The reference to eating no food and drinking no water links Ezra’s fast with that of Moses (Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:18) as well as the people of Nineveh who had a total fast after Jonah’s preaching (Jonah 3:7–9). Such fasts were rare, ordinarily people only abstained from eating.1
6 Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and went to the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib, where he spent the night, neither eating bread nor drinking water, for he was mourning over the faithlessness of the exiles.