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Ezra Drank Fire and Restored 94 Sacred Books

The law had burned with the city. Ezra was told he was about to be taken up out of the world, and he asked for forty days before he went.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. A Voice Out of a Bush on the Third Day
  2. Set Your House in Order
  3. Who Warns the Ones Not Born Yet
  4. The Last Thing He Said to Them
  5. Open Your Mouth and Drink
Ezra Drank Fire and Restored 94 Sacred Books Click for full size

A Voice Out of a Bush on the Third Day

On the third day Ezra was sitting under an oak tree when a voice came out of a bush across from him.

"Ezra. Ezra."

He got to his feet. "Here I am, Lord."

"I showed Myself in a bush and spoke to Moses when My people were slaves in Egypt. I sent him, and I brought them out, and I took him up the mountain and kept him with Me a long time. I told him wonders. I showed him the secrets of the times and told him how the times would end. Then I gave him an instruction. These words you publish in the open. These you keep back."

Then the voice said, and now I say the same to you.

Set Your House in Order

What followed was not an assignment. It was a notice.

Lay up in your heart the signs you have been shown and the dreams you have seen and the explanations you have been given, because you are going to be taken up out of the middle of the human race, and after that you live with the one I have chosen, and with the others like you, until the times run out.

The age has lost its youth, the voice said. It was cut into twelve parts. Nine of them are gone and half of the tenth. Two and a half are left.

Set your house in order. Correct your people. Comfort the ones at the bottom of it. Teach the ones who can be taught. Give up the life that rots. Put down the thinking of a mortal man. Lay aside the heaviest things you are carrying and hurry out of these times, because worse is coming than anything you have already watched, and the older and weaker this world gets the more evil multiplies in it. Truth is moving further off. Lying is moving closer. The eagle you saw in your vision is already on the road.

Who Warns the Ones Not Born Yet

Ezra did not argue about dying. He argued about the gap.

"Let me speak in front of You, Lord. I will go, the way You have told me to. I will correct the people who are alive now. But who warns the ones who are going to be born? The world is lying in the dark and the people in it have no light. Your law has been burned. Nobody knows what You have done and nobody knows what You are going to do. If I have found favor with You, put Your spirit into me, and I will write down everything that has happened in the world from the start, and everything that was in Your law, so that anyone can find the road, and anyone who wants to be alive in the last days can live."

The answer came back as a set of arrangements.

Go and gather the people and tell them not to look for you for forty days. Prepare a great many writing tablets. Take Sarea, Dabria, Selemia, Ethanus and Asiel with you, those five, because they have been trained to write fast. Then come back here, and I will light a lamp of understanding inside your chest, and it will not go out until what you have to write is finished. When it is done, some of it you make public and some of it you hand to the wise in private. Tomorrow at this hour you begin.

The Last Thing He Said to Them

He went and called the whole people together, and he did not soften anything.

Listen, Israel. Our fathers lived as foreigners in Egypt and were brought out of it and were handed the law of life, and they did not keep it, and neither did you after them. Land was given to you in Zion, and you and your fathers did wrong in it and did not walk the way you were told to walk, and because He is a fair judge He took back what He had given, at the proper time. And here you are. And your brothers are further inland than you.

Govern your own minds. Discipline your own hearts. Do that and you stay alive, and when you die you will be shown mercy, because after death there is a judgment and we live again, and then the names of the decent will come out into the open and so will everything the wicked did.

Then the last sentence any of them heard from him for forty days. "Let nobody come to me now. Let nobody look for me."

He took the five men and walked out to the field.

Open Your Mouth and Drink

The next day the voice called him again. "Ezra. Open your mouth, and drink what I give you to drink."

He opened his mouth and a full cup was held out to him. What was in it looked like water and was the color of fire.

He drank it.

His heart poured understanding out of itself. Wisdom went up in his chest and his spirit held on to everything it was given. His mouth came open and did not shut again.

The five men sat down and wrote. They took it in turns, and they wrote in letters they could not read, characters nobody in that field had been taught, the new square script the exiles had brought back with them. They worked through the daylight and ate their bread after dark. He spoke through the daylight and did not stop at night either. Forty days of it, one man talking and five hands moving, and at the end of the forty days there were 94 books stacked in the field.

"The twenty-four you wrote first, make public. Let the worthy read them and let the unworthy read them. The seventy you wrote last, hold back, and give them to the wise among your people, because the spring of understanding is in them, and the fountain of wisdom, and the river of knowledge."

He did it. The sacred books that had burned with the city were restored out of one man's mouth in forty days. Then he was taken up out of the middle of the human race, exactly as he had been told, and the title that stayed behind him was scribe of the knowledge of the Most High, for ever.

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From the tradition

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4 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

4 Ezra 144 Ezra

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.R. H. Charles public-domain English translation (1913) · Public Domain

On the third day, Ezra sat under an oak tree. A voice came from a bush opposite him. "Ezra, Ezra."

He rose to his feet. "Here I am, Lord."

The voice from the bush was deliberate. Unmistakable. Because God was drawing a direct line between Ezra and Moses. "I revealed myself in a bush and spoke to Moses when my people were in bondage in Egypt. I sent him and led my people out. I led him up on Mount Sinai, where I kept him with me many days, and I told him many wondrous things, and showed him the secrets of the times, and declared to him the end of the times. Then I commanded him: 'These words you shall publish openly, and these you shall keep secret.'"

It was Ezra's turn.

God told him to lay up the signs, the dreams, the interpretations in his heart. He would be taken up from among men and live with God's chosen one and those like him until the times ended. The age had lost its youth. The times were growing old. Twelve parts the age was divided into, and nine had already passed, along with half of the tenth. Only two and a half parts remained.

"Set your house in order," God said. "Reprove your people. Comfort the lowly. Instruct the wise. Renounce the life that is corruptible. Cast away mortal thoughts. Hasten to escape from these times. For evils worse than what you have seen shall be done hereafter. The weaker the world becomes through old age, the more shall evils multiply."

Ezra had one concern. He would reprove those now living. But who would warn those born hereafter? "Your law has been burned," he said. "No one knows the things which have been done or will be done by you. Send the Holy Spirit into me, and I will write everything that has happened in the world from the beginning, the things which were written in your law. So that those who wish to live in the last days may find the path."

God agreed. He told Ezra to gather five scribes, Sarea, Dabria, Selemia, Ethanus, and Asiel, men trained to write rapidly. "I will light in your heart the lamp of understanding, which shall not be put out until what you are about to write is finished."

Ezra gathered the people one last time. He reminded them of their history: bondage in Egypt, deliverance, the law of life received and broken, the land of Zion given and forfeited through iniquity. "If you will rule over your minds and discipline your hearts, you shall be kept alive, and after death you shall obtain mercy. For after death the judgment will come, when we shall live again."

Then he said: "Let no one seek me for forty days."

He took the five scribes to the field. The next day, a voice called out: "Ezra, open your mouth and drink what I give you to drink."

He opened his mouth. A full cup was offered to him. It looked like water but its color was like fire.

He drank it.

And when he had drunk, his heart poured forth understanding. Wisdom increased in his breast. His spirit retained its memory. His mouth was opened and was no longer closed. The five scribes wrote in characters they did not know, taking down what Ezra dictated without pause. He spoke in the daytime and was not silent at night.

Forty days. Ninety-four books.

When it was finished, God spoke one final time: "Make public the twenty-four books that you wrote first, and let the worthy and the unworthy read them." These were the books of the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, open to all.

"But keep the seventy that were written last, in order to give them to the wise among your people. For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the river of knowledge."

Seventy secret books. Containing wisdom too dangerous for the masses but too precious to lose. And Ezra, the man who drank liquid fire and spoke without ceasing for forty days, was the vessel through which all of it was preserved.

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4 Ezra 6-74 Ezra

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.R. H. Charles public-domain English translation (1913) · Public Domain

Uriel took Ezra back to the beginning. Before the portals of the world were in place. Before the winds blew or thunder sounded. Before the innumerable hosts of angels were gathered. Before paradise was laid or its flowers were seen. "I planned these things," God said through the angel, "and they were made through me and not through another. Just as the end shall come through me and not through another."

Ezra wanted to know the timeline. When does this age end and the next one begin?

Uriel answered with a riddle. "Esau is the end of this age. Jacob is the beginning of the age that follows. For Jacob's hand held Esau's heel from the beginning, the beginning of a man is his hand, and the end of a man is his heel. Between the heel and the hand, seek for nothing else."

Then a voice spoke, not Uriel's voice, but a sound like many waters, shaking the foundations of the earth. It declared the signs of the end: books opened before the firmament for all to see. Infants a year old speaking aloud. Women giving birth at three months, the children living and dancing. Full storehouses found suddenly empty. A trumpet sounding. Friends making war on friends like enemies.

And then, salvation. Evil blotted out. Deceit quenched. The truth, so long without fruit, finally revealed.

Ezra fasted another seven days. When he spoke again, he recounted the entire creation and arrived at the question burning in him: "You said you created this world for Israel's sake. The other nations are like spittle, like a drop from a bucket. But those nations domineer over us and devour us. If the world was made for us, why do we not possess it?"

Uriel answered with parables. A sea whose entrance is narrow like a river, you cannot reach the broad part without passing through the narrow. A city full of good things, but the path runs between fire on one side and deep water on the other. "So also is Israel's portion. Unless the living pass through the difficult experiences, they can never receive what has been reserved for them."

Then Uriel revealed the fate of souls after death. The wicked wander in torment through seven ways of grief, seeing the reward of the righteous they will never share, watching angels guard the chambers of the blessed. The seventh way is worst: they waste away before the glory of the Most High, the God they scorned while alive.

The righteous rest in seven orders of joy. They overcame the evil thought formed with them. Their faces shine like the sun. They are made like the light of the stars, incorruptible. The seventh order is greatest: they behold the face of Him whom they served.

Then came the revelation that shook Ezra to his core. "My son the Messiah shall be revealed with those who are with him, and those who remain shall rejoice four hundred years. And after these years my son the Messiah shall die, and all who draw human breath. The world shall be turned back to primeval silence for seven days, as it was at the first beginnings, so that no one shall be left."

After the silence: resurrection. The earth giving up its dead. The Most High revealed upon the seat of judgment. No sun, no moon, no stars, no wind, no darkness, no morning, only the splendor of God's glory, by which all shall see what has been determined for them.

Ezra was devastated. "The world to come will bring delight to few, but torments to many. An evil heart has grown up in us." He cried out against Adam: "Though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants."

Uriel did not flinch. "This is the contest which every person born on earth shall wage. If defeated, they suffer what you described. If victorious, they receive what I described. This is the way of which Moses spoke: 'Choose for yourself life, that you may live' (Deuteronomy 30:19). But they did not believe him."

Ezra tried one last argument, that God is called merciful, patient, bountiful. That if God did not pardon, not one ten-thousandth of humanity could survive. Uriel's final word: "I will rejoice over the few who shall be saved, because it is they who have made my glory to prevail. And I will not grieve over the multitude of those who perish, for they are like a mist, set on fire and burned hotly, and extinguished."

Full source
4 Ezra 84 Ezra

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.R. H. Charles public-domain English translation (1913) · Public Domain

"Many have been created, but few shall be saved."

With those words ringing in his ears, Ezra launched into the most daring prayer in all of Jewish apocalyptic literature, a prayer that does not beg for mercy so much as demand it.

He began with the body. God fashions every human in the womb, preserving the creation in fire and water for nine months, commanding milk from the breasts to nourish what He made, guiding the child in mercy, instructing it in the law, reproving it in wisdom. "If then you will suddenly and quickly destroy what was fashioned with so great labor," Ezra said, "to what purpose was it made?"

Then he turned to Israel specifically. "I will speak about your people, for whom I am grieved. About your inheritance, for whom I lament. About Israel, for whom I am sad. About the seed of Jacob, for whom I am troubled." He had seen the failings of those who dwell in the land. He had heard of the swiftness of the judgment to come. And he would not be silent.

What followed was one of the most breathtaking prayers ever composed. Ezra stood before the Most High, whose throne is beyond measure, whose glory is beyond comprehension, before whom the hosts of angels tremble, at whose command they are changed to wind and fire, whose look dries up the depths and whose indignation makes the mountains melt. And he made his case.

"Look not upon the sins of your people, but at those who have served you in truth. Regard not those who act wickedly, but those who have kept your covenants amid afflictions. Be not angry with those who are deemed worse than beasts, but love those who have always trusted in your glory."

And the heart of it: "For in truth there is no one among those who have been born who has not acted wickedly. Among those who have existed there is no one who has not transgressed. In this, O Lord, your righteousness and goodness will be declared, when you are merciful to those who have no store of good works."

God answered. And His answer was not what Ezra wanted to hear.

"Some things you have spoken rightly. I will not concern myself about the fashioning of those who have sinned, or about their death, their judgment, or their destruction. I will rejoice over the creation of the righteous." He compared it to farming, many seeds are sown, many seedlings planted, but not all come up in due season, not all take root. "So also those who have been sown in the world will not all be saved."

Ezra pushed back one final time. If the farmer's seed fails because it didn't receive rain, that's nature. But humanity was formed by God's own hands, called God's own image, made in God's own likeness. "Have you also made him like the farmer's seed? No, O Lord! Spare your people and have mercy on your inheritance, for you have mercy on your own creation."

The response was extraordinary. God told Ezra that he could not possibly love God's creation more than God loves it. But then, a sudden tenderness: "Even in this you will be praiseworthy before the Most High, because you have humbled yourself." And God revealed what awaited the righteous: paradise opened, the tree of life planted, the age to come prepared, a city built, rest appointed, goodness established, wisdom perfected beforehand. The root of evil sealed up. Illness banished. Death hidden. Sorrows passed away. And in the end, the treasure of immortality made manifest.

"I have not shown this to all," God said. "Only to you and a few like you."

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Legends of the Jews 11:39Legends of the Jews

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (1909) · Public Domain

The Temple is rebuilt, but something's missing. The sacred texts, the very heart of their identity, are scattered and incomplete. Enter Ezra, a priest and scribe deeply learned in the Torah. He dedicates himself to restoring the Law and revitalizing Jewish life.

The tradition says Ezra’s role went far beyond simply collecting existing texts. Legend says that God commanded him to essentially re-dictate the entire Torah! God instructed him to take five experienced scribes. Sarga, Dabria, Seleucia, Ethan, and Aziel, into seclusion. For forty days, they would record everything Ezra dictated.

After just one day spent in isolation, far from the noise of the city and the distractions of daily life, a voice boomed out, "Ezra, open thy mouth, and drink whereof I give thee to drink." Can you imagine the surprise?

Ezra obeyed. He opened his mouth, and a chalice appeared, filled with a liquid that flowed like water, but glowed with the color of fire. He drank, and for forty days, his mouth remained open, as if in a perpetual state of receiving. During that time, the five scribes meticulously wrote down everything Ezra dictated. According to this legend, they wrote "in signs they did not understand," which some interpret as the newly adopted Hebrew characters.

What came out of this forty-day marathon? Ninety-four books! That's a lot of writing! But wait, there's a twist. At the end of this divine dictation, God instructed Ezra to publish only twenty-four books – the ones we recognize as the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. These were for everyone, "for the worthy and the unworthy alike to read." However, the remaining seventy books were to be withheld from the general public, reserved "for the perusal of the wise of thy people."

These seventy hidden books are a tantalizing mystery. What secrets did they contain? What wisdom was deemed too profound, too potentially dangerous for the masses? We can only speculate.

This story, found in Legends of the Jews, a compilation of rabbinic lore by Louis Ginzberg, paints Ezra as more than just a scribe; he’s a conduit, a vessel for divine knowledge. His literary activity earned him the title "the Scribe of the science of the Supreme Being unto all eternity." Pretty impressive. The legend of Ezra and the ninety-four books is a powerful reminder of the mystical dimensions of our tradition. It invites us to contemplate the hidden layers of meaning within the sacred texts we cherish and consider what truths might still be waiting to be revealed. What if those seventy hidden books did surface someday? What would we learn?

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