Ezra 7:10

For Ezra had prepared his heart. — It must be remembered that the providence of God over him immediately precedes — not as the reward of his preparing his heart, but as the reason of it. First, he gave himself to study the law, then to practise it himself, and lastly to teach its positive statutes or ordinances and its moral judgments or precepts — a perfect description of a teacher in the congregation. There is nothing discordant in Ezra saying of himself that he had thus “set his heart.”