"They took wives for themselves."

Let us assume here that each man just took one wife, but I doubt it. Notice here once beauty became their focal point, then this is what their decisions of life were made upon. They lost the ability to reason and reflect. The flesh seized control, and they never got it back. By the way, we are not saying that a beautiful wife is bad! Sarah was beautiful.

The issue is that beauty controlled them. The way she talked, looked, walked, simply enticed his attention. Reason and God's guidance took a far second place to the woman's beauty. Women became too compelling for him to think otherwise.

They became indiscriminate in their choices.

"Whomever they chose." This is a clear statement that the men of God took wives that did not share similar perspectives. Genesis goes on describing the headlong fall of the society after this point. Not much dirt is needed to make the clean dirty. This is true with holiness too. It stands as the highest priority to train our sons and daughters to spiritually judge things rather than physically or emotionally 'feel' things.

The LORD responded to this right away.

He did not have to wait for a generation to prove His thesis. Once the godly seed is lost among the ungodly, then there is no godly seed left. God had no choice but to shorten life expectancy in order to preserve man, otherwise the ungodliness would soon destroy the world.

A godly person must marry a godly person. Balaam's big payload came about because of insight into this very principle. Godliness must be protected. A church must carry on discipline. A family must have rules. A government must have laws to preserve itself. If what distinguishes God's people is lost even for just one generation, then it is gone.

Intermingling Unto Death (Ezra 9-10)
(Marrying a Non-Christian)

Ezra's response in chapters 9-10 all too clearly confirms the absolute finality of deadly compromise. There is no way to get it back. Once the seed of godliness is lost, it cannot be recovered. Whatever has been lost must be judged. Ezra heard it like this.

"Now when these things had been completed, the princes approached me, saying, "The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, according to their abominations, those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. "For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has intermingled with the peoples of the lands; indeed, the hands of the princes and the rulers have been foremost in this unfaithfulness." (Ezra 9:1-2).

All of God's marvelous works of bringing His people back into the land was going to be made irrelevant if the people started to intermarry the people in the land. The leaders were accelerating this process by setting the terrible example. In 10:1 they said it might not be too late if they actually put these ungodly wives away along with their children. There was no "Let's convert them" campaign. Worship is influenced by heart love. They could not just say, "No more." They would all perish within a generation if they did not cut off this intermingling. Fortunately, they followed through with this.

The scriptures say a lot about who we marry. It is not a trivial matter. Below are some other suggestions in finding the right wife.