A band of defenceless Jews, passing through the territory of fierce, unscrupulous enemies, carrying with them treasure enough to excite the cupidity and avarice of the most ambitious robber!
Yet their leader, knowing full well all this, was ashamed to ask of the king a band of soldiers to form a bodyguard for them. He had boasted of his God before the king, saying, “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.”
If Ezra had asked for a guard of soldiers, his boasting would have been mere brag, and the character of his God would have been injured in the eyes of King Darius, whose heart God had so wondrously turned to Himself and His people.
So he is bound to look for no visible arm of power; God alone was to be his resource.
By the banks of the river Ahava the little band prayed and fasted till God was entreated of them. They sought from Him a right way for themselves, their little ones, and their substance. The immense amount of money was entrusted into the hands of reliable men, committed to them to account for at the end of the journey, when it would be required at their hands for the service of the temple at Jerusalem.
Now they set forth, conscious of God’s protection and guidance. No precipitate haste seems to mark their journey. No loiterers were they, but they appear not to have prosecuted the journey as if fear were at their heels. No; God was their Protector, more powerful than an arm of flesh, a greater help than glittering spear and brazen shield, and bronzed warriors; and on they go in peace and quietness, God meanwhile delivering them from the hand of the enemy, and from those who lay in wait.
The journey’s end is reached. They rest three days. Then the silver and gold and vessels are weighed out before God, and their weight written down, and then they offer burnt offerings of joy before the Lord.
It is a quaint old-time picture the Spirit of God has drawn for us. But what vastly important every-day lessons it teaches!
Have we such confidence in God that we need no protection from men? Do we need an arm of flesh to rest on? Do our eyes habitually look this way and that way and every way, till at length we turn to God as a last resource, or do we turn to Him at the first?
Do we know what it is to fast before God, and seek a right way from Him, and then through an enemy’s land in peace and quietness pursue our way?
These and kindred questions are searching to the last degree. Oh, that we knew God better—put Him to the test! He delights in faith, and invites us to trust Him. Mark, Ezra and his little band prayed and fasted. The two go together. It is a principle that runs throughout Scripture. When the disciples were powerless to act in the presence of evil, the Lord mildly rebuked them, saying, “This kind goes not forth but by prayer and fasting.” As it has been well put, prayer is bringing God in, and fasting is shutting man out.
And it is just in proportion as these two things are present with us, that we have power to go on with God, superior to the broken reeds in which men trust, which, after all, are but broken reeds, which in the end pierce the hand of him who leans on them.
May God give us simple childlike knowledge of Himself, that we may be kept walking morally superior to the world, its maxims, its resources, and its aims.