For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances.
All Commentaries on Ezra 7:10 Go To Ezra 7
Bede
AD 735
By his name too, which means “helper,” Ezra openly stands for the Lord. For it is he by whom alone the people of the faithful are constantly liberated from tribulations and, as though from captivity in Babylon to freedom in Jerusalem, are brought from the “confusion” of the vices to the “peace” and serenity of the virtues as they advance by the steps of meritorious deeds. In the second psalm of the same anabathmoi [i.e., of the Ascents], the psalmist proclaims to all those who strive for the highest under whose leadership they ought to strive to attain it when he suggests, “My help is from the Lord who made heaven and earth.” In his actions, too, Ezra was a figure of the Lord, since Ezra led back no small portion of the people from the captivity to Jerusalem and at the same time conveyed money and vessels consecrated to God for the glory of his temple; and through his pontifical authority he purged these people of their foreign wives. What all this suggests with regard to what is done or is going to be done in the church by the Lord is clear to the learned reader, but we will take pains to make them accessible to the less learned as well. For the fact that Ezra goes up from Babylon, and some of the children of Israel and descendants of the priests and the Levites go up with him. This signifies the merciful provision of our Redeemer by which, appearing in the flesh, he entered into the “confusion” of this world though he himself was free from the confusion of sins so that, when he returned, he might free us from all “confusion” and lead us with him into the restfulness of celestial “peace.”
