Ahava

Ahava is a river — and the place beside it — where Ezra gathered the second wave of returning exiles before the journey from Babylon to Jerusalem.

The Mustering Point

Ezra assembled the company at the river that flows to Ahava: "And I gathered them together to the river that runs to Ahava; and there we encamped three days: and I viewed the people, and the priests, and found there none of the sons of Levi" (Ezr 8:15). The three-day encampment doubled as a census, and the gap it surfaced — no Levites among those gathered — sent Ezra to send for ministers from Casiphia before the road could begin.

The Fast at the River

Before setting out, Ezra called a fast at the same site: "Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek of him a straight way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance" (Ezr 8:21). The company would not ask the king for soldiers and horsemen, having confessed that "the hand of our God is on all those who seek him, for good" (the surrounding context of v. 22). Ahava is the place where that confession was tested by fasting before the road.

The Departure

The river is named again at the moment of departure: "Then we departed from the river Ahava on the twelfth [day] of the first month, to go to Jerusalem: and the hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and the ambusher by the way" (Ezr 8:31). The fast was answered on the road. Ahava marks the threshold between Babylon and Jerusalem in the second return.