BRAGADAYJAH 1163
Ezra’s Thanksgiving
Ezra thanked the Lord and said, “Blessed be the Lord God of our
fathers, who has put such a thing as this in the heart of the king, to beautify
the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem. And has extended mercy unto me
before the king and his counsellors, and before all the king’s mighty princes.
And I was strengthened as the hand of the Lord my God was upon me. And I
gathered together out of Israel chief men to go up with me.” Indeed looking at
the decree of king Artaxerxes, not only contributing personally gold and silver
and other supplies towards building the house of a foreign God, but
specifically his declaration that, “whatsoever is commanded by the God of
heaven let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven,” would
seem completely out of character by any heathen king unless one sees it as
directly being the executive will and judgment of God. Ezra knew it hence his
statement that “God has extended mercy unto me before the king.”
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