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Ezra 7 Bible study: The hand of his God on him
Ezra isn't named until chapter 7, and he comes as priest and scribe: his line runs back to Aaron (7:5), and he "had set his heart to seek the LORD’s law, and to do it, and to teach" (7:10), doing before teaching. The king wrote the letter, but three times the chapter says the hand of his God was on him (7:6, 7:9, 7:28).
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“For Ezra had set his heart to seek the LORD’s law, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel.”
Try it · Did you catch it?
“Ezra 7:10 says Ezra set his heart to do the LORD's law, not only to teach it.”
Is that in Ezra 7, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
Ezra comes into his book
Six chapters go by without the name Ezra; it first comes in 7:1. "Now after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah" (7:1), and before the chapter says a word about what he did, it gives his line, name by name, back through Zadok (7:2) and Phinehas (7:5) to "Aaron the chief priest" (7:5). Then: "this Ezra went up from Babylon. He was a skilled scribe in the law of Moses, which the LORD, the God of Israel, had given" (7:6) (tap skilled, scribe). So he comes as two things at once: a priest by his family, and a scribe in the law. The chapter calls him both as it brings in the king's letter: "Ezra the priest, the scribe, even the scribe of the words of the LORD’s commandments, and of his statutes to Israel" (7:11).
Where it leads to Jesus
Do them, and teach them
Ezra 7:10leads toMatthew 5:19
"For Ezra had set his heart to seek the LORD’s law, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel" (7:10). Speaking of the law (Matthew 5:17-18), Jesus said, "whoever shall do and teach them shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 5:19). Jesus doesn't cite Ezra or name him, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on a shared subject: the law of God done and taught, with doing first. Some see in Ezra 7:10 the pattern Jesus names. Others keep them apart: Jesus' words follow "I didn’t come to destroy, but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17), Christians read what "these least commandments" (Matthew 5:19) means for them in more than one way, and he speaks of the Kingdom of Heaven, which Ezra 7 doesn't mention.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Ezra 7
That was a taste
The rest of Ezra 7 is waiting in Favor
- Seek it, do it, teach it
- The hand of his God
- What the king's letter gives
- The king's language, then Ezra's own voice
- Ezra the scribe in Nehemiah
- 12 questions as you read
- 12 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
Favor reads the Bible in order, so you'll reach Ezra 7 with everything before it in view. First week free, then $10 a month per person.
The Hebrew word behind it
דָּרַשׁdarashsay da-RASH
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "resort to, seek", and among its senses, "seek with application, study, follow, practise". "For Ezra had set his heart to seek the LORD’s law, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel" (7:10). The book has the verb five times (4:2, 6:21, 7:10, 9:12, 10:16). The adversaries said, "we seek your God as you do" (Ezra 4:2), and at the Passover the returned exiles ate with those who had separated themselves "to seek the LORD, the God of Israel" (Ezra 6:21). Here what Ezra seeks is "the LORD’s law" (7:10). The WEB has "set his heart to seek" in 2 Chronicles 12:14 too, and "set your heart to seek" (2 Chronicles 19:3) and "sets his heart to seek" (2 Chronicles 30:19), and in Hebrew each of those verses joins the same verb for set (Strong's H3559) with heart and darash, as 7:10 does.
For your group
Ezra 7 Bible study questions
- 1Ezra "had set his heart to seek the LORD’s law, and to do it, and to teach" (7:10). What would it look like this week to set your heart on the first of those, and what gets in the way?
- 2Three times the chapter says God's hand was on Ezra (7:6, 7:9, 7:28). Looking back, where can you see God's hand on you, even if you didn't see it at the time?
- 3When a king gave generously, Ezra blessed the LORD "who has put such a thing as this in the king’s heart" (7:27). Who has God used to help you, and how could you thank God for them, and thank them too?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Ezra 7 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home