Semitic people who arrived in the area of Canaan later than the first Canaanites. The territory of the Amorites was called Amurru in Akkadian, a word that may have a basic meaning of being in the west or of being in the mountains. At one time their territory extended westward from Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan where they lived in the mountainous area. Sometimes in the Old Testament the name is used to refer to the Canaanites in general, but in this text a distinction is made between the Canaanites and the Amorites (see Josh 11.3).

There is no apparent reason for the order in which the names are given. Some commentators observe that it was only the Ammonites, the Moabites and the Egyptians who were still living in the neighboring areas at the time of Ezra. Good News Translation restructures the list to distinguish between names that refer to the people of countries and the names that refer to ethnic groups or genealogical descendants. Good News Translation lists the three countries or lands first and then the five ethnic groups. Translators will need to use the appropriate form in the receptor language to refer to lands and the people who dwell in them on the one hand, and names of groups of people on the other hand (see the comments on “Levites” at Ezra 1.5). For the first category, it will be necessary to use expressions that refer to the inhabitants of a geographical entity. For the second one, expressions should be used for peoples, such as a name that indicates ethnic identity or descent, for example, “the children of….”

Quoted with permission from Noss, Philip A. and Thomas, Kenneth J. A Handbook on Ezra. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2005. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .