An Israelite from the Hashum clan who sent away his foreign wife
Även känd som: Aziza
ÅterkomstenIsraeliteMember of the Hashum clanc. 450 BC
Asisa was an Israelite from the Hashum clan who lived in the period after the Jewish return from exile in Babylon. He is mentioned in Ezra 10:33 among those who had married foreign women, which violated the covenant stipulations. As part of Ezra's great reform movement, Asisa committed to sending away his foreign wife. This action, however painful it was, was motivated by a desire to preserve the people's religious identity and faithfulness to the Lord at a time when the small Jewish community faced the danger of cultural and spiritual dissolution.
Asisa was listed among the sons of Hashum who had married foreign women, which violated the covenant's command not to marry people from the surrounding nations.
Ezra led a comprehensive reform in which Israelite men who had married foreign women were required to send them away, along with their children, to restore the people's faithfulness to God's covenant.
1While Ezra was praying and making this confession, weeping and lying prostrate before the house of God, a very large assembly of Israel gathered around him—men, women, and children—for the people were weeping bitterly.
2Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, one of the descendants of Elam, spoke up and said to Ezra: "We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples of the land. Yet even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.
3So let us now make a covenant with our God to send away all these women along with their children, according to the counsel of the Lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God. Let it be done according to the Law.
The people gathered in Jerusalem, confessed their sin regarding intermarriage, and pledged to act in accordance with God's law by separating from their foreign wives.
11Now then, make confession to the LORD, the God of your fathers, and do his will: separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from your foreign wives."
A commission was appointed to examine all cases of marriage to foreign women. The work was carried out systematically and completed over a period of several months.
16So the returned exiles did as had been proposed. Ezra the priest selected men who were heads of families, each designated by name according to his father's house. On the first day of the tenth month they sat down to examine the matter,