Ezra’s Reform and Bilateral Citizenship in Athens and the Mediterranean World

Baruch Halpern

Penn State

In the fifth century BCE, Judah underwent an important transition. Sometime in the

period of Ezra and Nehemiah, probably between 458 and 444, the authorities in the Persian

province of Judah (Yehud) introduced a new system of genealogical reckoning.

Formerly, children of Judahite fathers had been reckoned as Judahites. Furthermore, male

coresidence over a number of years or perhaps generations apparently conferred citizenship on

children, quite possibly by adoption into the cognate line. In the late seventh century,

Deuteronomy introduced an interdiction on the incorporation into the sacral community of the

offspring of Ammonite and Moabite fathers (Deut 23:4). But it equally permitted membership to

the grandchildren of transplanted Edomites and Egyptians. Thus, in the world of the authors of

Deuteronomy, adoption or matrilocal coresidence sufficed for eventual incorporation into the

state-defined community. 1

At least some change, then, was probably underway at the time of Deuteronomy.

Correspondingly, the Deuteronomistic History and P (Num 33:50-56) both emphasize an

interdiction against intermarriage with (long-dead) indigenous Canaanites: they blame these

elements – specifically, reciprocal exchange of women with them – for the introduction of

Canaanite cult practice into Israel, as though the aboriginal populations programmed Israelite

popular religion (note that, atypically, it is exchange, not just population import, that creates the

problem). P also furnishes a polemic about miscegenation with Moabites (Num 25:1) that

indicates an extension of the alleged taboo to contemporary cultures, as in Deuteronomy.

The seventh-century cases, focused on isolating Israelites from the theoretically

indigenous peoples of Canaan, may have had earlier antecedents. Certainly, Deut 7:3-5, Deut

29:15-28, Josh 23:13, Judg 1-3 and 1 Kgs 11:1-6, as well as the account of his reform, reflect

authorship from Josiah’s time; still, the religious xenophobia directed against Jezebel and parts2

of the polemic of 2 Kgs 17:7ff. may have earlier origins, as perhaps does Exod 23:32-33: the

theme of the extinction of the Amorites, after all, already characterizes Amos 2:9-10.

Thus, there was a progression in the Iron Age. To become Israelites, males had to be

adopted or matrilocal. That is, in any such cases, foreign males were paid to detach themselves

from their families. Whether they could, in the first generation, participate in sacral rites is

unclear, but seems probable, given the cases of Shechem, Joseph’s wife, Jethro and Moses’s wife

in E, and given P’s inclusion of circumcised gçrîm in the ritual of the Pesah. This may have been3

the rule until Deuteronomy prohibited ritual access in the case of the nations descended from Lot,

and limited it intergenerationally for Edomites and Egyptians. Notably, at more or less the same

time, P, like Deuteronomy, prescribes a regimen of legal beneficence toward the resident alien. P4

(Num 33:50-56), Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History, on the other hand, begin the

process of focusing on intermarriage with foreign females, who might mediate worship of gods

other than Yhwh to the Israelites (and who are blamed for the traditional Israelite cult).

In the seventh century, of course, the argument against intermarriage with foreign females

is relatively restricted – the issue is the cultic outcome of such marriages. But in the fifth century,

there was a change. With the reforms of Ezra and perhaps Nehemiah, citizen mothers as well as

citizen fathers defined membership in the Jerusalem community.

Ezra arrived in Judah (Persian Yehud), according to Ezra 7:7-8, in the seventh year of

Artaxerxes (I), 458 BCE. Ezra 7:12-26 stipulate that he was to commandeer materials for

sacrifices, and to subject the population of Syria-Palestine to the law of his god and of the Persian

king. Scholars, naturally, have debated whether the subordination to the law was to extend only

to Judaeans, or was to embrace a larger group, such as the denizens of Samaria or even the

general population in the vicinity of Judaea. Minimally, Ezra was appointed with broad powers of

oversight in Jerusalem – according to one very attractive proposal, the equivalent of an Athenian

episkopos, in terms of the semantic content of his charge as well as in terms of his mandate. 5

Further, it is rarely doubted that Ezra led a contingent to Jerusalem with a large quantity of silver

and gold; some of his escort were priests, and others Levites and other cultic personnel, in

addition to elements of the laity (Ezra 8).

The importance of Ezra’s mission is in evidence from the quantity of rare earths that he

brought with him. And this in turn sheds light on the nature of the reform: the Persian authorities

were invested in the mission. One therefore has to ask whether the implementation of the reform

did not reflect a concern with a broader horizon than Judah alone. In fact, scholars have argued

that the not dissimilar mission of Udjahorresnet in Egypt – aimed in part at establishing cultic

purity and shrines – furnishes a context for Ezra’s reform that involves the reestablishment of

local law, particularly religious law, in the provinces of the Persian empire.6

The account in Ezra concentrates on the maintenance and regulation of worship at the

Jerusalem temple. But scholars have puzzled over the nature of Ezra’s citizenship reform.

According to Ezra 9, local officials complained to him that “the people of Israel, priests and

Levites” had not been divided (bdl) from the peoples of the lands: Canaanite, Hittite, Perizzite,

Jebusite, Ammonite, Moabite, Egyptian and Amorite/Edomite (probably, Edomite). The issue7

was that the local Judahite males took foreign women as wives, and mixed “sacred seed” with the

peoples of the lands; naturally, officials and the upper echelons of the elite were the first to do so.

The list of foreigners consists of some of the peoples named in Exod 34:11-16, Deut 7:1 and Deut

23:4-9. The first two of those passages prohibit marriage to aboriginal females (Deut 7:1

prohibits female Israelites from marrying aliens as well). The third passage limits access for

children of (male) aliens into the sacral community. But Ezra’s reform embraces females.

Deuteronomy 23 in fact allows access to Edomites and Egyptians, for descendants of males in the

third generation of co-residence.

The news of miscegenation, reputedly, devastated Ezra. All the god-fearers (literally, the

word-of-god-of-Israel-fearers) gathered. Ezra announced that, having shamed Israel for its sins,

Yhwh had now given it a yâtçd, or stake, in his holy place, and influenced the king of Persia to

raise the temple, restore the ruins of Jerusalem (a reference to the fortification wall, probably, as is

the next clause), and “give us a gâdçr (cf: epigraphic Gibeon gdr) in Judah and Jerusalem”. In8

consequence, Ezra argued, it would be an elemental error to revert to the practice of

intermarriage with local inhabitants, the “peoples of the lands” with their “abominations” (9:11-

12). The text evinces heavy reliance on Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History. It9

nevertheless applies specific prohibitions in Deuteronomy (7:1; 23:4-9) to a contemporary

situation in the fifth century, willfully misinterpreting the source to apply even to children, in each

generation, of Edomite and Egyptian females.

In response to the revelation (!) that citizens of Yehud were miscegenating with foreign

elements – the list including long-gone aboriginal elements mainly in an effort to stigmatize other

foreign alliances – Ezra prayed at the temple, where elements “from Israel” allegedly gathered to

him in support. Shechanya ben-Yehiel suggested expelling foreign wives along with their

children. So Ezra made them all swear to do so, and went to the office of Johanan son of10

Elyashib to fast. Meanwhile, Ezra summoned all members of the Golah community throughout

Judah to a three-day congress in Jerusalem, on pain of losing their property and being expelled

from the sacral assembly (qhl) of the Golah (cf. 2 Chr 15:13). So, on the twentieth day of the

ninth month, they convened in the square of the temple. Ezra demanded a separation (bdl) from

foreign women, to which all agreed. But as it was the rainy season, officials, all of them with

foreign wives, were to come to Jerusalem at appointed times with the elders of each town (Ezra

10:7-14). In the following narrative (Ezra 10:15-44), priests, Levites and the non-priestly

members of the Golah comply. Ezra and the lineage heads investigated from the first day of the

tenth month until New Year’s Day. Priests with foreign wives included sons of Jeshua ben-

Yozadaq and his brothers – that is, the high priestly line. These expelled their wives, and paid

shame offerings. Various Levite clans, temple singers and gatekeepers, and clans in “Israel” were

also found to have taken foreign wives.

Related to, and perhaps to be interweaved with, this account are Nehemiah 7-10, which

form a background for Neh 13. In these chapters, after a repetition of Ezra 2-3:1, Ezra presides11

over a ceremonial renewal of Israel’s relation with Yhwh (Ezra 7-10; Neh 7-10 tend to use the

term, Israel, for the sacral community focused on Jerusalem, whereas Nehemiah elsewhere prefers

the term, Judah). This takes place at New Year (as Ezra 10 culminates there), and involves a

proclamation of (probably) the Pentateuch during Sukkot.

Immediately after the festival, on the twenty-fourth day of the seventh month, the

assembly mourned, “and the seed of Israel were separated (nbdlw) from all the sons of aliens (bny

nkr)”: this rubric, in Neh 9:1-2, describes the ceremony that follows in Neh 9-10. The ceremony

consists of a lengthy recitation detailing Israel’s ingratitude to Yhwh, followed by the sealing of a

contract, cementing a community of “every one who was separated (hnbdl) from the peoples of

the lands”, including their wives, sons and daughters. These committed themselves to cultic

observance, but first and foremost neither to give their daughters to “the peoples of the lands” nor

to take those peoples’ daughters. They also agreed to regularize the sabbatical year, possibly

including internal debt release, although it looks as though debt-slavery was abolished in the

(sequentially) earlier release in Neh 5. 12

In Nehemiah 13, finally, there is renewed enforcement of the injunction against foreign

wives, based more strictly on the injunctions of Deuteronomy 23 (Neh 13:1-3). The emphasis on

Ashdodite, Ammonite and Moabite wives, with the inclusion of Sanballat (Neh 13:23-30),

recapitulates for the most part the list of enemies found in Neh 4:1, but introduces an element of

linguistic nationalism, railing against the introduction of Ashdodite. This almost surely reflects the

adoption of Phoenician dialect among elite elements (13:24). And the interpretation of13

Deuteronomy 23 is different from that in the account of Ezra’s reform, inasmuch as it does not

cite the cases of Edomites and Egyptians. Noteworthy, too, is the fact that there is no effective

interdiction on the introduction of males to the community: did adoption of foreign males remain

a possibility?

The most common response to the stigmatization of miscegenation, and perhaps the most

compelling in the literature, has been that the Judahite returnees represented by Ezra were

xenophobic or even “racist”. More fully expressed, the view has been that Judahite culture14

would be “watered down” by neighboring peoples, and that, practically speaking, land holdings

might be compromised by the marriages of returnees to non-Judahite women. Note that this15

view presupposes inheritance by wives (further below).

This traditional view is certainly justified in theory. And yet, two questions arise. The

first is why, suddenly, marriage in a patrilocal society was somehow threatening, when previously

it never had been. This is particularly puzzling in that the highest ratios of intermarriage to

numbers of males who returned in 538-522 are found among a limited number of clans,

concentrating particularly in the elite (Levites), and, as the text of Ezra says, among the leading

families of the other lineages. To be “racist” in motivation, rather than in pretext, the reform16

needs to have been directed against foreign women. Yet these women were among the elite, and

presumably could have called on the political protection afforded by status and wealth as easily as

their opponents could do. Moreover, there is no emphasis on prohibiting the adoption of

foreigners, though one may argue that this is implied a fortiori (see below).

The second question is why, at roughly the same time, Athens also made it a condition of

citizenship that mothers as well as fathers be Athenian citizens, or, rather, the daughters of

Athenian citizens (see below). As Jerusalem and Athens are the two city-states of the era on the

vicissitudes of whose governance we are best informed, it is possible that the same phenomenon

was also taking place elsewhere. The two nearly contemporary events, at any rate, permit mutual

illumination.

The amount of wealth that Ezra carried from Mesopotamia to Israel makes a change in the

direction of bilateral citizenship logical. Sometime between 458 and 444, Ezra forbade

intermarriage in Judah; around 432, Nehemiah reinforced the prohibition. The evidence would

seem to suggest that the enforcement of this new regimen was directly linked to the importation

of wealth and the development of enterprise in the new center. In other words, the representation

of the text that Ezra undertook this reform in the year of his arrival rings true, although the

phenomenon of antedating and chronological distortion in Ezra should give us pause about a final

verdict: Ezra 1-6 actually present two disparate chronologies, silently recognizing that only

chapter 1 refers to 538 BCE, whereas the rest of the segment to 6:14 refers to events in 522-520,

after the second return under Zerubbabel; at the same time, by changing means for dating events

and creating a misleading impression especially in chapter 4 of linear sequence, it implies that the

temple construction started in 538, and was impeded by the opposition of neighboring

communities. In fact, this opposition is documented starting only in the time of Ezra and

Nehemiah, with respect to the refortification of Jerusalem. It may have had much to do with the

citizenship reform. 17

The contemporary international situation also casts light on this development. Probably,

when Ezra was installed in Jerusalem, Megabyzus was en route to suppressing a revolt in Egypt,

under Inaros (458). The suggestion has the merit of explaining why Ezra was in no need of a

military escort. Both Inaros’s revolt and Ezra’s trip, perhaps in the wake of an army, came at a18

time when the Athenian threat to the coastlands was at its height, and Athens was implicated in

the Inaros revolt as well. In fact, Dor appears in the Athenian tribute list for 454. As Dor was

formally a dependency of Sidon, at the time, and Athens was in conflict with Persia’s proxies in

Phoenicia and Cyprus, this suggests a signal Athenian success, either military or diplomatic, and

most probably both – quite possibly in or shortly before 458. 19

Two facts correlate with the international situation. First, Jerusalem was granted

permission to rebuild its fortification walls roughly at this time, despite the opposition of

neighboring polities. Second, the prohibition of intermarriage, and indeed of holiday commerce

with foreigners, which is the second emphasis of these passages, creates a break with neighboring

communities. That is, the policy that Ezra implemented was an isolationist one, and was bound to

trigger reciprocal isolation on its borders. One might even say that the policy Ezra put into play

was calculated to erect boundaries that prevented political collaboration, certainly in the short

term. In fact, it recapitulates the agenda underlying Cyrus’s original repatriation of deportee

elites, an agenda of division and conquest. It evinces an imperial stamp reflecting calculation on

the part of the Persian chancellery based on the local nature of xenophobia. Indeed, the20

repatriation and the policy of respecting local law were in that sense merely deportation in

reverse, achieving the same aims by ostensibly more beneficent means. The crucial difference was

this: the Assyrians, and probably the Babylonians, attempted to erase ethnic loyalties and create a

homogeneous international culture, certainly at an elite level; by contrast, the Persians cultivated

and counted heavily on those loyalties as an engine of pacification. They adopted an overarching

strategy of harnessing the ethnic mosaic rather than fighting it with a melting pot.

Review of the reform in Athens adds further perspective. In 451-450 (the year of

Antidotus’s archonship), Pericles sponsored a law making citizenship bilateral; he simultaneously

abolished the institution of bride-price. The law, according to Aristotle, restricted citizenship to

sons of citizen mothers and citizen fathers because there were simply too many citizens. Plutarch

relates that the cause of the reform was that the Egyptian king (which is to say, presumably,

Inaros) shipped grain to Athens to be distributed among the citizenry. Pericles therefore arranged

to strike five thousand of these off the rolls as false. The five thousand were sold into slavery,

their estates confiscated, leaving 14,040 citizens. The resemblance to Ezra’s reform is close,21

and the arrival of treasure from Persia makes a plausible reason for the community to adopt what

was, contemporaneously, a Periclean policy.

It bears incidental note that this reform is probably the origin of the tradition that children

of a Jewish mother are Jews. Significantly, Aristotle reports that some democracies confer full

citizenship, which implies eligibility for office, on children of citizen-mothers, or even on those of

slaves. He opines that when numbers of citizens are higher, the state strips citizenship first from

children of slaves, then from those of citizen-mothers, and finally even from those of citizen-

fathers whose wives are not citizens. Whether or not Aristotle’s analysis of motivation is

accurate, it has two implications. It reiterates and perhaps inspires Plutarch’s analysis of

Pericles’s motivation. And, it attests, through direct or indirect observation, the conferral of

citizenship on citizen-mothers’ children. The latter probably implies co-resident children, that is,

cases in which foreign males relocated to the mother’s polity, in effect becoming adoptive

members of her elite (by definition) family. Thus the lack of emphasis in Nehemiah on co-resident

fathers may reflect the continuing practice of adoption in Judah, despite a silence on the subject

that permeates both Biblical and post-Biblical texts. Jewish communities after Ezra could22

adjust membership only according to the father’s origin.

In Judah, as in Athens, the real issue was the number of citizens entitled to shares of

inducements coming from abroad. And the Athenian citizenship reform suggests that Ezra’s was

meant to reduce the number of citizens; perhaps those excluded from the community were also

sold into slavery, in part explaining Nehemiah 5. But why did Athens adopt what appears to

have been a Persian policy of encouraging nativism? Could it be that it was a reaction to

Athenians serving abroad in colonies and taking local brides, as Ernst Badian has speculated?

Studies in the social embedment of resistance to intermarriage argue that it is a mechanism for

increasing solidarity or resisting external domination and assimilation. Yet perhaps part of the23

logic here was also nationalistic: Athens, certainly, was gearing up to fight both Persia and Sparta

in 451, though it temporarily enjoyed a truce (the Five Years’ Truce, probably 454-449) with the

latter. In 451, too, Cimon was leading his final campaign to Cyprus. The peace of Callias with

Persia came only later, perhaps in 449; likewise, the Thirty Years’ Truce with Sparta was a

product of the 440's. So, in 451, Athens was actively competing for a foothold in western Asia,

and fearful of a Spartan strike on its flank. Is the citizenship reform, then, an articulation of

nativism, as it is typically understood to have been in Ezra?

The coincidence with Ezra’s reform and reduction of the citizenship rolls in Jerusalem

suggests that none of these explanations holds, though they may have been invoked as means to

persuade the populations of Jerusalem and Athens. Rather, there were social and economic

dimensions of reform. First, because those with foreign wives were likely members of the

wealthiest class to begin with, the confiscation of their estates also offered an incentive – parallel

to the Sybarite law stripping the city’s five hundred wealthiest citizens of their assets (Diodorus

Siculus 12.9.2-3): those families sold into slavery in Athens, and deprived of property in

Jerusalem, no doubt had their lands, goods and persons redistributed to the remaining citizens.

And there are indications that the lawmakers anticipated additional ramifications as well. In

Athens, the abolition of bride-price was a formal trade-off of political concessions: what would

otherwise have become a form of fiscal monopoly, the market in domestic brides, was

theoretically reduced to a monopoly on social capital. Clearly, Pericles recognized that the

introduction of bilateral citizenship would so escalate prices for women as to make the innovation

intolerable economically and potentially redistributive. Arguably, in fact, the impact of bilateral

citizenship would be to rein in demand for and expenditure on the most desirable families’

daughters, at home and abroad, for the benefit of the many, since domestic prices would rise high

enough to create a positive inducement for Athenians’ sons to look abroad for their wives.

In theory, thus, the abolition of bride-price is a form of protectionism for native daughters!

And it did usher in a change of attitude: Aristotle could speak of the practice of purchasing brides

as barbaric (Pol. 1268b). Still, bride-price probably just assumed new forms, including that of

wedding gifts, although these could in theory not be contractually guaranteed. And it is easy to

imagine that the rising price of Athenian daughters made the prospect of wealthy, paying foreign

sons-in-law attractive. This is also why Ezra and Nehemiah were at pains to prohibit the export

of native daughters: their form of protectionism was to try to ensure that domestic supply

sufficed to meet demand. Jerusalem applied a supply-side, Athens a demand-side solution to the

problem bilateral citizenship presented.

One other element merits consideration in this regard. The rise in the status of women in

Deuteronomy, in the Judahite Reformation of the seventh century, was a key antecedent to the

demographic transition in Judah. Women were protected not as property, but as people. 24

And if the role of women changes over time, such that it becomes economical to educate women

for the increment in bride price, then either the supply must be limited or social (and especially

reproductive) choices must have changed (including deferral of childbearing entailing greater

participation of women in the economy). Under such circumstances, parents have the incentive to

invest in educating their daughters and to fight for increasing legal protection and even some

degree of enfranchisement, such as the right of inheritance by females. It is true that

Zelophehad’s daughters, for example, are taken care of within the kinship system, by a variety of

the levirate. Still, this late seventh-century P text (Num 27:1-11; 36:1-12, as well as the book of

Ruth) attests patterns of succession (also witnessed in the Greek world slightly later) that are not

clearly attested in earlier Israelite materials, where females do not inherit from their fathers, but

enjoy the usufruct of their husbands’ estates, as in other Near Eastern legal contexts.

The original purpose of this elevation of the status of females was probably to reduce the

influence of male lineages in Judah. But like all other social innovations, it had unanticipated25

collateral consequences, especially for the mentality of the people at whom it was directed. By

Ezra’s time, these attitudes had affected Judah’s elite as much as the changed circumstances

introduced by Pericles’s reform later worked their way into Aristotle’s consciousness: for him,

the selling of daughters, formerly normal, was inconceivable. That is, the cultivation of women’s

commercial skills, reflected in Proverbs 31:10-31 (and certainly attested for elite households from

MA forward), begins in the seventh century and accelerates with the developments of the mid-

fifth century. Meanwhile, other polities around the Mediterranean must have been imposing

similar strictures, if only as a matter of economic self-defense.

But what would induce the father of daughters in Athens to forego the bride-price due

him? Why would Athenian and Jerusalemite families willingly sign on to a new regime in which

citizenship was bilateral? One element in the equation is the expectation of increased revenue

from a reduction in the citizenship rolls. But the real answer extends over multiple generations.

M. Borgerhoff-Mulder has shown, in collaboration with others in some studies, that the shift to a

higher status for women correlates to a change in reproductive strategy, and a lower birth rate.

Specifically, members of societies in which female status rises invest in grandchildren, maximizing

wealth per child in order to maximize the number of prospective grandchildren. Naturally, this26

postponement of reproduction represents a form of capital (Marx’s “postponed pleasure”), and

the realization of potential reproduction can be deferred generation after generation. But just

such a change in strategy must have characterized Jerusalem and Athens in the mid-fifth century.

It is likely that the strategy embraced much of the Mediterranean world, particularly in Phoenicia

and Cyprus. Thus, birthrates were probably falling in the Jerusalem community of the fifth

century, and perhaps had started falling as early as the seventh century. At the same time, the

education of indigenous females was probably advanced in a way unprecedented in West Semitic

culture. The same probably holds for contemporary Athens.

Ezra’s reform was not “racist” in inspiration. Like Pericles’s, it employed racism

cynically, as a pretext for maximizing wealth. Chances are, similar reforms were occurring around

the Mediterranean basin at the same time. Which of these came earliest is a question – and it is a

1. Cf. J. Milgrom, “Religious Conversion and the Revolt Model for the Formation of Israel” JBL

101 (1982) 169-176. Milgrom supposes that this situation held for the entire pre-exilic period,

which is possible but unlikely. A less restrictive regimen for foreign males is suggested by the

incorporation of Gittites, Ammonites and others into David’s staff.

2. For Judges 1-3 and 1 Kings 11, see Halpern, The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and

History (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988; University Park: Penn State University, 1996)

134-137, 150-157, 220-228.

3. For E, Gen 34; 41:45, 50; Exod 18; Num 12. For P, Exod 12:19, 48; P also includes Joseph’s

Egyptian wife in Gen 46:20. For the alien in other ritual and legal contexts, in H, see Lev 17:8-

16; 18:26; 20:2; 22:18; 24:15-16. The general principle is articulated in Lev 24:22. The gçr in P

is by definition not (yet) an adoptee, and need not be Israelite (as the Israelites were gçrîm in

Egypt; see also Lev 25:35, reading “like a gçr”, with LXX). Lev 25:47(MT)-54 even prescribes

redemption of debt-slaves of descendants of gçrîm, whereas Lev 25:35-46 prescribe periodic

release of Israelite slaves (on a different schedule, of course, from the Deuteronomic law), but

permit perpetual maintenance of foreign slaves. Neither gçrîm nor tôšâbîm in P hold land, at least

in perpetuity (Lev 25:23), although it is probable that the latter are formal clients of some sort, in

that one need not make provision against their indigence. Outside H, in Num 9:14; 15:14-16, 26-

question which of the two documented cases is the earlier. However, one thing is clear:

citizenship reform in Athens and Jerusalem cannot be analyzed solely from the documentation

provided in each culture’s literary legacy. Only a bird’s eye view furnishes the perspective

necessary to understand the nature of the phenomenon. First, it was encouraged by an imperial

center. Second, as Richard Hofstadter almost said, citizenship reform was “a pecuniary

institution”.

30; 19:10; 35:15, the same relation of the gçrîm to ritual and regulation holds. Whereas P calls

the Israelites in Egypt gçrîm, however, D calls them “slaves”. And D allows gçrîm, but not

widows or orphans, to eat impure flesh (14:21), in contradistinction to P’s insistence on uniform

codes for all. (Deut 24:14 also indicates the view that gçrîm are aliens.) Still, Deut 29:10

includes gçrîm in the covenantal community.

4. See Peter Schmidt, “De Vreemdeling in Israël” Collationes 23 (1993) 227-240; cf. C.

Bultmann, Der Fremde im antiken Juda: eine Untersuchung zum sozialen Typenbegriff “ger”

und seinen Bedeutungswandel in der alttestamentlichen Gezetzgebung (FRLANT 153;

Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992). On the date of P, aside from arguments as to its

relative priority to Ezekiel developed mainly by Avi Hurvitz, note that most of its legislation

reflects the milieu immediately following Josiah’s reform, and preceding Jeremiah, who cites it.

Note that P’s insistence on the inclusion of gçrîm in ritual (above, n. 3) does not comport with a

date contemporary with or after Ezra and Nehemiah, unless one supposes P to be a Samaritan or

pro-Samaritan source.

5. R. C. Steiner, “The mbqr at Qumran, the episkopos in the Athenian Empire, and the Meaning

of lbqr* in Ezra 7:14: On the Relation of Ezra’s Mission to the Persian Legal Project” JBL 120

(2001) 623-646.

6. See J. Blenkinsopp, “The Mission of Udjahorresnet and Those of Ezra and Nehemiah” JBL

106 (1987) 409-421; Steiner, “Ezra’s Mission and the Persian Legal Project” 634ff.; cf. L. L.

Grabbe, “What Was Ezra’s Mission?” in Second Temple Studies 2. Temple Community in the

Persian Period (ed. T. C. Eskenazi and K. H. Richards; JSOTSup 175; Sheffield: Sheffield

Academic Press, 1994) 286-299.

7. The list’s order, in terms of the aboriginal populations, is identical, with omissions, to the order

in Exod 3:8, 17; 33:2; 34:11; Josh 3:10; 11:3; Neh 9:8 and, significantly, Judg 3:5. See below,

and conveniently, T. Ishida, History and Historical Writing in Ancient Israel: Studies in Biblical

Historiography (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East, 16; Leiden: E. J.

Brill, 1999) 8-36.

8. See J. B. Pritchard, Hebrew Inscriptions and Stamps from Gibeon (Museum Monographs;

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1959) 1-7.

9. Note 9:11: the Israelites violated Yhwh’s prophets’ command, namely: the land you are

entering to inherit her (pl. you = Deut 4:5; lršth stems from Deuteronomy and dependent

literature, possibly excepting Gen 15:7, but it looks identical: you [sg.] entering land to inherit it,

roughly, Deut 7:1; 11:10, 29; 23:21; 28:21, 63; 30:16) is a ndh land (female impure, mainly P).

9:12 cites an injunction against the exchange of daughters with the aborigines, and an enjoinder to

eat the good of the land (Jer 2:7!), so future generations will inherit. 9:13-14 then express the

sentiment, “Can we now again abrogate your commands, marry in these peoples of abominations,

won’t you finish us?” The whole complex accepts the argument of Judges 1-3 that intermarriage

with the aborigines was the cause of the corruption of Israelite religion and, ultimately, of the

exiles.

10. Ezra 10:1-5. Note the pun on “foreign” wives (nkrywt) and “making” (nkrt) a covenant to be

rid of them.

11. For scholarship on the relationship of the chapters to the account in Ezra, see H. G. M.

Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah (Word Biblical Commentary; Waco: Word, 1985) 284-286 and ad

loc.

12. A ban on debt slavery had earlier been enacted in Athens together with a “shaking off of

obligations” by Solon in 594 or so: Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 2.4; 6.1; Plutarch, Solon 15.3; 15.5 -- note

the descriptions of reforms in Ath. Pol. 5-12; Plutarch, Solon 15-25. For the regularization of

debt release in Judah in the 7 century, see R. Westbrook, “Codification and Canonization” in Lath

Codification des Lois dans L’Antiquité. Actes du Colloque de Strasbourg 27-29 novembre 1997

(ed. E. Lévy; Travaux du Centre de Recherche sur le Proch-Orient et la Grèce Antiques, 16;

Strasbourg: de Boccard, 2000) 33-47, esp. pp. 42-43. The issue here is that P seems to envision

generalized debt release only in the Jubilee year (Lev 25).

13. Inscriptional evidence, especially from Ashdod’s southern neighbor, Ashkelon, indicates that

the coastal dialect of the Persian period was southern Phoenician. This evidence squares with the

political data from KAI 14:18-19 indicating domination by Sidon down to Jaffa and with Greek

sources identifying Ashkelon with the Tyrians (Pseudo-Scylax in M. Stern, Greek and Latin

Authors on Jews and Judaism [Jerusalem: Israel Academy, 1984] 10; see also Pausanias 1.14.7).

See on the Phoenician presence L. E. Stager, “Why Were Hundreds of Dogs Buried at

Ashkelon?” in Ashkelon Discovered. From Canaanites and Philistines to Romans and Moslems

(ed. idem; Washington: BAS, 1991) 22-36. For a review of contrary positions, see Williamson,

Ezra, Nehemiah 397.

14. Joel Weinberg, The Citizen-Temple Community (JSOTSup 151; Sheffield: JSOT, 1992).

15. For a particularly enlightened example, see Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah 160.

16. See Ezra 9:2. For a rough guide to the ratios, the following will serve, remembering that

those who returned with Ezra (chap. 8) will not have had time (or the inclination or daring,

probably) to intermarry:

Intermarriage by family # in Ezra 2 Ratio # in Ezra 8

Jeshua b Yozadaq: 4 / 5 1 / 973 (latter is Ydayah) 4 / 5:1 / 1:194.6 1

Immer: 2 1052 1:526

Harim: 5 1017 1:203.4

Pashhur: 6 1247 1:207.67

Levites: 6 74 1:12.33 1

singers: 1 / 2 128 (Asaph) 1:128 / 1:64

gatekeepers: 2 / 3 139 1:69.5 / 1:46.33

from Israel:

Par oš: 7 2172 1:310.29 150c

Elam: 6 1254 1:209 70

Zatu*: 6 945 1:157.5

Bebay: 4 623 1:155.75 28

Bani: 6 642 1:107 (if not Binnui) 160

Pahat Moab: 8 2812 1:351.5 200

Harim: 8 320 1:40

Hashum: 7 223 1:31.86

Bani: 12 / 18 / 27 2056 if Bigvay 1:171.33 / 114.22 / 76.15 70

Binnui: 0 / 4 / 13

Azzur: 0 / 8

Nebo: 7 52 1:7.43

The numbers probably reflect geographical as well as social location, with Nebo, for example,

being on the border of Moab, whereas Pahat Moab and Par osh seem to have resistedc

intermarriage, possibly on the basis of the ideological grounds that lead a member of the lineage

of Elam (Ezra 10:2) to urge the reform. Note that not all the returning lineages are named in this

apparently comprehensive list, so that we are entitled to presuppose either that they were not

intermarried or that they were victims of the reform.

17. On the chronological issues, see Halpern, “A Historiographic Commentary on Ezra 1-6.

Achronological Narrative and Dual Chronology in Israelite Historiography,” in The Hebrew Bible

and its Interpreters (ed. W. H. Propp, B. Halpern and D. N. Freedman; Biblical and Judaic

Studies from the University of California, San Diego, 1; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990) 81-

142. Further, S. Talmon, “‘Exile’ and ‘Restoration’ in the Conceptual World of Ancient Judaism”

in Restoration. Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Perspectives (JSJSup 72; Leiden: E. J.

Brill, 2001) 107-146, esp. pp. 132-133, to the origins of the conflict with the Samaritans.

18. Thucydides 1.109. See Christopher Oves, Diodorus and Thucydides: Another Look at the

Historiography and Chronology of the Pentekontaetia (M.A. thesis, Pennsylvania State

University, 2000). Oves speculates that Megabyzus actually installed Ezra on his way to suppress

the revolt. Cf. M. Noth, The Laws in the Pentateuch and Other Essays (Edinburgh: Oliver &

Boyd, 1966) 76-78.

19. That is, it might well coincide with the Cyprian expedition of Thucydides 1.104, involving

200 ships, which was cut short in order to sail to Inaros’s aid in the Delta. See for Dor B. D.

Merritt, H. T. Wade-Gery and M. F. McGregor, The Athenian Tribute Lists (Princeton: American

School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1939-1953).

20. For a similar view with regard to Persian Yehud as a counterweight to the neighboringPhilistine powers, and for Assyrian antecedents, see E. A. Knauf, “Who Destroyed Beersheba II?”in Kein Land für sich allein. Studien zum Kulturkontakt in Kanaan, Israel/Palästina undEbirnâri für Manfred Weippert zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. U. Hübner and E. A. Knauf; OBO 186;Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002) 181-195, esp. p. 190and n. 58.

21. Aristotle, Athenian Constitution 26.3; Plutarch, Pericles 37.3. See Herodotus 6.130-131 for

an example of the earlier practice of tracing citizenship patrilaterally.

22. See D. Daube, Sons and Strangers (Boston: Institute of Jewish Law, Boston University

School of Law, 1984) 47-48.

23. For these interpretations, respectively, E. Badian, “The Peace of Callias, JHS 107 (1987) 1-

39; From Plataea to Potidaea: Studies in the History and Historiography of the Pentacontaetia

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1993) 1-72; R. K. Merton, “Intermarriage and the Social Structure:

Fact and Theory” Psychiatry 9 (1941) 361-374; E. L. Cerroni-Long, “Marrying Out: Socio-

Cultural and Psychological Implications of Intermarriage” Journal of Comparative Family Studies

15 (1984) 25-46. The sociological literature, of course, responds principally to individual

articulations of motivation, rather than the motivations of a leadership interested in mobilizing

popular support.

24. See especially M. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford:

Clarendon, 1972) 282-297

25. Halpern, “Jerusalem and the Lineages in the 7th Century B.C.E.: Kinship and the Rise of

Individual Moral Liability,” in Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel (ed. idem and D. W.

Hobson; JSOTS 124; Sheffield: JSOT, 1991) 11-107.

26. See especially M. Borgerhoff Mulder, “Optimizing offspring: The quality-quantity tradeoff in

agropastoral Kipsigis,” Evolution and Human Behavior 21(6) (2000) 390-410. Further see B.

Luttbeg, Borgerhoff Mulder and M. S. Mangel, “To marry or not to marry? A dynamic model of

marriage behavior and demographic transition,” in Human Behavior and Adaptation: An

Anthropological Perspective (ed. L. Cronk, N. A. Chagnon and W. Irons; New York: Aldine de

Gruyter, 2000) 345-368; D. W. Sellen, M. Borgerhoff Mulder and D. F. Sieff, “Fertility,

offspring quality and wealth in Datoga pastoralists: Testing evolutionary models of intersexual

selection,” ibid. 91-114; note further Borgerhoff Mulder, “Demographic transition: Are we any

closer to an evolutionary explanation?” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 13/7 (1998) 266-270;

“Bridewealth and its correlates: Quantifying changes over time” Current Anthropology 36 (1995)

573-603.