Person Old Testament
Adaiah
Adaiah, one of the descendants of Harim, was a priest who had married a foreign woman during the time of Ezra. Mentioned once in Scripture, at Ezra 10:39.
Why it matters. A priest who married a foreign wife
- Primary passages
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-30 by the FaithGraph team
About Adaiah
Adaiah, a priest mentioned in the book of Ezra, was among those who had married foreign women during the post-exilic period (Ezr.10.39). He was a descendant of Harim, one of the priestly families that returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile.
During the religious reform led by Ezra, it was discovered that many Israelites, including priests and Levites, had married women from the surrounding nations. This was considered a violation of God's law, which prohibited intermarriage with the pagan peoples of the land (Ezr.10.10-11).
Adaiah was one of the priests who had taken a foreign wife. In response to Ezra's call for repentance, he and the other offenders pledged to put away their foreign wives and children, demonstrating their commitment to obey God's law and maintain the purity of the Israelite community.
No further details are provided about Adaiah's personal life or the specific consequences he faced in separating from his foreign wife. His inclusion in the list of priests who had married foreign women highlights the extent of the problem and the importance of addressing it to ensure the spiritual integrity of the community.
Description from STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, lightly reformatted. This is background reference material, not Scripture and not a FaithGraph editorial claim.
Connections
No reviewed connections yet.
Appears in Scripture
Named in 1 verse across 1 book. Occurrence data from STEPBible TIPNR (CC BY 4.0); references only, no translation text.
Ezra (1 verse)