It is claimed that according to Ezra 9 and 10 the Israelite exiles returning from captivity had brought a curse on themselves, and God had sent a heavy rain to the land as punishment for their sin of marrying foreign women and bringing them back to pollute the land of Israel, resulting in "wholesale divorce".

Nowhere does it state God had "sent a curse of rain on the land". It does mention that it was the rainy season, and so they had to adjourn their meeting for the next day (Ezra 10:13), but this is the only place in Ezra rain is even mentioned. God had made a covenant with the Israelites to follow him rather than other gods ("You shall have no other gods before me", Exodus 20:2). Part of their instruction was to not intermarry with the non-Israelite people around them as "they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods" (Deut. 7:4). The Israelites always made allowances for converts to Judaism, such as Ruth, which is a different topic entirely than men marrying wives who held to "detestable practices".

Is there "wholesale divorce in the land of Israel during Ezra's time?" Ezra 2 numbers the exiles: "the whole company numbered 42,360" and in Ezra 8, they add another 1,772 who came later, which makes a total of 44,132 people. They NAME who had foreign wives, only 110 people. Rather than "wholesale divorce in the land of Israel in Ezra's time", this comes to a whopping total of 0.2%.

Furthermore, it also doesn't say they actually divorced them. It says they "put them away" from themselves. The Old Testament does not present divorce as the divine ideal. It states, "For I hate divorce, says the Lord the God of Israel" (Malachi 2:16). There is a recognition of the existence of divorce. Deut. 24:1-4 states when a man takes a wife and writes her a certificate of divorce, and if she goes and becomes another man's wife, the first husband is not allowed to remarry her. This passage regulates a practice that already existed rather than commanding divorce. Even if they did divorce their wives in Ezra, for which there is no evidence, they were required by Judaic law to give back the dowry of the wife and to provide for an income for the wife and any children. Finally, there is no command found anywhere in Ezra that states this is what God desired. There are no prophets saying, "divorce your wives or else!" The book of Ezra just says this is what they did, not whether God approved of it or not.