THE history of the journey of Ezra and the large companying journeying with him continues in these three verses, and we observe that these three verses contain Ezra's careful and thorough preparation for the journey. Ezra gathers the company by the Avhava canal which flowed to the city of Ahava. Ezra has already made sure that the company contained the necessary representatives for the right worship of God in the newly built temple in Jerusalem. He now addresses the need for the whole company to be in the right spiritual condition to know the good hand of God to be with them in the journey.

For this Ezra proclaimed a fast, firstly so that the people may humble themselves before God; and secondly for intersession that God may grant a safe journey.

How important such preparation is. Even if one family was living in a disobedience before God, this could cause God to withdraw his protection and leave the company to journey without any divine protection. We have a cogent example of this need in the history of the Israelites under Joshua as they proceeded to occupy the promised land. God had delivered Jericho into their hands and God's commands were faithfully followed. They proceeded to attack Ai, a much smaller city and were defeated ignominiously. The reason was that God had withdrawn his support because one man, Achan, who had disobeyed the command of God. Humbling before God was for the purpose of making sure faithful obedience to God was seen in the whole company, and that there was true humbling of everyone under the holy and mighty hand of God.

Together with this humbling Ezra led the people to pray and put themselves into the hands of God for his protection and safe keeping for the journey. Ezra as particularly conscious of the need of God's safe keeping as he anticipated all the difficulties and dangers in the journey.

Ezra then enters into the reason why he felt this preparation for the journey was so urgent. It seems that the king of Babylon had promised help and protection, even being willing to send a bodyguard of soldiers to accompany Ezra and the people for their protection. The narrative suggests that Ezra with great faith in God had indicated to the king the faithfulness and power of God to protect the company and bring them safely to Jerusalem. But as Ezra thought of all the difficulties and dangers of so long a journey, specially in carrying such riches in gold and temple furniture, his mind was troubled, but because of his affirmation of faith in God felt ashamed in asking the king for protection.

I empathize with Ezra experience. In the last church where I was minister God had blessed us mightily so that our new church had become too small to hold everyone whom God had blessed us with. In prayer facing this problem we had been led by God to a project which would double the size of the original building costing half a million pounds. I had told the congregation that I trusted God to supply this need as we proceeded according to his will. On returning from viewing some movable sound proof walls, I asked the architect when building would commence, and he said in about a month. At this point there was only some £10000 pounds in a building fund. I was silent for the rest of the journey perspiring in fright. I knew with my mind that all things were possible in the hands of our omnipotent God when his people walked according to his will, but my imagination saw all the impossibilities. However in faith we went ahead. We never had to stop the building for lack of funds. God indeed supplied all our needs.

The words of Ezra here are wonderfully true. 'The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him'. This why Ezra had assembled the whole company by the Ahava canal to truly prepare themselves to faithfulness to the Lord.

The testimony of Ezra is given by him in verse 23. He says 'So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer'.

The answer in fact was realised when the company reached Jerusalem safely four months later; but Ezra found that has he and the people humbled themselves and prayed, God gave them the assurance that they could trust him for their safety in the journey and their success in their journey.