Marriage between persons of different races or tribes. A prohibition to intermarry with the Canaanites is found in Deuteronomy 7:3, where it is said: “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them [any of the seven nations of the land of Canaan]; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.” The reason stated for this prohibition is: “For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods” (ib. 7:4); and, inasmuch as this reason holds good as regards intermarriage with any idolatrous nation, all Gentiles are included in the prohibition (R. Simeon, in ‘Ab. Zarah 36b; comp. Ḳid. 68b; the other rabbisregard the prohibition as rabbinic only). At any rate, from Ezra onward this prohibition was extended to all Gentiles (Ezra 9:1-2, 10:10-11; Nehemiah 10:31), and accordingly the Law was thus interpreted and codified by Maimonides (“Yad,” Issure Biah, 12:1; comp. Shulḥan ‘Aruk, Eben ha-'Ezer, 16, 1; Aaron ha Levi, “Sefer ha-Ḥinnuk,” 127). Older, however, than the Deuteronomic law is the patriarchal law forbidding the descendants of Abraham to intermarry with the Canaanites (Genesis 24:3, 26:34, 27:46, 28:8, 34:14). Nevertheless the Israelites during the pre-exilic period did intermarry with the Gentiles, and the consequence was that they were led to adopt idolatrous practises (Judges 3:6; comp. 1 Kings 11:1 et seq.). It is singular that Moses was the first to be censured, and that by his own sister and brother, for having married an Ethiopian woman (Numbers 12:1), though this expression is referred to Zipporah by the commentaries ad loc. Intermarriage with Ammonites and Moabites was especially forbidden, whereas the offspring of intermarriages with the Idumeans and Egyptians were to be admitted to the congregation of the Lord in their third generation (Deuteronomy 23:4-7, 8-9). An exception to the prohibition against intermarriage was the case of a captive woman during time of war (Deuteronomy 21:10-13); but this seems to have referred to warfare with nations other than the Canaanites (see the commentaries of Dillmann and Driver ad loc.).
But, however strong was the tendency to intermarry in pre-exilic Israel, during the Babylonian captivity the Jews realized that they were to be “a holy people unto the Lord their God” and were therefore forbidden to intermarry with the Gentiles, wherefore the princes of the new Judean colony came to Ezra saying: “The people of Israel and the priests and Levites have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Idumeans [LXX. and 1 Esdras 8:68; Masoretic text incorrectly “Amorites”]; for they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons so that the holy seed have mingled with the people of those lands” (Ezra 9:1-2). The prophet Malachi also complains (Malachi 2:11): “Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god.” It was the fear of seduction to idolatry which induced Ezra and the other leaders of the new colony to exclude from the commonwealth foreign wives and such as insisted upon keeping them (Ezra ix.—x.; Nehemiah 10:31, 13:23).
One important factor, however, was introduced afterward which essentially modified the prohibition of intermarriage, and that was the conversion of Gentiles to Judaism. This was believed to be typified in Ruth when she says to Naomi, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God” (Ruth 1:16; comp. Isaiah 14:1; and see Proselyte). All the Biblical passages referring to permitted intermarriages, as that of a captive woman in war-time (Sifre, Deuteronomy 213: “She shall bewail her father and mother” being explained by R. Akiba to mean “She shall bewail her ancestral religion”; Yeb. 48b), or of the Ammonites and Moabites (Sifre, Deuteronomy 249, 253), or of Joseph (see Asenath), were therefore interpreted by the Rabbis as having been concluded after due conversion to Judaism; whereas Esau’s intermarriage was found blame-worthy on account of the idolatrous practises of his wives (Gen. R. 65; comp. Jubilees, 25:1). In regard to King Solomon see Yeb. 76a and Maimonides, “Yad,” Issure Biah, 13:14-16.
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Author: Jewish Encyclopedia
Keywords: Intermarriage
Source: Isidore Singer (editor), The Jewish Encyclopedia (12 Volumes), (1906).
Page indexed by: inWORD Bible Software.