Athlai
Athlai was one of the men who agreed to put away their foreign wives during Ezra's reforms (Ezr 10:28).
Biography
Athlai was an Israelite man of the postexilic period, listed in Ezra 10:28 among the sons of Bebai who had taken foreign wives during the years following the return from Babylonian exile. He is named as one who responded to Ezra's sweeping reform, a deeply painful communal reckoning in which men who had contracted marriages with women from surrounding peoples agreed to dissolve those unions in order to preserve the covenantal purity of the restored community. His compliance with this measure, however personally costly, placed him among those who publicly acknowledged the seriousness of Israel's covenant obligations before God in the critical years of national reconstruction.
Significance
Athlai's act of putting away his foreign wife, recorded in Ezra 10:28, represents a moment of costly covenant obedience. Ezra's reform addressed a crisis that threatened to replicate the very syncretism and apostasy that had led Israel into exile. For Athlai and his contemporaries, compliance meant prioritizing communal covenant faithfulness over personal attachment. Theologically, his story raises enduring questions about holiness, community boundaries, and the call to radical obedience that God places upon his people. While the practice is historically and culturally complex, it illustrates the postexilic community's determined effort to reconstitute itself around the demands of God's law.
Verse Appearances (1)
Ezra
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- Tyndale House, Cambridge (n.d.) Translators Individualised Proper Names with all References (TIPNR). STEPBible. Available at: https://www.stepbible.org. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]