A mediator between God and man
Ezra
Ezra was a priest and a ready scribe skilled in the law of Moses, who led a company of exiles back to Jerusalem and set his heart to teach the word of God to a people who had nearly lost it. In him the priestly calling to guard and open the Scriptures shines with unusual clarity.
“This Ezra went up from Babylon; and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the LORD God of Israel had given: and the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of the LORD his God upon him.”Ezra 7:6
Who he was
Who he was. Ezra is introduced with a full priestly genealogy reaching back to Aaron the chief priest (Ezra 7:1-5), and he is called "a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the LORD God of Israel had given" (Ezra 7:6). Living in Babylon after the exile, he obtained a decree from Artaxerxes to lead a second wave of returnees to Jerusalem, carrying gifts for the temple and a commission to teach and establish God's law in the land (Ezra 7:11-26). The heart of the man is captured in one verse: "For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments" (Ezra 7:10). On arriving he was grieved to find the people, even priests and Levites, had intermarried with the surrounding nations in disobedience, and he fell on his knees in confession and mourning on their behalf (Ezra 9). In Nehemiah 8 he stands on a wooden pulpit and reads the law aloud from morning until midday while the Levites explain it, "and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading" (Nehemiah 8:8), and the whole assembly worships and weeps and then rejoices in the word.
His priesthood
His priesthood. Ezra's priesthood was above all a ministry of the word. Where earlier priests are pictured at the altar, Ezra is pictured with the book, for the priest's task always included teaching: "the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth" (Malachi 2:7). He embodied that charge. He prepared his own heart first, to seek and to do the law, before he taught it, showing that true teaching flows from a life submitted to God. He interceded for the people with fasting and confession, identifying himself with their sin though he had not shared it (Ezra 9:6-15), which is genuine priestly work, standing before God on behalf of the guilty. And he labored to reestablish the people's covenant obedience, not by his own authority but by opening the Scriptures so that the people themselves could hear and understand and respond. His faithfulness helped a returned remnant become again a people of the book.
How it points to Christ
How it points to Christ. Ezra is not called a type of Christ in the New Testament, so this is a traditional and reverent reading rather than an explicit one. Yet the priest who opened the word to the people foreshadows the One who is Himself the Word and who opened the Scriptures to His disciples: on the Emmaus road "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27). Ezra prepared his heart to seek, do, and teach the law; Christ not only taught it but fulfilled it perfectly. Ezra confessed the people's sin as though it were his own, kneeling in grief; Christ went further and bore that sin in His own body, the sinless One numbered with the transgressors. Ezra called a people back to covenant faithfulness through the word; Christ writes His law upon the heart in the new covenant (Hebrews 8:10). The scribe who caused the people to understand points to the great High Priest who opens both the book and our understanding.
Questions people ask
What does it mean that Ezra was a ready scribe?
Ezra 7:6 calls him "a ready scribe in the law of Moses." A scribe was a skilled student, copyist, and teacher of the Scriptures. "Ready" points to his diligence and skill. Combined with his priestly lineage, it means Ezra was uniquely equipped to preserve, teach, and apply God's word to a people rebuilding their life around it.
Why did Ezra confess sins he had not committed?
In Ezra 9 he mourns and prays over the people's intermarriage and unfaithfulness, saying, "O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee." As a priest he identified himself with the people before God, interceding for them. This intercessory grief foreshadows Christ, who truly bore the sins of others though He had none of His own.
Is Ezra 7:10 a model for teachers today?
Many believers see it that way. Ezra "prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel." The order matters: seek, do, then teach. It reminds anyone who handles God's word that faithful teaching grows from a heart that first submits to and obeys what it will teach.