For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the
Lord,
&c.] To attain to the knowledge of it, that he might be
master of it, and expert in it, and know what was not to be done,
and what to be done; he had set his heart upon this, bent his
studies this way, and taken a great deal of pains in searching
into it, in reading of it, and meditating on it;
and to do it;
he was not only concerned to get the theory of it, but to put it
in practice, to exercise himself in it, that it might be habitual
to him; and the rather, as his view and intentions were not
merely for the sake of himself, but
to teach in Israel statutes and judgments:
and therefore it was not only necessary that he should have a
large and competent knowledge of the laws, moral, ceremonial, and
civil, but that he should act according to them himself, that so
by his example, as well as by his instructions, he might teach
the people.