עזרא, פרק י׳, פסוק י״ט

Men who had married foreign women embrace a practical and binding process of repentance to cleanse the nation of the assimilation that threatened its spiritual survival. This profound awakening requires them to separate from their families and bring a sacrifice for atonement.

They finalize their decision with a pledge of absolute commitment [ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Commentators offer different ways to understand the nature of this agreement. Some view it as a mutual consensus and shared counsel [רש"י]. Others explain it as a physical handshake used to seal an oath, or as a metaphor for surrendering completely to the authority of the leaders and accepting their demands [אבן עזרא, מצודת דוד].

The core of this commitment is the requirement to divorce their foreign wives [מצודת דוד, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. This separation necessarily includes sending away the children born to these women. According to Jewish law, a child born to a foreign mother is not considered Jewish, making the removal of the children an unavoidable part of the process [רלב"ג].

Alongside the divorces, the guilty men commit to bringing a ram from the flock as a guilt offering [אבן עזרא, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. This demand presents a legal difficulty, as the Torah does not normally require a guilt offering for the sin of relations with a foreign woman. Consequently, the primary approach among commentators is that this sacrifice does not stem from standard Biblical law, but is rather a special, temporary ruling or a new decree established by the leaders of the generation [רש"י, מצודת דוד, רלב"ג, אבן עזרא]. The specific choice of a guilt offering is borrowed from the laws regarding a designated maidservant, which is the only instance in the Torah where forbidden relations explicitly require this type of sacrifice [רב סעדיה גאון, רלב"ג].