Spiritual Leadership Lessons from Ezra & Nehemiah

God used both Ezra and Nehemiah to accomplish significant things on behalf of his people Israel. Ezra guided them back to worshipping at the Temple and observing the Mosaic Law. Nehemiah oversaw the reconstruction of the Jerusalem walls. In both cases, these men were successful to some degree.

I say “to some degree” because they largely failed to bring about the genuine, inner transformation of the people’s hearts. One major evidence of this underlying failure is the recurrence of intermarriage by the Jews. During both Ezra and Nehemiah’s leadership, Israelite people were marrying pagan wives.

The Persistent Problem of Intermarriage

Why was this behavior such a problem? After all, God did not oppose marriages to people of other nations entirely. In fact, the Bible provides examples of prominent Israelite men marrying foreign wives:

• Abraham married Keturah, a non-Israelite (Gen 25:1); to marry an Israelite, he would have had to marry another sister or one of his granddaughters.
• Judah married Shua, a Canaanite (Gen 38:2).
• Joseph married Asenath, an Egyptian (Gen 41:45).
• Moses married Zipporah, a Midianite (Exo 2:16-21). This instance is especially noteworthy since Moses was the man who provided the laws on intermarriage!
• Salmon married Rahab, a Canaanite (Matt 1:5).
• Boaz married Ruth, a Moabite (Ruth 4:13).

Three of these instances occurred before the law was given, one of them occurred with the lawgiver himself (Moses), and the remaining two occurred after the law was given, as part of the Messiah’s genealogy. What’s more, Scripture nowhere condemns these marriages. For Moses, God even defended his marriage against criticism (Num 11:1-10).

There is one notable exception to these prominent cases of intermarriage in the Old Testament (OT) – Solomon. Nehemiah pointed out that Solomon had not only married many wives (which also violated the law, cf. Deut 17:17), but he had married pagan wives who had no interest in converting to Judaism. They carried their idolatry into their marriage and coerced Solomon to join them in idolatrous practices (Neh 13:26-27). If a man as wise as Solomon had been corrupted through pagan marriages, then how much more of a threat would it be to ordinary Jewish people?

The problem with intermarriage was not related to people being from different nations; it was rooted in an attempt to guard Israel against the pervasive influence of idolatry. Through Moses, God had forbidden the Jews from marrying people from the nations, but in specifically those who had previously inhabited the Promised Land and would live near their borders (Deut 7:1-5). This was a necessary precaution against adopting pagan, idolatrous ways and destroying their heritage as worshippers of the one, true God (Exo 34:11-17). A similar principle applies today to those who follow Christ (2 Cor 6:14).

Following the Babylonian captivity, the intermarriages of Jewish people who had resettled the land was particularly unsettling for at least two reasons.

• First, it showed that the people had not learned their lesson. They had endured captivity in a foreign place for seventy long years for committing similar sins. Despite these radical consequences, they returned rapidly to this wrong behavior anyway.
• Second, they did this repeatedly. Not long after Zerubbabel rebuilt the Temple and Ezra restored Temple worship, the people – especially their leaders –married pagan wives (Ezra 9:1-2). Only a few years after Ezra supposedly rectified this problem, more Israelites made the same wrong choice during Nehemiah’s tenure (Neh 13:23-27).

Comparing and Contrasting the Responses of Two Different Leaders

In each instance of failure, how did Ezra and Nehemiah respond? The answer to this question teaches some important lessons about spiritual leadership.

Good leaders agonize deeply over spiritual failure.

Ezra felt devastated (Ezra 9:3-4) and Nehemiah felt distressed (Neh 13:8). Though these descriptions use different words, they both portray feelings of deep personal bewilderment. Both men anguished in their spirit over the sinfulness of the people they were leading.

Good leaders may respond to spiritual failures in different ways, seemingly opposite ways.

Consider the following differences between the way that Ezra and Nehemiah responded to the same problem.

• Ezra sat down and prayed a long, humble, heartfelt prayer to God (Ezra 9:5-15). Nehemiah took immediate action instead and prayed brief prayers for himself along the way (Neh 13:1ff).
• Ezra took a more passive approach, waiting long enough for the people to come to him on their initiative (Ezra 10:1-8). Nehemiah took a more active approach, giving dogmatic orders and coercing people to change through physical force and blunt argumentation as a superior authority (Neh 13:8-9, 11, 17, 25).

We see this contrast in approach between these men most vividly in the way they pulled out hair. Ezra pulled out his own hair (Ezra 9:3), but Nehemiah pulled out the hair of other people (Neh 13:25)! To be sure, neither response is mild; in fact, such a response would have been considered dramatic even in an emotional Jewish culture.

Yet in these contrasting examples, we see a key difference. Ezra harmed himself, but Nehemiah harmed others. You see this difference in their words as well. By using frequent plural pronouns (like we and our) Ezra identified himself with the failures of his fellow Jews, even though he had not committed these sins himself (Ezra 9:6ff). Nehemiah, however, distanced himself from the failures of his fellow Jews, using frequent singular pronouns instead (like I and me) (Neh 13:14, 22, 31).

I don’t know about you, but I tend to appreciate Ezra’s response more than Nehemiah’s. Perhaps I feel this way for cultural reasons. From my Western point of view, it seems disrespectful and out of place for a leader to argue forcefully, wish curses, and strike out physically at disobedient people. More importantly, it seems to violate biblical principles given especially to pastors.

Paul’s clear New Testament (NT) instructions call for a patient and gentle approach (1 Tim 2:2-3; 2 Tim 2:24-26; 1 Pet 5:2-3). Some may suggest that the pastoral instructions urging a pastor to “reprove, rebuke, and exhort” offset the need for patience and gentleness, but I disagree. Consider two familiar instances:

• In 2 Timothy 4:2, Paul writes, “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” In this example, two words describe the appropriate manner for carrying out the three necessary actions (convince, rebuke, and exhort). A pastor must convince, rebuke, and exhort in a patient, thoughtful way, not in a forceful, belligerent way.
• In Titus 3:1, Paul writes, “Exhort, and rebuke with all authority.” In this example, the phrase “with all authority” describes the appropriate manner for carrying out the two necessary actions (exhort and rebuke). This phrase does not emphasize a forceful and vociferous speaking style, as some may suppose.
• The teaching ministry of Jesus demonstrated this biblical approach to spiritual leadership. It was an authority marked by a calm, confident, thorough understanding of Scripture (Matt 7:29; Mark 1:22; John 7:46). In fact, parallel passages equate the authority of Jesus’ words with wisdom (Matt 13:54) and gracious words (Luke 4:22), not with a forceful, strident style.

When you study these clear NT instructions, and you consider the OT example of other biblical leaders, such as Moses, who led through meekness (Num 12:3) but failed when he acted in a forceful way (Num 20:10-13), you tend to view Ezra’s leadership approach in a positive light. You also tend to question whether Nehemiah responded to Israel’s failure in the best possible way.

• In Nehemiah’s case, perhaps he responded more forcefully since this was the second time that Israel had failed. Perhaps he reasoned that since Ezra’s approach had failed to bring about long-term change, then a more forceful approach was needed instead.
• Or perhaps he was just genuinely frustrated. Sometimes it’s not always clear where we should draw the line between a godly zeal for righteousness and personal frustration with disappointing people.
• Then again, perhaps we can explain Nehemiah’s forceful approach by recognizing his function as an administrative, political leader, whereas Ezra responded in a way more suitable for a priest and a teacher of the law.

Whatever the case, examples like this encourage us to act responsibly and thoughtfully when we do character studies in the Bible. When the Bible tells us a story from history, it does not always tell us everything about that story, telling us what was right and wrong. In some cases, such as this, we should pause to consider what the Bible teaches elsewhere in clear and explicit statements of instruction (such as 1 Tim 2:2-3; 2 Tim 2:24-26; 1 Pet 5:2-3). T

This is an important Bible study principle. It enables us to read narrative sections with greater understanding rather than drawing our own subjective conclusions. In this way, we let the Bible interpret the Bible. We let the clearer statements of scripture interpret those passages which are less clear.

Outward change does not equal inward change.

Whatever the case, even if Ezra demonstrated a more noble style of leadership than Nehemiah, we see that even optimal leadership does not always achieve the desired results. Both Ezra and Nehemiah failed to bring about genuine inner transformation in the hearts of the Israelite people.

When a spiritual leader fails to achieve the desired spiritual transformation within a person’s heart (or the hearts of a group of people), he must be careful not to equate this with personal failure. God does not measure the rightness or quality of leadership by results alone; he measures leadership by whether or not the leader led in a godly, biblical way that reflects his divine nature. In some cases, people respond well to godly leadership; in other cases, not so much.

Good leaders look for ways to show mercy.

The godly remorse that these men felt over Israel’s sins caused them both to take some drastic measures. Ezra instructed everyone who had married a pagan wife to divorce their wives and to send them and any resulting children away (Ezra 10:3-5). Ironically, in this way, he appears to be more zealous than Nehemiah, who simply ordered the people to stop marrying pagan wives (Neh 13:25).

In both instances, however, these men exercised mercy, too. Based upon past legal precedent, they could have issued the death penalty instead (Num 25:1-8). Even the Persian king had authorized them to do the same (Ezra 7:26). David teaches that mercy entails not punishing someone to the extent that they deserve (Psa 103:10). This is a quality of the character of God (Psa 103:8; Psa 145:8-9). Against this backdrop, Jesus taught us to “be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful” (Luke 6:36). Ezra and Nehemiah show us what this is like.