When a fellow union partisan assured President Abraham Lincoln that God was on their side, Lincoln said “Whether God is on our side we cannot know. But we know that God is always on the side of right. So we need to make certain that we are on God’s side.”

Ezra was doing his best to make sure he and his people were on God’s side.

This must be our goal as well.

The exiles who returned to Jerusalem did not have an easy time. They faced challenges and obstacles in nearly every direction. But each time a problem arose the hand of God could be seen in finding a solution. No greater example is found than in the support the Jews received from a pagan ruler.

King Artaxerxes had been lobbied by the enemies of the Jews for years. But he waded through their lies and misinformation and stepped up to the plate and promised the Jews a number of blessings:

• A royal treasury open to finance the work on the temple.
• The freedom to allocate the funds at their own discretion.
• The assurance that whatever hidden costs emerge will be taken care of.
• The exemption from taxation for the Levites and other workers at the temple.
• The authority from the king for Ezra to administer justice to all the people of the Trans-Euphrates.

Praise be to the Lord, the God of our fathers, who has put it into the king’s heart to bring honor to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem in this way and who has extended his good favor to me before the king and his advisers and all the king’s powerful officials. Because the hand of the Lord my God was on me, I took courage and gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me.

Daniel Boorstin writes, “Two centuries ago when a great man appeared, people looked for God’s purpose in him. Today we look for his press agent.”

What signs of God’s purpose do we see in Ezra?

What is the meaning of his statement “the hand of the Lord my God was on me…”?

Why would such a belief encourage Ezra…and us?

The seventh chapter of Ezra begins with a long list of the priest’s lineage (“the son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the sone of Hilkiah,” etc.). The “gracious hand of his God” was on Ezra. (7:9).

What is the purpose of listing all of these names?
Chapter 8 records another list, this one naming the heads of the families who returned to Jerusalem with Ezra ding the reign of Artaxerxes. This list is a reminder that these were actual people and the return from exile an actual historical event, not fiction.

An incident occurs on the trip home that serves as a reminder of the effects of doubt on our faith:

There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions. I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, “The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.” So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer. Then I set apart twelve of the leading priests, together with Sherebiah, Hashabiah and ten of their brothers.

In what ways do we sometimes evidence a lack of faith in God’s promises in our lives?

From this discussion, what are those things you feel compelled to pray about?

Pray about these matters one by one and bring them before your Heavenly Father.