ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the two primary male groups introduced in Ezra 9:1: the ‘people of Israel’ and the ‘peoples-of-the-lands’ from which ‘Israel’ is enjoined to remain separate. It considers the gendered characterization and performance of these groups and their effects in the narrative world of Ezra 9–10. It explores the images and traits culturally associated with ‘feminine’ inferiority, which are deployed to strategically ‘de-masculinize’ the peoples-of-the-lands and legitimize their expulsion. This gendered dynamic is productive of claims concerning the golah’s dominant masculinity, which are complicated by the group’s liminal status in this narrative world.
