Ezra 7:6-10
He had prepared his heart
The order in the verse is deliberate and has been quoted ever since: to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.
People of the Bible
Ezra
A scribe who prepared his heart to seek the law, to do it, and to teach it, in that order.
Ezra comes up from Babylon eighty years after the first return, with a letter from Artaxerxes and about eighteen hundred men and their families. He is a priest in the line of Aaron and a ready scribe in the law of Moses. Before setting out he proclaims a fast at the river Ahava, because he has told the king that the hand of God is upon all who seek him and is ashamed to ask for soldiers. They carry silver, gold and vessels worth a fortune across four months of road, and arrive with nothing lost.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Ezra
- 01
- 02
Ezra 8:21-23
Ashamed to ask for soldiers
He proclaims a fast at the river because he had told the king that God’s hand is on all who seek him. They fast and ask, and the text says he was entreated of them.
- 03
Ezra 9:1-6
I sat down astonished
Told of the intermarriages, he tears his garment and his mantle, plucks hair from his head and beard, and sits down astonished until the evening sacrifice.
- 04
Nehemiah 8:1-8
They read distinctly, and gave the sense
A pulpit of wood in the street before the water gate, from morning until midday, and the people stood up when the book was opened. The Levites caused them to understand.
- 05
Nehemiah 8:9-12
The joy of the LORD is your strength
The people weep when they hear the words of the law. They are told to eat the fat and drink the sweet and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared.
Why it matters
Ezra is where the centre of Jewish life shifts from the temple to the book. The scene in Nehemiah 8 is the model: a wooden pulpit in the street, reading from morning until midday, men and women and all who could understand, Levites moving through the crowd giving the sense so that the people understood the reading. And when the people weep at what they hear, they are told that the day is holy and the joy of the LORD is their strength.
5 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
