the marriages of Jewish men to heathen women. In Malachi’s day, Jewish men were not only marrying heathen women but were also putting away their Jewish wives to do so. 2. The commonness of mixed marriages (among the Jews) 2:11 These mixed marriages had been common in the days of the reformation movement of Ezra and Nehemiah a few years earlier and these reformers had looked upon these mixed marriages with great alarm and had taken extreme measures against them, Ezra, chapters 9 and 10; Neh. 9:2; 10:30.