Holy Seed

Explaining Ezra’s concern about the mixed marriages in the restoration community, Naomi Koltun-Fromm (Hermeneutics of Holiness) writes, “Ezra presents Israel not only as holy but as a qodesh in its own right—a freestanding holy thing, a holy seed, a sanctum. As such, it must be protected (or in this case, protect itself) from desecration. If profaned, Israel loses its special status and would fi nd itself no different from the surrounding people. In other words, Israel would no longer distinguish itself, nor separate itself out for God (holy), but remain common—indistinguishable from any other nation. As Christine Hayes argues, Ezra’s primary concern is protecting the ‘holy seed’ of Israel from profanation. Every Israelite who has returned from the Exile is a member of the holy community—each carries a holy seed. If other, common seed becomes mixed up with the holy seed, then the next generation of holy seed is rendered common, too. Ezra 9:2 states that: ‘the holy seed has become intermingled with the peoples of the land.’ As H. G. M. Williamson suggests, this phrasing recalls Leviticus 19:19 (within the holiness legislation), in which the priests ban the breeding of two different types of animals, the sowing of two types of seed together, and the weaving together of two different kinds of fiber. The Israelites, in intermingling their ‘seed’ with other ‘seed,’ profane their offspring in mixing the unmixable. Furthermore, Ezra calls this intermingling a ma‘al, often translated as ‘transgression,’ but should be here understood as ‘sancta contamination’ or ‘sacrilege,’ for which a specific sacrifice, an asham, is needed as reparation” (43).

According to Ezra’s warning, the pollution caused by these mixtures is indirect: If Israel becomes “mixed” with the people of the land, they run the risk of repeated the abominations of the Canaanites, polluting the land, and being expelled.

Koltun-Fromm doesn’t see this as “simple racist or blood-purist ideology” (44), and highlights the fact that Ezra expresses his warning in cultic and purity terms. Ezra’s logic is based not on racial concerns, but on a “humanization” of the holiness system: With fairly rigorous logic, categories that once applied to the temple are now applied to the people. It is the beginning of a new covenant order, one that anticipates the full humanization of holiness found in the New Testament.