Which thou hast commanded by thy servants the prophets, saying, The land, unto which ye go to possess it, is an unclean land with the filthiness of the people of the lands, with their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another with their uncleanness.
You commanded through your servants the prophets, saying, 'The land you are going to take and live in is a defiled land because of the corrupt practices of the people living there. Their disgusting sins have polluted the entire land from one end to the other.'
God had warned through His prophets that the Promised Land would be spiritually contaminated by the sinful practices of its inhabitants.
📚 Historical Context
Ezra is recalling God's warnings given through Moses and other prophets before Israel entered Canaan. The Canaanite peoples practiced idolatry, child sacrifice, and other acts that God considered abominable. Despite these warnings about spiritual contamination, the Israelites had intermarried with these peoples after returning from Babylonian exile, which Ezra saw as repeating their ancestors' mistakes.
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