Ezra 9:3

I rent my garment. Rending the clothes was a common Oriental mode of expressing grief (see Genesis 37:29, 34; 1 Samuel 4:12; 2 Samuel 1:2; 2 Kings 18:37; Job 1:20; 2:11, 12; Matthew 26:65). In Babylon, whence Ezra came, marriages with pagans had probably not yet become customary. Ezra was therefore shocked when he learned the extent to which this sin had made inroads among the returned exiles. He expressed his feelings in typical Oriental fashion, by first rending both his outer and his inner garments, then tearing his hair and beard, and finally by sitting down astonished, motionless and speechless, until the time of the evening sacrifice. Such a manifestation of horror and amazement was well calculated to impress those whose spiritual leader he had become.

Plucked off the hair. This practice is not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture, though it is found in the Apocrypha (Apocryphal Esther 14:2; etc.).

Astonied. Compare Daniel 4:19; 8:27, where the same word is used in the same sense.