“Because the Hand of the LORD Was Upon Me”              

(Ezra 7:27–28)                                                                                              Pastor. Song Soo Park

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.

In Ecclesiastes 2:14 we read, “The wise have eyes in their heads …”
Yes, a wise person, when encountering situations or events in life, does not interpret and accept them merely as they appear outwardly. Rather, such a person views and interprets them through an already-established framework of values and faith formed in the heart and mind.

Beloved, that is exactly what our faith is like. Faith gives us the ability to see the reality we live in from God’s perspective and to interpret it through God’s viewpoint. That is why people of faith, even when they encounter suffering, do not interpret hardship merely by what is visible. Instead, they draw out God’s providence and grace hidden behind the suffering.

A representative example of this is Job. Job 23:8–10 says: “If I go forward, he is not there; if I go backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.”

And it is not only Job. David, a man after God’s own heart, confesses in Psalm 119:71, “It was good for me to be afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.”

Thus, faith does not simply accept and interpret reality as it is given. Rather, it enables us to unravel reality within God’s unseen providence and to receive it by faith.

Ezra, whom we encounter in today’s passage, also demonstrates this spiritual ability of interpretation very clearly.

Let us look at the opening verse of the book of Ezra, Ezra 1:1:
“In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing.”

Ezra begins by identifying the historical moment: “In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia.” Yes, the message Ezra records under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit begins in 539 BC—the year King Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon and seized dominance over the ancient Near East.

This is because that very year marked the fulfillment of the prophecy God had spoken through Jeremiah seventy years earlier: the return of the Israelites from their Babylonian exile.

According to Scripture, only two people recognized this divine plan.
The first was Jeremiah, who proclaimed the prophecy seventy years earlier.
The second was Daniel, who later came to understand it by reading Jeremiah’s writings.

Daniel 9:1–2 says: “In the first year of Darius son of Ahasuerus, of Median descent, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans—in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the books the number of the years specified by the word of the LORD through Jeremiah the prophet, that Jerusalem would lie desolate for seventy years.”

When Cyrus conquered Babylon, he entrusted the kingdom to Darius, who recognized Daniel’s wisdom and appointed him as a chief official. Around that time, Daniel somehow came across the scroll of Jeremiah and realized that Israel’s captivity would end after seventy years. Daniel 9:23 indicates that the very day Daniel gained this understanding was the same day Cyrus issued his decree in 539 BC.

Sadly, it seems that Daniel passed away that very year. Daniel 1:21 states, “And Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.”

With Daniel gone in that crucial year when God’s plan and providence were being fulfilled, Ezra once again interpreted this historical event from a spiritual perspective and explained it to the people of Israel.

Let us reread Ezra 1:1–3: “In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: ‘Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem.’”

As many of you know, the actual decree issued by King Cyrus is still displayed in the British Museum today. It is inscribed on a cylindrical object and is known as the Cyrus Cylinder. Interestingly, it contains no reference to the God of Israel. It simply declares that captives may return to their homelands and rebuild the temples of their gods, with financial support provided. This policy applied not only to the Jews but to all captive peoples.

From a purely human, historical perspective, this was a political proclamation by Cyrus—a strategic move. To govern such a vast empire, political stability was essential, and one way to prevent rebellion among subjugated peoples was to return them to their homelands and recognize their religious practices.

According to Herodotus’s Histories, Cyrus himself had once experienced captivity under the Medes, which gave him insight into preventing uprisings within a large empire. Thus, the decree of Cyrus was issued based on calculated political strategy.

Yet behind this human history, another history was unfolding—the true history of God, who governs and directs the world through His providence.

When Jeremiah first proclaimed this, he was mocked and ridiculed. The high priest Pashhur even struck Jeremiah and had him bound in stocks at the upper gate of the temple.

Jeremiah, distressed, cried out in Jeremiah 20:9: “If I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”

Jeremiah was not grieved merely by the shame and mockery he endured, but by the fact that no one—not even the high priest—could see God’s plan and judgment at work through international events involving Babylon and Persia. Even Daniel did not fully understand it until seventy years later.

Because Ezra understood this deep sorrow, he emphasized once again that believers must be able to see God’s true work flowing beneath visible human history—behind Israel’s destruction by Babylon and behind Cyrus’s decree allowing the return from exile.

Israel continued to fall because they failed to see and interpret events spiritually, by faith.

Ezra feared that even if the people rebuilt the temple after seventy years, without spiritual restoration they would eventually collapse again.

Thus Ezra made a decision. Ezra 7:7–8 says: “In the seventh year of King Artaxerxes, some of the Israelites, including priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers, and temple servants, went up to Jerusalem. And Ezra went up to Jerusalem in the seventh year of the king, in the fifth month.”

The seventh year of King Artaxerxes corresponds to 458 BC—nearly one hundred years after the return from Babylonian exile. Ezra was therefore not a native-born Jew of Jerusalem, but a second-generation Jew born in Persia, fluent in Persian language and culture.

Why, then, did Ezra leave the familiar land of Persia to go to Jerusalem? There was only one reason. Ezra 7:10 states: “For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.”

The book of Ezra is divided into two parts. Chapters 1–6 record the twenty-two years during which the Israelites rebuilt the temple after returning from exile—events that took place about a hundred years before Ezra’s birth.

Chapters 7–10 tell the story of Ezra himself, who, having heard about his ancestors’ return and temple reconstruction, journeyed to Jerusalem.

The final report Ezra likely heard from his ancestors is found in Ezra 6:21–22: “The people of Israel who had returned from exile ate it, together with all who had separated themselves from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to seek the LORD, the God of Israel. And they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy, for the LORD had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.”

This account shows the very essence of faith: they separated themselves from impurity, kept the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and rebuilt the temple in faithful obedience.

If that were the whole story, Ezra would have had no reason to go. Yet he still went, because Ezra had resolved first to study and practice the Law of the LORD.

The Hebrew word for “study” (darash) means to persistently seek and inquire into God’s will, and “do” (asah) means to bear fruit.

Ezra engaged in intentional meditation on God’s Word—reading not only for understanding or information, but to uncover God’s deeper intention and hidden providence.

The Bible is difficult because it requires us to discern God’s unseen purposes and providence behind visible events. That is why Scripture must be read repeatedly, meditated upon deeply, and prayed over continually.

Ezra read God’s Word constantly, until he came to interpret the world through it. That is why he could confess in Ezra 7:28: “The hand of the LORD my God was upon me, and I took courage.”

Had Ezra not taught the Law and led spiritual restoration, Israel might have disappeared through intermarriage with pagan nations.

Ezra is the model of faith we must follow—a man who relentlessly sought God’s unseen hand through Scripture.

As a pastor, my greatest sorrow is seeing many believers whose faith is not firmly rooted in Scripture, but built on sand.

Every Christian should read the Bible at least once from beginning to end. We must read even when we do not understand—especially when we do not understand. In time, God’s hidden providence will become clear, and David’s confession that God’s Word is “sweeter than honey” will become our own.