Ezra 8:22

Ezra 8 tells of the second company of exiles to return from Babylon to Jerusalem, about eighty years after the first return under Zerubbabel. Ezra had been sent by King Artaxerxes I, and the chapter opens with the heads of the families and the Levites who gathered with him (Ezra 8:1–20). They assembled at the river of Ahava, probably a tributary of the Euphrates, and there, before anyone set out, Ezra called a fast.

The danger was real. The road to Jerusalem ran some 900 miles through desolate country where bandits and hostile tribes preyed on travellers, and a large caravan took about four months to cover it. This company included women and children, and it carried a great weight of gold, silver and temple vessels, which Ezra lists in Ezra 8:25–27. A royal envoy carrying treasure like that would normally travel with a guard of soldiers.

Ezra went to God first. The fast comes before he weighs out the treasure and hands it to the priests and Levites (Ezra 8:24–30), and before the account of the journey itself (Ezra 8:31–32). There Ezra writes that “the hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy, and of such as lay in wait by the way.” The prayer at Ahava and the safe arrival in Jerusalem belong together, and the second is God’s answer to the first.

The word “proclaimed” is qârâʼ, to call out or announce publicly. Ezra announced the fast to the whole community as their leader, a public summons for everyone to seek God together. The danger belonged to all of them, and so did the prayer.

Ezra had already told Artaxerxes, “The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him; but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him.” To turn round and ask the same king for “a band of soldiers and horsemen” would have made those words look empty before a ruler who did not know God. So Ezra chose to let his conduct agree with his confession.

The verb for “ashamed” is bûwsh, which means to be ashamed, and by extension to be disappointed. Ezra’s shame here is the embarrassment of a man who would have contradicted his own testimony and dishonoured God’s name in front of the king. It came from a deep concern for God’s honour and for the truth of what he had said. What might look like weakness, a leader too embarrassed to ask for help, is in fact strong faith that God is enough.

An escort would have been customary, expected and even sensible, and the might of Persia stood ready to provide it. Ezra set the safety of the company on the God he had named to the king. His choice is the faith of Psalm 20:7: “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.” Another psalm says that the angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him and delivers them (Psalm 34:7), and the faith of Proverbs 3:5–6 is the same: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”

The purpose of the fast was “that we might afflict ourselves before our God”. The verb ʻânâh means to humble oneself or bring oneself low, and joined with fasting it describes a people lowering themselves before God in earnest prayer and self-denial. Israel humbled itself in this way on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29). The affliction is an act of submission and a way of drawing near to God, and it showed how sincere their request was.

Fasting itself, tsûm in verse 23, is going without food, and sometimes drink, for a spiritual purpose. In Israel it went with mourning, repentance and urgent prayer, often with sackcloth and ashes, and especially in times of national danger. Israel fasted and sought God at Bethel (Judges 20:26), Samuel gathered the people to fast and confess their sin at Mizpeh (1 Samuel 7:6), and Joel called the whole nation to turn to the LORD with fasting and weeping (Joel 2:12–17).

At Ahava the people were confessing together that their safety rested entirely with God. Their humbling was “before our God”, turned toward the one who holds all power. God has promised to hear when his people humble themselves, pray and seek his face (2 Chronicles 7:14), and Ezra’s company did exactly that.

“Seek” is bâqash, to search out or strive after, used especially of seeking God in worship and prayer. It describes earnest, determined effort. The same verb comes back in verse 22, where God’s hand is on all “that seek him”, and in verse 23, “besought our God”. The people were doing what Ezra had told the king the faithful do.

What they sought was “a right way”, in Hebrew derek yâshâr. Derek is a way, path or road, and it is often used for the course of a person’s life. Yâshâr means straight, right or upright. The people needed a safe and direct road to Jerusalem, and the phrase also carries the sense of a course that God approves, which suited a journey made to restore his worship. The LORD orders the steps of a good man and holds him up when he falls (Psalm 37:23–24).

The prayer covers everything Ezra had. “Our little ones” are the children, the most defenceless members of the company, and Ezra’s care for them shows a shepherd’s heart and the whole community’s responsibility for the next generation. “All our substance” includes the people’s own goods and the treasure for the temple. Ezra brought even the wealth to God, because it was his and only he could keep it safe.

The word for “hand”, yâd, is the open hand, and it stands for power, means and direction. “The hand of our God” is a common biblical way of speaking of God’s active power, help and favour. In Ezra’s words to the king it is “upon all them for good that seek him”, God’s protecting and guiding presence over those who look to him.

The second half of the saying is just as true: “his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him.” God blesses those who seek him, and he opposes and judges those who deliberately abandon him and his ways. Both belong to who God is, his goodness and his holiness and justice. The same two paths run through the blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 28, the terms of the covenant God made with Israel.

Verse 23 tells the outcome in one line: “So we fasted and besought our God for this: and he was intreated of us.” “For this” is the right way of verse 21, safety for the people, their children and the treasure. “Besought” is bâqash again.

“He was intreated” is ʻâthar. In its active forms this verb means to pray or entreat, and the form used here, to be intreated, means that God heard the prayer and answered it. The fasting and praying of the people are followed directly by God’s response, and the safe journey of Ezra 8:31–32 is that response worked out on the road. Fasting was an honest expression of their need and their trust, and God answered out of his own grace.

This shows a God who is near and can be approached. The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous and his ears are open to their cry (Psalm 34:15). He is “a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1). Nehemiah later fasted and prayed for Jerusalem (Nehemiah 1:4), and Daniel sought God with prayer and fasting for his people (Daniel 9:3).

Ezra asked God for a right way to Jerusalem. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). He opens that way as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Ezra humbled himself and trusted God on a perilous road. Christ humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8), praying in Gethsemane, “nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42).

In Christ the hand of God for good reaches the world, for God gave his only begotten Son so that all who believe in him have everlasting life (John 3:16). God’s power and wrath against those who forsake him also meet in Christ. He is ordained to be the judge of the living and the dead (Acts 10:42), and at the cross the wrath of God against sin fell on his own Son, so that those who believe escape it. Whoever comes to him he receives, and he casts none of them out (John 6:37).

Ezra guarded silver and gold on the road. Peter tells believers that they were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, set beside silver and gold as far the greater treasure (1 Peter 1:18–19). God has delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1:13–14). Jesus is our great high priest, through whom we come to God with confidence (Hebrews 4:14–16), and the Spirit guides us into all truth (John 16:13) on the way home. Paul gathers it up: “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31–39).

These verses give us a leader whose deeds agreed with his confession, and a people who brought their whole need to God together: their own lives, their children and everything they owned. They show God’s hand resting for good on those who seek him, his holiness toward those who forsake him, and his readiness to be intreated by people who come to him humbly. The God who brought Ezra’s company safely to Jerusalem hears his people still, and in Christ we come to him by the one true way.