Nehemiah

After decades in exile, Nehemiah and the other people of Judah returned to their homeland with a new passion against breaches of the Law. He noted that when Judean people married foreigners, many of their children grew up speaking a foreign language. The children would not grow up hearing and reading the message of the prophets in the Hebrew language. He saw in these marriages the destruction of God’s people. He cursed the people who married foreigners and demanded that they take an oath not to let their sons and daughters marry outsiders. His zeal for the Law and concern for cultural boundaries became a characteristic of later Judaism.