The business occupied the commission full two months. In some cases, it may be presumed, they had to summon persons before them who did not wish to part with their foreign wives; in all, they had to assure themselves that the wives were foreign; finally, they had in every case where they decreed a divorce to make out the "writing of divorcement" Ezra 10:3.

The first day of the first month - So they were three whole months in examining into this affair, and making those separations which the law required.

And they made an end with all the men that had taken strange wives,.... Finished their inquiry and examination of them:

by the first day of the first month; the month Nisan, answering to part of March and April; so that they were three months about this work.

And they made an end with all, with respect to the men who had brought home strange wives. בּכּל (with the article) cannot be so connected with אנשׁים, from which it is separated by the accentuation of the latter, as to admit of the repetition, as by older expositors, of the preposition בּ before אנשׁים: with all, namely, with the men. Still less can בּכּל, as Bertheau thinks, be taken in the sense of "in every place," and אנשׁים connected as an accusative with ויכלּוּ: they finished in every place the men (!); for כּלּה with an accusative of the person signifies to annihilate, to make an end of, while ב כּלּה means to finish, to make an end with, comp. Genesis 44:12. If, as the accentuation requires, we take בּכּל independently, אנשׁים can only be an accusative of more exact definition: in respect of the men (אנשׁים being without the article, because words which define it follow). As this gives a suitable meaning, it seems unnecessary to alter the punctuation and read בּכל־אנשׁים, or with Ewald, 290, c, note 1, to regard אנשׁים בּכּל as a singular combination. - Till the first day of the first month (of the next year), therefore in three months, their sittings having begun, according to Ezra 10:13, on the first day of the tenth month. - The account of this transaction closes with -

The list of the men who had taken strange wives, vv. 18-44; among whom were priests (Ezra 10:18-22), Levites (Ezra 10:23, Ezra 10:24), and Israelites, i.e., laymen (vv. 25-43).

And they made an end with all the men that had taken strange wives by the first day of the first month.

Margin first month

i.e. April.

10:15-44 The best reformers can but do their endeavour; when the Redeemer himself shall come to Zion, he shall effectually turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And when sin is repented of and forsaken, God will forgive it; but the blood of Christ, our Sin-offering, is the only atonement which takes away our guilt. No seeming repentance or amendment will benefit those who reject Him, for self-dependence proves them still unhumbled. All the names written in the book of life, are those of penitent sinners, not of self-righteous persons, who think they have no need of repentance.