A more far-reaching cause of division was that of marriage with foreigners, especially with Samaritans, who were with justice regarded as heathen by the bulk of the returned exiles; in Ezra ix. 1, 2, we read: “... the princes drew near unto me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands.... For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons; so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the peoples of the lands. Yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass” (cp. Neh. xiii. 23, 24). That, as indicated in these last words, it was the aristocracy, i.e. the high-priestly families, who were most forward in contracting foreign alliances and who were in favour of intercourse with non-Jews generally, is shown further by such passages as Nehemiah vi. 17-19: “Moreover, in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters unto Tobiah, and the letters of Tobiah came unto them. For there were many in Judah sworn unto him, because he was the son-in-law of Shechaniah the son of Arah; and his son Johanan had taken the daughter of Meshullam the son of Berechiah to wife. Also they spake of his good deeds before me and reported my words to him.” And again Nehemiah xiii. 28: “And one of the sons of Joiada, son of Eliashib the high-priest, was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite.” Very significant, too, is the long passage Ezra x. 18-44; this contains a list of those who had married strange wives; first are mentioned the sons of the priests, among these a few had put away their wives (verses 18, 19), but the list, as it continues, mentions those priests who did not do so (verses 20-22); then follow the names of Levites, singers, and porters, then of Israelites, who “had taken strange wives; and some of them had wives by whom they had children” (verse 44). The attempts of Ezra and Nehemiah to stop these alliances and to put an end to the intercourse between the Jews and those whom they regarded as heathen were thus not wholly successful; and this is further borne out by several passages which reveal the resistance offered, e.g. Ezra x. 15: “But Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahaziah the son of Tikvah stood up against this matter; and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite helped them.” Again, in Nehemiah vi. 10-14 the influence of Sanballat and Tobiah upon many of those who lived in Jerusalem, and the existence of a party there opposed to Ezra, is plainly indicated; among those belonging to this party there are mentioned Shemaiah, the prophetess Noadiah, “and the rest of the prophets” (cp. also xiii. 4 ff.; Mal. ii. 10-16).