Verse 3. - They separated from Israel all the mixed multitude. Some lengthy process, like that pursued by Ezra (Ezra 10:10-19), is probably glanced at in these words, and again in the opening words of ver. 30 - "Thus cleansed I them from all strangers." The rebukes of Nehemiah (vers. 25-27) did not suffice to produce a voluntary putting away of the foreign wives. Judicial proceedings had to be taken, and the "mixed multitude" separated off by authority.
13:1-9 Israel was a peculiar people, and not to mingle with the nations. See the benefit of publicly reading the word of God; when it is duly attended to, it discovers to us sin and duty, good and evil, and shows wherein we have erred. We profit, when we are thus wrought upon to separate from evil. Those that would drive sin out of their hearts, the living temples, must throw out its household stuff, and all the provision made for it; and take away all the things that are the food and fuel of lust; this is really to mortify it. When sin is cast out of the heart by repentance, let the blood of Christ be applied to it by faith, then let it be furnished with the graces of God's Spirit, for every good work.
Now it came to pass, when they had heard the law,.... Or the law concerning the Ammonite and the Moabite, and which included other nations also, and forbad marriage with them:
that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude; all of these, and other nations, they had contracted affinity with.
that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude; all of these, and other nations, they had contracted affinity with.