All the people gathered themselves together as one man into the wide place that was in front of the water gate; and they spoke to Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which Yahweh had commanded to Israel. Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women, and all who could hear with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it before the wide place that was in front of the water gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women, and of those who could understand. The ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. Ezra the scribe stood on a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand; and on his left hand, Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam. Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people (for he was above all the people), and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed Yahweh, the great God. All the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” with the lifting up of their hands. They bowed their heads, and worshiped Yahweh with their faces to the ground.
Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, caused the people to understand the law; and the people stayed in their place. They read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly; and they gave the sense, so that they understood the reading.
Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, “Today is holy to Yahweh your God. Don’t mourn, nor weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared, for today is holy to our Lord. Don’t be grieved, for the joy of Yahweh is your strength.”
So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Hold your peace, for the day is holy. Don’t be grieved.”
All the people went their way to eat, to drink, to send portions, and to celebrate, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.
On the second day, the heads of fathers’ households of all the people, the priests, and the Levites were gathered together to Ezra the scribe, to study the words of the law. They found written in the law how Yahweh had commanded by Moses that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month; and that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying, “Go out to the mountain, and get olive branches, branches of wild olive, myrtle branches, palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make temporary shelters, as it is written.”
So the people went out, and brought them, and made themselves temporary shelters, everyone on the roof of his house, in their courts, in the courts of God’s house, in the wide place of the water gate, and in the wide place of Ephraim’s gate. All the assembly of those who had come back out of the captivity made temporary shelters, and lived in the temporary shelters; for since the days of Jeshua the son of Nun to that day the children of Israel had not done so. There was very great gladness. Also day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read in the book of the law of God. They kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly, according to the ordinance.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17 Read Ezra 7:6.
Read Ezra 7:6.
Hebrew, as one man.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–18 Neh 8:1 And all the people gathered themselves together…
Neh 8:1 And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that [was] before the water gate; and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded to Israel.
Ver. 1. As one man] See Ezr 3:1, and remember that Omne simile non est idem; this is a distinct history from that.
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Into the street] Or, open place, the meeting place of the water gate. See Neh 3:26. Right over against this gate was the court of the people, saith Lyra. See Ezr 10:9.
And they spake unto Ezra the scribe] The people may, if need be, say to Archippus, Look to thy ministry, &c., Col 4:17. Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, all is theirs (the gifts and abilities of all good ministers), and they may call for them, 1Co 3:22.
To bring the book of the law of Moses] Wherein he was no less able than apt to impart, 1Ti 3:2, διδακτικος. He knew that the best had need hear the law, he spiritum sessorem excutiant, that they might be kept within the bounds of obedience. Not the unruly colt only, but the horse that is broken, hath a bit and bridle also.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 The street that was before the water-gate; of which…
The street that was before the water-gate; of which See Poole "Neh 3:26".
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 9, 13 We have here an account of a solemn religious…
We have here an account of a solemn religious assembly, and the good work that was done in that assembly, to the honour of God and the edification of the church.
I. The time of it was the first day of the seventh month, Neh 8:2. That was the day of the feast of trumpets, which is called a sabbath, and on which they were to have a holy convocation, Lev 23:24; Num 29:1. But that was not all: it was one that day that the altar was set up, and they began to offer their burnt-offerings after their return out of captivity, a recent mercy in the memory of many then living; in a thankful remembrance of that, it is likely, they had kept this feast ever since with more than ordinary solemnity. Divine favours which are fresh in mind, and which we ourselves have been witnesses of, should be, and usually are, most affecting.
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II. The place was in the street that was before the water-gate (Neh 8:1), a spacious broad street, able to contain so great a multitude, which the court of the temple was not; for probably it was not now built nearly so large as it had been in Solomon's time. Sacrifices were to be offered only at the door of the temple, but praying, and praising, and preaching, were, and are, services of religion as acceptably performed in one place as in another. When this congregation thus met in the street of the city no doubt God was with them.
III. The persons that met were all the people, who were not compelled to come, but voluntarily gathered themselves together by common agreement, as one man: not only men came, but women and children, even as many as were capable of understanding what they heard. Masters of families should bring their families with them to the public worship of God. Women and children have souls to save, and are therefore concerned to acquaint themselves with the word of God and attend on the means of knowledge and grace. Little ones, as they come to the exercise of reason, must be trained up in the exercises of religion.
IV. The master of this assembly was Ezra the priest; he presided in this service. None so fit to expound and preach as he who was such a ready scribe in the law of his God. 1. His call to the service was very clear; for being in office as a priest, and qualified as a scribe, the people spoke to him to bring the book of the law and read it to them, Neh 8:1. God gave him ability and authority, and then the people gave him opportunity and invitation. Knowledge is spiritual alms, which those that are able should give to every one that needs, to every one that asks. 2. His post was very convenient. He stood in a pulpit or tower of wood, which they made for the word (so it is in the original), for the preaching of the word, that what he said might be the more gracefully delivered and the better heard, and that the eyes of the hearers might be upon him, which would engage their attention, as Luk 4:20. 3. He had several assistants. Some of these stood with him (Neh 8:4), six on his right hand and seven on his left: either his pulpit was so contrived as to hold them all in a row, as in a gallery (but then it would scarcely have been called a tower), or they had desks a degree lower. Some think, that he appointed them to read when he was weary; at least his taking them as assessors with him put an honour upon them before the people, in order to their being employed in the same service another time. Others who are mentioned (Neh 8:7) seem to have been employed at the same time in other places near at hand, to read and expound to those who could not come within hearing of Ezra. Of these also there were thirteen priests, whose lips were to keep knowledge, Mal 2:7. It is a great mercy to a people thus to be furnished with ministers that are apt to teach. Happy was Ezra in having such assistants as these, and happy were they in having such a guide as Ezra.
V. The religious exercises performed in this assembly were not ceremonial, but moral, praying and preaching. Ezra, as president of the assembly, was, 1. The people's mouth to God, and they affectionately joined with him, Neh 8:6. He blessed the Lord as the great God, gave honour to him by praising his perfections and praying for his favour; and the people, in token of their concurrence with him both in prayers and praises, said, Amen, Amen, lifted up their hands in token of their desire being towards God and all their expectations from him, and bowed their heads in token of their reverence of him and subjection to him. Thus must we adore God, and address ourselves to him, when we are going to read and hear the word of God, as those that see God in his word very great and very good. 2. God's mouth to the people, and they attentively hearkened to him. This was the chief business of the solemnity, and observe, (1.) Ezra brought the law before the congregation, Neh 8:2. He had taken care to provide himself with the best and most correct copies of the law; and what he had laid up for his own use and satisfaction he here brought forth, as a good householder out of his treasury, for the benefit of the church. Observe, [1.] The book of the law is not to be confined to the scribes' studies, but to be brought before the congregation and read to them in their own language. [2.] Ministers, when they go to the pulpit, should take their Bibles with them; Ezra did so; thence they must fetch their knowledge, and according to that rule they must speak and must show that they do so. See Ch2 17:9. (2.) He opened the book with great reverence and solemnity, in the sight of all the people, Neh 8:5. He brought it forth with a sense of the great mercy of God to them in giving them that book; he opened it with a sense of his mercy to them in giving them leave to read it, that it was not a spring shut up and a fountain sealed. The taking of the books, and the opening of the seals, we find celebrated with joy and praise, Rev 5:9. Let us learn to address ourselves to the services of religion with solemn stops and pauses, and not to go about them rashly; let us consider what we are doing when we take God's book into our hands, and open it, and so also when we bow our knees in prayer; and what we do let us do deliberately, Ecc 5:1. (3.) He and others read in the book of the law, from morning till noon (Neh 8:3), and they read distinctly, Neh 8:8. Reading the scriptures in religious assemblies is an ordinance of God, whereby he is honoured and his church edified. And, upon special occasions, we must be willing to attend for many hours together on the reading and expounding of the word of God: those mentioned here were thus employed for six hours. Let those that read and preach the word learn also to deliver themselves distinctly, as those who understand what they say and are affected with it themselves, and who desire that those they speak to may understand it, retain it, and be affected with it likewise. It is a snare for a man to devour that which is holy. (4.) What they read they expounded, showed the intent and meaning of it, and what use was to be made of it; they gave the sense in other words, that they might cause the people to understand the reading, Neh 8:7, Neh 8:8. Note, [1.] It is requisite that those who hear the word should understand it, else it is to them but an empty sound of words, Mat 24:15. [2.] It is therefore required of those who are teachers by office that they explain the word and give the sense of it. Understandest thou what thou readest? and, Have you understood all these things? are good questions to be put to the hearers; but, How should we except someone guide us? is as proper a question for them to put to their teachers, Act 8:30, Act 8:31. Reading is good, and preaching good, but expounding brings the reading and the preaching together, and thus makes the reading the more intelligible and the preaching the more convincing. (5.) The people conducted themselves very properly when the word was read and opened to them. [1.] With great reverence. When Ezra opened the book all the people stood up (Neh 8:5), thereby showing respect both to Ezra and to the word he was about to read. It becomes servants to stand when their master speaks to them, in honour to their master and to show a readiness to do as they are bidden. [2.] With great fixedness and composedness. They stood in their place (Neh 8:7); several ministers were reading and expounding at some distance from each other, and every one of the people kept his post, did not go to hear first one and then another, to make remarks upon them, but stood in his place, that he might neither give disturbance to another nor receive any disturbance himself. [3.] With great attention and a close application of mind: The ears of all the people were unto the book of the law (Neh 8:3), were even chained to it; they heard readily, and minded every word. The word of God commands attention and deserves it. If through carelessness we let much slip in hearing, there is danger that through forgetfulness we shall let all slip after hearing.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–18 And all the people gathered themselves together as one…
And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the watergate,.... A large and commodious street for such a company of people, which led to the water gate, of which see Neh 3:26 hither the people gathered with great unanimity, zeal, and affection:
and they spoke unto Ezra the scribe; the same who is called Ezra the priest, and scribe of the law of God, and said to be a ready one, Ezr 7:6, who came to Jerusalem thirteen years before this time; but very probably returned to Babylon again, and was lately come from thence:
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to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel; to observe what was commanded in it, and which he had ordered to be read, particularly every seventh year, at the feast of tabernacles, Deu 31:10 which was now drawing near, though this was not the precise time of reading it; hence some have thought this year was the sabbatical year; see Neh 5:11.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 17 The solemn reading and expounding of the law, ver.…
The solemn reading and expounding of the law, ver. 1-8. The joy of the people, ver. 9-12. The keeping of the feast of tabernacles, ver. 13-18.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17 Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Levites, read and interpret the…
CHAPTER VIII
Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Levites, read and interpret the laws
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to the people, 1-7.
The manner in which they do this important work, 8.
The effect produced on the people's minds by hearing it, 9.
The people are exhorted to be glad, and are told that the joy
of the Lord is their strength, 10-12.
On the second day they assemble, and find that they should keep
the feast of tabernacles; which they accordingly religiously
solemnize for seven days; and Ezra reads to them from the book
of the law, 13-18.
NOTES ON CHAP. VIII
Verse 1. The street that was before the water gate] The gate which led from the temple to the brook Kidron.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18 Neh 8:1. Into the street that was before the…
Neh 8:1. Into the street that was before the water-gate — Probably, in that space which was afterward called the court of the Gentiles. They spake unto Ezra the scribe — This Ezra, without all doubt, is the same person who came from Babylon in the seventh year of Artaxerxes. It is thought he had been at Babylon since his first coming into Judah, and was now returned; beholding, doubtless, with great joy, the wall of Jerusalem built, as before he had seen the temple finished. To bring the book of the law of Moses — They called to mind that place, (Deu 31:10-11,) where God requires the law to be read publicly every seventh year, in the feast of tabernacles, which was appointed to be kept about the middle of this month. This office, no doubt, Ezra was ready to perform; but such was the forward zeal of the people at this time, that they prevented him by their pious entreaties, requesting that he would read the law before that feast began.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17 The street - Rather, “the square” or “court.” So…
The street - Rather, “the square” or “court.” So in Neh 8:16 (compare Ezr 10:9). The court seems to have been one between the eastern gate of the temple and the watergate in the city-wall. It would thus lie within the modern Haram area.
Ezra the scribe - This is the first mention of Ezra in the present book, and the first proof we have had that he was contemporary with Nehemiah. Probably he returned to the court of Artaxerxes soon after effecting the reforms which he relates in Ezra 10, and did not revisit Jerusalem until about the time when the walls were completed, or after an absence of more than ten years. It was natural for the people to request him to resume the work of exposition of the Law to which he had accustomed them on his former visit Ezr 7:10, Ezr 7:25.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18 Were in, or had been at home, (Haydock) after…
Were in, or had been at home, (Haydock) after the dedication of the walls, (Calmet) till they assembled (Haydock) at the beginning of the civil year, on the feast of trumpets, which was a day of rejoicing, (ver. 9., and Numbers xxix. 1.) the festival of the new moon. (Riberia) (Menochius) --- Gate, near the temple, chap. iii. 26. (Calmet) --- Moses; the pentateuch. (Menochius) --- He is not desired to restore what was lost. (Tirinus) --- As many copies had been preserved by the prophets, which Esdras revised. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 1And all the people gathered themselves together as one…
Neh_8:1-18
1And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water-gate; and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel. 2And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding [that understood in hearing] upon the first day of the seventh month. 3And he read therein before the street that was before the water-gate from the morning until midday [from the light until half of the day], before the men and the women, and those that could understand [and the understanding]; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law. 4And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit [tower] of wood, which they had made for that purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, and Shema, and Anaiah, and Urijah, and Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand; and on his left hand Pedaiah, and Mishael, and Malchiah, and Hashum, and Hashbadana, Zechariah and Meshullam. 5And Ezra opened the book in the sight [to the eyes] of all the people; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up. 6And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands: and they bowed their heads, 7and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Also [and] Jeshua, and Bani, and Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodijah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, caused the people to understand 8the law: and the people stood in their place. So [And] they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. 9And Nehemiah, which is the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the Lord your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people 10wept, when they heard the words of the law. Then [And] he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat [fat things], and drink the sweet [sweet things], and send portions unto them [him] for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto 11our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength. So [And] the Levites stilled all the people, saying, Hold your peace, for the day is holy; neither be ye grieved. 12And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them. 13And on the second day were gathered together the chief of the fathers of all the people, the priests and the Levites, unto Ezra the scribe, even to understand [consider] the words of the law. 14And they found written in the law which the Lord had commanded by [by the hand of] Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month; 15and that they should publish and proclaim [cause the voice to be heard and to pass] in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying, Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches, and pine [oil-tree] branches, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick [thick-leaved] trees, to make booths, as it Isaiah 16 written. So [And] the people went forth, and brought them, and made themselves booths, every one upon the roof of his house [upon his roof], and in their courts, and in the street [square] of the water-gate, and in the street [square] of the gate of Ephraim. 17And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths: for since the days of Jeshua, the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so. And there was 18very great gladness. Also [And] day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly according unto the manner [statute].
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TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
1 Neh_8:6. וַיִּקְדוּ וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲווּ. This frequent combination, the former verb being never without the latter, indicates the two steps of the movement: “they stooped and bowed down.” The verbs שָׁהַח ,שָׁחָה and שׁוּחַ are stronger than קָדַד.
2 Neh_8:7. The Hiphil of בִּין is used in Neh_8:7-9, with the true Hiphil force; but in Neh_8:2-3; Neh_8:12, it has the Kal sense.
3 Neh_8:10. לְאֵיין נָכוֹן לוֹ for לַאֲשֶׁר אֵין נָכוֹן לוֹ, by suppression of the relative, which is far harsher than the Eng suppression of the antecedent, e.g. “Honor to whom honor is due.” Comp. 1Ch_15:12.
4 Neh_8:17. Notice the alliterative use of the three roots יָשַׁב ,שָׁבָה and שׁוּב.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The Instruction of the People
Neh_8:1. Street.—Rather “square” or plaza.The water-gate, according to our view (see on Neh_3:26; Neh_12:37), was an inner gate connected both with the temple and with the subterranean water galleries of Ophel, by which there seems to have been a large open square for public assemblies. (See Excursus). Ezra the scribe,Ezra hassopher. In the next verse it is Ezra the priest,Ezra hakkohen. This is the first mention of Ezra in the book of Nehemiah. He had come to Jerusalem thirteen years previously, with about three thousand returning Jews (1754 males), holding a commission from Artaxerxes to appoint magistrates in Judæa. He had forced the Jews to separate from their heathen wives, and had then probably returned to Persia, as we find the Jews had relapsed into their former condition. As we do not meet with his name in Nehemiah till now, it is probable he followed Nehemiah to Judea to assist him in another movement of reform.
Neh_8:2. All that could hear with understanding—Lit., All that understood in hearing, i.e., those old enough to understand. The first day of the seventh month.—This was a special “Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation.” (Lev_23:24). A specific offering was appointed for that day, beside the burnt-offering of the month. (Num_29:1-6).
Neh_8:3. From morning.—Lit., from the light, i.e., from daylight or an hour as early as was available. The reading must have occupied at least six hours. About one-quarter of the Pentateuch might be read in that time.
Neh_8:4. Pulpit.—Probably the same that is called stairs in Neh_9:4. The word here is strictly tower and there ascent. It was doubtless a very high platform so as to overlook a large crowd. (Comp. Neh_8:5). Anaiah.—See Neh_10:22. Urijah.—See Neh_3:4. Hilkiah.—Not the Hilkiah of Neh_12:7. He lived in Zerubbabel’s day. Maaseiah.—See Neh_12:41. Malchiah.—See Neh_10:3. Zechariah.—See Neh_12:41. Meshullam.—See Neh_10:7. All these named as standing with Ezra may have been priests. If so, the Anaiah of Neh_10:22 must be a different one from this one here named. As far as we can trace the other names, they appear to be priests.
Neh_8:7. Jeshua.—See Neh_10:9. Bani.—See Neh_10:13. Sherebiah.—See Neh_10:12. Jamin.—Perhaps the Benjamin of Neh_3:23. Akkub.—See Neh_12:19. Shabbethai.—See Neh_11:16. Hodijah.—See Neh_10:10. Maaseiah.—Probably not the Maaseiah of Neh_8:4, or of Neh_10:25, or of Neh_11:5, but possibly the Maaseiah of Neh_3:23. Kelita.—See Neh_10:10. Azariah.—Perhaps the priest mentioned Neh_10:2. Jozabad.—See Neh_11:16. Hanan. See Neh_10:10. Pelaiah.—See Neh_10:10. And the Levites,i.e., and other Levites, for the thirteen mentioned were Levites. These Levites seem to have read after Ezra and to have explained it to different parts of the crowd, while the Amens, the lifting up of the hands, the bowing and the worshipping (in Neh_8:6) occurred at intervals during the reading. The explanation may have been principally of archaic Hebrew words.
Neh_8:8. So they read.—That is Ezra read and the Levites re-read and explained where necessary.
Neh_8:9. The Tirshatha.—See on Neh_7:65. The holiness of the day is used as an argument against mourning. Note the fact that the high-priest on whose mitre was written “Holiness to the Lord,” was forbidden to mourn. (See Lev_21:10. Comp. Lev_10:6).
Neh_8:10. Send portions.—See the spirit of this enjoined in Deu_16:11-12, with regard to the Pentecost season.
The joy of the Lord is your strength,i.e., a mirthfulness which springs from right relations to God is an element and sign of spiritual strength.
Neh_8:13. To understand.—Rather, “to consider.”
Neh_8:14. In the feast of the seventh month,i.e., the feast of tabernacles. See Lev_23:34-43.
Neh_8:15. This is a pregnant sentence, thus: And that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities (Lev_23:4); so they proclaimed in Jerusalem, etc. The order is given on the 2d of Tisri, and the work is done in readiness for the 15th. The narrative runs the two together, confusing the time to the careless reader. Unto the mount,i.e., mount of Olives. Pine branches,’alé ’etz shemen, branches of the oil-tree (Isa_41:19). Mr. Houghton (in Smith’s Dict.) thinks it may be the Zackum or Balanites Ægyptiaca. Branches of thick trees,’ale ’etz ’avoth; either specifically “branches of the Avoth tree,” or branches of tangled trees.”
In Lev_23:40, the command is to use,
1. The fruit of goodly trees.
2. The leaves of palm trees.
3. The boughs of Avoth trees.
4. Willows of the brook.
Here the olive tree, the oil tree, and the myrtle would come under the first head (“fruit” being used for any produce), while the willow-tree is omitted, perhaps because there happened to be none near Jerusalem at that time.
Neh_8:16. Street of the water-gate.—See on Neh_8:1.Street of the gate of Ephraim.—From 2Ki_14:13 and Neh. Neh_12:39, we see that this gate was near the north-west corner of the city, between “the broad wall” and the “old gate,” the “old gate” and “cornergate” being perhaps the same. According to Keil, the Gate of Ephraim may have been attached to the broad wall and not have been destroyed. Hence it is not mentioned in chap. 3. There was, we may suppose, a large open place in the N. W. part of the city, corresponding to that by the water-gate in the S. E. part.
Neh_8:17. Done so.—That is, kept the feast of Tabernacles with such gladness.
Neh_8:18. He read,i.e., Ezra.
They kept the feast,i.e., of tabernacles. They had been from the second day (Neh_8:13), to this the 15th day of Tisri (Lev_23:34) preparing for it. The solemn fast-day of the 10th of Tisri had doubtless been excepted. It is passed over without mention in the narrative. A solemn assembly, atzcreth (comp. Lev_23:36; Num_29:35; Deu_16:8; Jer_9:2; Amo_5:21). It seems to have been something more than the “mikra-kodesh” (holy convocation), and yet what more we cannot say. It is applied to the last day of the feast of tabernacles and to the last day of the passover week. Josephus (Ant. 3, 10, 5) applies it to Pentecost (in the Greek form Asartha), as especially belonging to that day, which is the use of the word by the later Jews.
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL
1. The constant study of God’s word by the people was always, and is still, a distinguishing characteristic of the Jewish nation. The Levites were originally entrusted with the duty of reading the law before Israel every seventh year (Deu_31:9-13), and when Jehoshaphat (2Ch_17:7-9) sent Levites throughout all the cities of Judah to teach the people from the book of the law of the Lord, he was doubtless using the Levites in a way familiar to the nation from the first. God’s people were to keep in mind that they were not to follow the light of nature, but to consult the divine oracles for all their guidance (Rom_3:2).
Redemption was a plan, and the Church was a scheme, and the soul of the scheme was the written word of God.
2. The tears of penitence naturally lead to joy. When men mourn for sin, the Lord comforts them, saying: “Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet.” The sinful woman who bathed our Saviour’s feet with tears heard him say: “Go in peace” (Luk_7:50). There may have been much that was only mere excitement, without a religious basis, both in the weeping and the merriment of this month of Tisri; yet we cannot but believe that there was a nucleus of true devotion in the movement, a mark of the holy succession that reached down to Simeon and Anna.
3. The booths of the tabernacle-feasts were memorials of the booth life of Israel (on leaving Egypt) that began at Succoth. The memory would encourage humility and gladness, bringing the thoughts of the people back to first principles, and making them to feel the Divine presence and protection (see Lev_23:43). The roofs of the houses were battlemented so as to preclude danger (Deu_22:8) and the houses were low. The building of booths on the roofs was therefore a very natural thing. They would not be in the way of the multitude, and would have in each case somewhat of domestic privacy.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Neh_8:1-12. The holiday of the Lord’s congregation. 1) Its cause: the exterior one lies in the time, it is the seventh month, the true one in the proofs God has given, since He has secured the existence of the congregation before the world, fortified their city, etc. 2) Its celebration. The congregation shows a longing for God’s word, uses it in good order, and listens to it with reverence. 3) Its blessing: sadness turned into joy. The ever permanent elements in the true service of God. 1) On the side of the congregation: hunger for the word of God. 2) On the side of the teachers—the right handling of the word of God—commences with the praise of God, which awakens the assenting acknowledgment of the congregation, communication of the divine word, the explanation and application of the same. On both sides resignation to God’s word and being.—Bede: Rogaverunt ipsi pontificem suum, ut allato libro mandata sibi legis, quæ agere debeant, replicaret, ut cum civitate ædificata, operis quoque placiti Deo structura consurgeret, ne sicut antea propter negligentiam religionis civitatis etiam ruina sequeretur.—Starke: Even the common people must take care that they shall have the word of God pure and clear. Young people should be made to listen to the divine word from their childhood, that they may learn to fear God. If in the Old Testament all without exception have been obliged to listen to the law, how inexcusable it is if the papacy does not allow this to the people. Hearers should not become tired and impatient even if the sermon is rather long. The principal part of the service of God consists in praise, and in this we resemble the God-praising angels. The singing of Collects, prayers and Thanksgivings should be in an intelligible language, that the hearer may understand and be able to respond Amen. The Amen in a public assembly should be sung by each and all. If we should bow the knees of our hearts in particular before the Lord, it is proper that in outward gestures also we should show our humility before God. Preachers must not forget prayer in the arrangement of divine service. If teachers publicly kneel down and pray to God, it is proper that the hearers also should fall upon their knees with them. Teachers should aim at lucidity in explaining the word of God. If God gives us a joyful day we should not forget the poor.
Rejoice in the Lord always! That Isaiah 1) possible, for in communion with the Lord we have consolation, promise, help, refreshment, etc., in spite of all the calamities and difficulties of earth. 2) Necessary; for every day is holy to the Lord, and our conduct must always honor the Lord. 3) Wholesome; for joy in the Lord is our strength, and puts us in the position to wait with patience, makes us skilful, and guards us from all straying. Joy in the Lord is our strength, for 1) in ourselves we are weak and hesitating. 2) In the fulness of the Lord is grace for grace. 3) Precisely the joy in the Lord is fitted to cause us to have all that is comprehended in strength. With the prayer, gladden me with Thy help, and let my joy in Thee be my strength, can one gain anew each day consolation and joy, whatever task be before him.
Neh_8:13-18. The festival of the people. 1) Its foundation—the divine command—God wishes that the congregation should celebrate the holiday. 2) Its form; it exhibits itself also externally; in the Old Testament by booths, which have their signification; in the New Testament through other ceremonies, which are not less full of meaning. 3) Its effect. Resignation to God’s word and will, and from that a glorification of the entire life.—Starke: Christians have in the world no continuing city, and their life is vain and fleeting. Well for them, then, if they strive to dwell in the eternal tents. Heb_13:14. As the Jews had their holidays and festivals, so have we Christians, but upon the condition of Christian freedom. Coloss. Neh_2:16. The exercise of true religion gives a tranquil heart and joyful conscience; but false worship gives much annoying trouble, and tortures the conscience.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 7, 9, 16, 17, 18 Ezra . . . stood upon a pulpit of…
Ezra . . . stood upon a pulpit of wood--Not made in the form known to us, but only a raised scaffold or platform, broad enough to allow fourteen persons to stand with ease upon it. Ezra's duty was very laborious, as he continued reading aloud from morning until midday, but his labor was lightened by the aid of the other priests present. Their presence was of importance, partly to show their cordial agreement with Ezra's declaration of divine truth; and partly to take their share with him in the important duty of publicly reading and expounding the Scripture.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 THE READING AND EXPOUNDING OF THE LAW, Neh_8:1-8.
THE READING AND EXPOUNDING OF THE LAW, Neh_8:1-8.
1. The people gathered — By command of the governor.
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The street… before the water gate — The broad open place in front of one of the gates of one of the inner walls of the city. The exact locality of the water gate is unknown, but it seems to have been somewhere near the bridge across the Tyropoeon at the western wall of the temple area. See note on Neh_3:26.
They spake unto Ezra — That is, the assembled people spake by their rulers or representatives. They knew for what purpose they had been assembled, and were all anxious to become acquainted with the law.
Ezra the scribe — Here again, after an absence of twelve years, this distinguished scribe appears among the Jews at Jerusalem. He had probably spent the intervening time at Babylon. See remarks at the end of the Book of Ezra.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–18 1. into the street] R.V. into the broad place.…
1. into the street] R.V. into the broad place. The open space in front of ‘the water-gate’ is probably the same as that mentioned in Ezr_10:9, ‘and all the people sat in the broad place before the house of God.’ Cf. Neh_3:26, ‘the Nethinim dwelt in Ophel, unto the place over against the water-gate toward the east.’ It is generally supposed that this broad place lay between the S.E. precincts of the Temple and the Eastern wall.
the water gate] Cf. Neh_3:26, Neh_12:37.
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they spake unto Ezra the scribe] ‘They spake;’ the impersonal plural implies that the whole community expressed the wish through their representative leaders.
Ezra the scribe] Ezra’s name occurs here for the first time in our book of Nehemiah. It naturally calls for remark (1) that Ezra’s name was not mentioned by Nehemiah among his supporters in the work of rebuilding the walls, (2) that Nehemiah’s description of the condition of the people, the oppression of the poor by the rich (ch. 4) and the intermarriage with the heathen (Neh_6:18; Neh_10:30; Neh_13:23-28) seems to conflict with the idea of the authority which Ezra obtained over the people, Ezra 9, Ezra 10. Two explanations have been put forward,
(a) It is suggested that Ezra, after accomplishing the reforms described in Ezra 9, Ezra 10, returned to Babylon; that after an absence of 12 years, he revisited Jerusalem in time to witness the completion of the city walls by Nehemiah, and was requested by the people to renew his former practice of expounding the Law in public.
(b) It is suggested that Ezra had never after his arrival in Jerusalem left the city for any prolonged period; but that after his protest against mixed marriages, he had failed to carry his religious reformation any further. The enemies of the Jews and their unpatriotic allies in Jerusalem had frustrated his attempts. The arrival of Nehemiah changed the aspect of affairs. The religious policy of Ezra was once more in the ascendant. The popular enthusiasm excited by the completion of the walls gave the wished for opportunity of publishing the Law to the people. The omission of Ezra’s name in Nehemiah 1-7 is still a difficulty. But Nehemiah’s memoirs, so far as they are excerpted, record only the events and people concerned with the rebuilding of the walls. If Ezra had been present while the work was in progress, we might naturally have expected to find his name among the repairers of the breaches in chap. 3. Perhaps Ezra, being devoted to the study and teaching of the Law, was not reckoned among those most influential for practical purposes. Being also of the high-priest’s kindred, he was very probably included among the repairers of the breach identified with the name of Eliashib (Neh_3:1).
to bring the book of the law, &c.] There is nothing in these words to lead us to suppose that Ezra had before been in the habit of reading the Law to the people. The verse does not record an annual custom but an exceptional step, cf. Neh_8:18. The people saw that their national integrity was safeguarded by city walls; their jealousy for their distinctiveness as ‘a peculiar people’ was rekindled. Their request to Ezra marked their adoption of his policy, that of keeping the people of Israel separate from the nations upon the basis of their religious life. His policy was that the religious life of the people should be regulated by the Law as contained in certain recognised writings, and should not be dependent upon the tradition of the Priests. The demand for the production of ‘the book of the law’ is of twofold interest; (1) it testifies to a general knowledge of the existence of a book the contents of which, so far as they are known, agreed substantially with our Pentateuch; (2) the voice of popular acknowledgment set the seal of ‘Canonicity’ upon the first portion of the Jewish Scriptures[2].
[2] For a more detailed treatment of this subject I may perhaps be permitted to refer the reader to chap. 4. in my ‘Canon of the Old Testament’ (Macmillan, 1892).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18 (1) As one man.—The unanimity rather than the number…
(1) As one man.—The unanimity rather than the number is emphatic here.
And they spake unto Ezra.—Who appears in this book for the first time, having probably been at the court for twelve years.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–18 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF THE PEOPLE BY EZRA, AND CELEBRATION…
RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF THE PEOPLE BY EZRA, AND CELEBRATION OF THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. (Ne 8) It can scarcely be imagined that Ezra had been present in Jerusalem during the exciting scenes which have been enacted in the first part of this Book, and had never come forward in such a way as to obtain notice from the historian. Nehemiah entertained no jealousy of him, and when the time came for the great ceremony of dedicating the wall, assigned him the second part in it. (Neh_12:36) We must therefore suppose either that accidental circumstances had caused his temporary absence from Jerusalem during the summer of B.C. 444, or that, having quitted the city soon after the proceedings narrated in the last chapter of the Book which bears his name, he now resumed his residence after having lived elsewhere for nearly thirteen years. If Nehemiah"s work had been a continuous history composed throughout by himself, it would have been strange that this doubt should not have been cleared up, and that Ezra"s name should have been introduced so suddenly and without explanation, as it is in Neh_8:1. But the narrative in this place, as already observed (Introduction, is by another hand, and is a particular relation of certain events which the writer was probably set to describe, rather than a chapter on the general history of the Jewish people. It was not written with any knowledge of what exactly was to precede it, and so does not fit on very neatly to the previous section. We are left to conjecture Ezra"s personal history between March, B.C. 456, and September, B.C. 444. Now the condition in which Nehemiah found Jerusalem the oppression of the rich men, (Ne 4) the prevalence of mixed marriages, (Neh_6:18 Neh_10:30 Neh_13:23-30) the desecration of the Sabbath, (Neh_10:31 Neh_13:15-18) the negligence with respect to tithes and offerings (Neh_10:33-39) is almost incompatible with the supposition that Ezra"s ministry had been continuous during these years, or only interrupted by brief absences, like that of Nehemiah in B.C. 433-432. (Neh_13:6) It seems, therefore, to be most probable that he had been recalled to the court early in B.C. 456, and that he was only now in the summer of B.C. 444 allowed to return, perhaps at his own instance. If, at the beginning of the seventh month, Tisri, the most sacred of the year, Ezra had just come back to Jerusalem from a prolonged absence, it would be most natural that he should be asked to resume his work of instruction by reading and expounding the law of Moses to the people. (Neh_8:1) The people"s marked "attention" (ver. 3) would also be natural; and such a reading and expounding, after such an interval, would naturally have a great effect. It would stir penitence; it would wake thought; it would lead to greater exactness in observing the law. These are the results which seem to have followed. Ezra"s reading was on the first day of the month (ver. 2), the "feast of trumpets," as the day was called. It led to a great weeping the people wept, when they heard the words of the law" (ver. 9). As, however, the day was one of the chief festivals of the year, and therefore the display of grief was unfitting, Ezra checked it for the time, and recommended liberal alms-giving in the place of tears (ver. 10). His advice was taken (ver. 12); and an increased desire to hear the law having been produced by hearing it, the people met again on the second of Tisri, to be present at a second reading. Ezra thereupon directed their attention to the impending "feast of tabernacles," which had not now for some considerable time been celebrated with the proper solemnities, and read to them the portions of the law which bore upon it (ver. 14). A much more exact and scrupulous observance of the legal regulations was the consequence the dwelling in booths, which had been given up, was revived (ver. 17); the feast was continued during the full eight days (ver. 18); the solemn assemblies on the first day and the eighth were held (ibid.); and, above all, "day by day, from the first day unto the last day," Ezra took care to "read in the book of the law of God" before the people, thus bringing before them their practical duties in the most solemn and effective way, and stirring them up to holiness and repentance. The good effect of these proceedings on his part appears in the next two chapters.
The chapter should commence, as in the Septuagint, with the last two clauses of Ne 7, and should run thus: when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in their cities, all the people gathered themselves together, as one man, into the court that was before the water gate; and they spake unto Ezra the scribe," etc. The "court" (rehob) spoken of appears to have been situated between the eastern gate of the temple and the city wall, at the point where it was pierced by the water gate." They spake unto Ezra. It is remarkable that the people ask for instruction. Though they do not keep the law, they have a yearning after it. They are not contented with their existing condition, but desire better things, and they have an instinctive feeling that to hear God"s word will help them.
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Vers. 1-12. Religious instruction.
"And when the seventh month came," etc. To the well-being of a people the labours of the religious teacher are as necessary as those of the statesman. Nehemiah having provided for the safety of the Jews against their enemies, Ezra, the priest and scribe, steps forward to instruct them in the law of God. Of the manner in which he did this, and the reception his instructions met with, we have a specimen in this narrative.
I The TIME of the meeting. "The first day of the seventh month" (ver. 2), the commencement of the civil year, the feast of trumpets. It was also the anniversary of the restoration of the altar, (Ezr_3:1-3) and as such would be regarded with special interest. And it was the first day of the month which abounded in religious solemnities.
II The PLACE. The open space before the water gate (ver. 1).
III The CONGREGATION.
1. Of whom it consisted. "All the people"... "men and women, and all that could hear with understanding" (vers. 1, 2). Parents brought those of their children who could understand.
2. Their unanimity. "As one man" (ver. 1).
3. Their eagerness to learn. "They spake unto Ezra," etc.
IV The READING AND EXPLANATION OF THE LAW. By Ezra and a number of Levites who assisted him (ver. 7). Ezra probably read the Hebrew text, and the Levites translated where necessary, and expounded, each perhaps to a different group. These exercises were
1. Commenced with worship (ver. 6).
2. Conducted with great care. From an elevated platform (ver. 4). The reading distinct, the exposition intelligible and painstaking (ver. 8).
3. Long-continued (ver. 3).
V The BEHAVIOUR OF THE PEOPLE.
1. Reverent (vers. 5, 6). "All the people stood up... bowed their heads," etc.
2. Attentive (ver. 3).
3. Persistent. For some six hours they all kept their places (ver. 7).
VI The EFFECTS produced upon them.
1. Sorrow (ver. 9). So Josiah rent his clothes when the law was read to him. (2Ki_22:11) The precepts of the law, so greatly in contrast with the conduct of the nation; its promises, of blessings once largely enjoyed, but forfeited by sin; its threatenings, the fulfilment of which the hearers so painfully experienced, would all tend to produce grief. "All the people wept," and the proper character of the festival seemed likely to be marred. But the instructions and exhortations of Nehemiah, Ezra, and the Levites prevailed to assuage their sorrow, and induce them to celebrate the festival in accordance with its design. Thus the sorrow was turned into
2. Joy (ver. 12). Which they indulged not simply because of the exhortations to joy addressed to them, but "because they had understood the words that were declared unto them," i.e. the words of the law. For such a statement would hardly be made of the addresses referred to in vers. 9-11, since there was no difficulty in understanding these. The fact that such teaching of the law was once more enjoyed by them filled their hearts with thankfulness; and although much which they had heard excited their sorrow, there was much also to awaken gladness. The law itself, and the whole history of their fathers, showed that their God was gracious and forgiving; and the promises interspersed among the precepts and threatenings (such, for instance, as those referred to in Neh_1:8, Neh_1:9) would encourage their hopes.
Lessons:
1. The worth and power of the word of God, as the ever-enduring spring of new religious life. All true and solid reformation and revival arise from the earnest republication of its truths.
2. The necessity and value of enlightened and zealous teachers of the word. Such as aim to give the people a right understanding of it, and thus to quicken them to godliness and holiness. Without good teachers, the book, even when possessed, remains comparatively a dead letter.
3. The obligation and importance of public assemblies for instruction and worship. All ought to attend them, and bring such of their children as can "hear with understanding," in however small a measure.
4. The conditions of obtaining benefit at such meetings. Desire to learn, reverence, attention, surrender of the heart to the power of the truth.
5. The mingled and conflicting emotions awakened by Divine truth. Sorrow and joy. Place of each in the Christian life. Special suitableness and worth of religious joy. "The joy of the Lord is your strength.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD. Vers. 1-8. The word of life.
The public reading and exposition of the law of Moses in the presence of all the people as soon as possible after their settlement in their cities and the rebuilding of Jerusalem.
I THE PEOPLE WANT, and must have, THE SCRIPTURES BOTH FAMILIARISED BY REPETITION AND EXPOUNDED, that they may "have the sense, and understand the reading.
1. As individuals. The law of God the true foundation on which the life must be built up. In that law is not only the will of God, but his mercy. The Scriptures make wise to salvation. The law was the root out of which the gospel came.
2. As a commonwealth. The Bible the true law of nations and communities.
3. As families. The men, women, and children were there together. God has provided his word for our household life. Those who neglect its reading in the house neglect the best support of parental authority, the truest bond of love, and the fountain of consolation and joy. The only real education is that which acknowledges the Scriptures as its basis. All popular reformation and advancement has been achieved with the written word as the instrument.
II GREAT GATHERINGS ARE OPPORTUNITIES FOR GREAT IMPRESSIONS, AND LARGE RESULTS MAY BE OBTAINED BY THEM. Street preaching may effect more than any other on some occasions. The great reformers of Israel were too much in earnest to pay much heed to sanctities of place. They wanted a large enough assembly to be a true representation of the people. The reading and preaching of God"s word can never be dispensed with.
III MINISTERS MUST BE MEN WHO CAN HELP THE PEOPLE TO HEAR ATTENTIVELY AND UNDERSTAND THE WORD OF GOD. They have no right to occupy Ezra"s place unless they have Ezra"s qualification, and they should be both literally and figuratively "above all the people." There were many with the chief reader who doubtless read and expounded in their turns. What is wanted is not that official dignity should be saved at any price, but that the people should hear and understand. We want more good readers and preachers.
IV When we call the people together in the spirit of faith, "blessing the Lord, the great God," and putting truth before them in his name, THERE WILL BE A READY AND HEARTY RESPONSE. The people said, Amen, Amen; lifted up their hands, bowed their heads, worshipped with their faces to the ground. We should expect such response. R.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-8. The word of God and the ministry of man.
One of the most affecting scenes depicted in Holy Writ here invites our thought Our imagination delights to dwell upon it. The sacred and beloved city of God is now secure, its walls are rebuilt, its gates replaced and shut; its inhabitants are no longer struggling with hope and fear, a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other, but rejoicing in their strength and peace; internal discords are now arranged, and brethren are dwelling together in unity. With one accord they now come all the multitude of them, men, women, and children, as many as "could hear with understanding" (ver. 2) to one large square (ver. 1). In the midst of this square is erected a broad and high platform, a pulpit, on which several men may stand. Room is made through the crowd for Ezra (who now again appears on the scene) and a few accompanying ministers; they ascend the pulpit. As Ezra opens the book of the law of the Lord, with spontaneous reverence the whole company rises to its feet. As the great Scribe, before he begins to read, utters a few words of thanksgiving, "blessing the Lord, the great God," all the people answer, "Amen, Amen," bowing their head, and lifting their hands in reverent joy (ver. 6); and as Ezra reads and explains, speaking in their own language the ancient law which God gave to Moses, and as their Country"s early history is unrolled before their eyes, and old and hallowed memories are vividly recalled, the strong men as well as the women and the children yield to their emotion, and tears stream down their faces. "All the people wept when they heard the word of the law" (ver. 9).
I Two FEATURES OF THIS SCENE WE SHALL BE WISE TO DWELL UPON.
1. The popular appreciation of the word of God. "All the people... spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law" (ver. 1). So far was Ezra from being obliged to urge the people, to gather together and listen to the law, that they themselves called for its production, and demanded that it should be read to them. They hungered for the bread of life; they craved to hear the word of the living God. And when their wish was granted they showed themselves in real earnest, for they remained six hours eagerly listening as the law was read and expounded. Ezra "read therein from morning until midday... and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law" (ver. 3).
2. The ministerial function in regard to it. "Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood... and beside him stood Mattithiah and Shema," etc. (ver. 4); "also Jeshua and Bani," etc. (ver. 7); and read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading" (ver. 8). Here were two valuable things:
(1) the distinct reading of the word of God;
(2) the explanation of any obscure words or sentences, or, as we have it, "giving the sense," or "causing the people to understand the law.
II TWO INFERENCES THEREFROM WE MAY SAFELY DRAW. We may safely reason
1. That we now should show a still greater popular appreciation of the word of God. For we must consider how much more we have than they had, or than David had when he exclaimed how he 6, loved the law," and when he preferred it to bodily gratification and worldly treasure. (Ps 19) We have not only more in quantity, but much of that which ought to be to us more deeply interesting. We have, beside the "law of Moses which the Lord had commanded to Israel" (ver. 1),
(1) the history of the Jews in the land of promise;
(2) the Psalms of David;
(3) the wisdom of Solomon;
(4) the inspired utterances of many prophets;
(5) the letters of apostles; and above all,
(6) the very word of Jesus Christ himself, and the story of his redeeming love, with
(7) the revelation of the golden city of God.
How should we hunger and thirst for this bread, for these waters of life; how should we be "very attentive to hear him
2. That there is as much need now as ever of the ministerial function. For though indeed we have the word of God written in our own tongue, in our own home, and under our own eyes, there remains, and will remain, the important function of
(1) expounding the sacred word. There are words and sentences, chapters and books, "hard to be understood;" there are now more things than there were then to harmonise; there is the connection between the two Testaments to explain; and there are heights which only some can climb, depths to which only a few can dig, treasures which only "the ready scribe" can reach, and these it is well to bring forth that all may be enriched. Moreover, the ministers of Christ, like Ezra and his companions on this eventful day (ver. 6), have the high and noble function of
(2) leading the people in prayer and in thanksgiving; reverently addressing God, carrying the hearts of all with them, bearing on the wings of their earnest words the thoughts and feelings of the people heavenwards to the very throne of God, so that "all the people shall answer, Amen, Amen," and "worship the Lord" in spirit and in truth (ver. 6). There is no higher or greater service man can render man than that of helping him to come into close and living fellowship with the Father, the Saviour, the Sanctifier of his spirit.
III ONE ABIDING FACT. The fitness of the sacred Scriptures for every child of man. Men, women, and children, "all that can hear with understanding," gather still to hear the word of God. There is not, nor will there ever be, a book inspired of man that can interest and instruct, comfort and guide, our race like this book "given by the inspiration of God." Childhood will never read with such devouring eagerness such stories elsewhere as those of Joseph and Moses and Daniel, and of the babe that was cradled in the manger at Bethlehem. Youth will never learn elsewhere to remember its Creator as it learns here in the stories of Samuel and Josiah, and of him who "grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man;" here prime will learn, as nowhere else, that man cannot "live on bread alone," or grow rich only by making money and building fortunes; here sorrow will ever find its sweetest solace, its best and holiest balm, and sickness its one untiring Companion; and here death itself loses its darkness and its sting, as these pages speak to it of him who is "the Resurrection and the Life. C.
HOMILIES BY J.S. EXELL Vers. 1-18. The word of God in a threefold relationship.
I THE WORD OF GOD AND POPULAR DESIRE. "And they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel.
1. The desire of the people for the word of God.
a. Natural. It was interesting as their national history.
b. Wise. The word of God is of the highest value to the human soul.
c. Prophetic. The word of God shall one day be the delight of a sanctified humanity.
2. The attitude of the people toward the word of God.
a. Attentive.
b. Intelligent.
c. Persevering.
d. Reverent.
e. Prayerful.
II THE WORD OF GOD AND SPIRITUAL EMOTION. "This day is holy unto the Lord your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law" (ver. 9). There is much in the word of God to awaken human emotion; its record of sin must inspire grief; its tidings of Divine mercy should beget joy. The emotions awakened by the word of God must be
1. Enlightened.
2. Appropriate (ver. 11).
3. Benevolent (ver. 10).
III THE WORD OF GOD AND CHURCH ORDINANCE.
1. Church ordinances should be remembered.
2. Church ordinances should be Scriptural.
3. Church ordinances should be joyous.
4. Church ordinances should not be exclusive. E.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 6, 8, 9, 15 And all the people gathered themselves together as one…
Neh_8:1-12
And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street.
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The instructor in the law
God has evermore blessed His own Word as the chosen instrument of all revival and progress in His Church. It was in this faith of the power of Bible truth in the hand of the Holy Spirit that Nehemiah here sought to instruct the remnant of Judah in the Divine law. His past labours for the good of Jerusalem had chiefly tended to inspire his brethren with patriotic love, and to surround the holy city with a material defence. But his affection for Zion had, from the beginning, higher aims than these; and henceforth his endeavours move in a loftier sphere. He rises now above the work of setting dead stones into a strong wail around the city of God, and labours to place holy affections in the hearts of its people, that they may be adorned with the beauties of the Lords own Israel. To secure these great ends, the first and highest means he employs is the diffusion of the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. He perceived, no doubt, that many of the children of Judah needed much this instruction in the law of the Lord. They had been long scattered abroad in strange lands, far away from temple privileges, and were on this account sadly defective in their knowledge of the Divine Word.
I. The assembly of Israel convened. The persons who presided in this assembly deserve our notice. When God raises up a great man to perform an important work He usually associates another with him of a kindred spirit, who, though endowed with different gifts, is a helper in the good cause. The defects of the one are thus counterbalanced by the graces of the other, and religion is promoted by their mutual co-operation. In the redemption of Israel from the house of bondage Moses and Aaron were united in the common enterprise. And so, in this revival of Judah, Nehemiah and Ezra are joined together; and, through means of the energy of the man of action, coupled with the influence of the man of sacred study, God blesses Zion with His quickening and restoring grace. It is an honour to the youthful Nehemiah that, though invested with ruling power in the holy city, he gives place to the ministers of the sanctuary in their proper work of teaching. These two servants of God, presiding in this great congregation of Israel, differed much from each other in age, in office, in rank, in character; but they were one in heart, and they join here in complete harmony of action for the revival of their beloved Zion. God in nature makes full provision for diversity of elements and forces co-operating together for a common result. And God in the Church also provides for different men looking on revealed truth with free thought and honest heart, where the shades of belief may vary like the colours of the rainbow, but all blend under the power of love, into a pure white ray as from the parent orb. The time at which this assembly was held also merits our consideration. They gathered themselves together on the first day of the seventh month (verses 1, 2). This was emphatically the sacred month of the Jewish year, during which the most touching and impressive ceremonies of their law were observed.
1. It was a full assembly. All the people gathered themselves together as one man. They were all there, and they were there all of one heart. In times of spiritual indifference and decay the ways of Zion mourn because few come to her solemn feasts. The Great Physician is present to heal them, but they, the dying patients, are not there to be made whole.
2. It was an earnest assembly. They spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel.
3. It was an attentive assembly. Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation, and read therein from the morning until mid-day, before the men and the women; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law. This deep attention to His truth is demanded as an act of reverence to God who speaks it. It is reckoned an affront for any one to turn his back on an earthly sovereign or converse with others while the king is addressing words of importance to all in his presence. Besides, men require to give earnest heed to the Word of life in order to derive saving benefit from it! Alas! many give attendance on the Word who do not give attention to it. Gospel truth is a means of persuasion to repentance, but if attention to the Word of conviction is suffered to waver the blessing will in all likelihood be lost. It is difficult with an arrow, however well aimed, to strike a bird on the wing that rapidly changes its flight in the air; and so it is not easy to fix the arrow of conviction in the heart that flits meanwhile from thought to thought, inattentive to the Word.
4. It was a devout assembly. Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands; and they bowed their heads, and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground. This devout frame of mind is essential to full spiritual profit in Divine worship for hearing the truth.
II. The divine knowledge conveyed. Ezra was chief among the teachers of Israel in this great assembly, and his eminent gifts fitted him for this position. He is elsewhere distinguished as a ready scribe in the law of Moses; he possessed a true love for it, an intimate acquaintance with it, and a profound knowledge of it. For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.
1. The instruction here embraced an exposition of the law. So they read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.
2. The instruction comprised exhortation to present duty. By the law is the knowledge of sin. For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. These, with them, were tears both of alarm and compunction--of apprehension for the consequences of their sin and godly sorrow on account of it. It was an expression of deep anxiety, in view of their spiritual danger, as revealed in Gods Word. Some men insinuate that all such agitation about the state of the soul is questionable, and not consistent with rational piety. Shall it be deemed reasonable that tears may freely flow on account of temporal bereavements and losses and no sorrow be expressed in fear of everlasting ruin? Observe, then, how nobly Nehemiah here appears to give direction and counsel to his people, mourning all of them for their iniquity: This day is holy unto the Lord your God; mourn not, nor weep. It is not implied that their sorrow was altogether wrong or without foundation, but it was out of time end defective in its views of the Divine mercy. It might not take too lowly a view of their own sinfulness, but it was wanting in a believing apprehension of the loving-kindness of the Lord, their covenant God. This is needful caution for awakened ones, to make sure that they exercise the full look of faith upward to grace as well as downward to guilt. This counsel to Judah not to weep prepares the way, and then follows this threefold call for relieving their sorrows: Go your way, cat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy unto our Lord; neither be ye sorry: for the joy of the Lord is your strength. This is first a call to assuage their griefs in social enjoyment of the gifts of Providence. It is not best always to seek to cure sorrow by reasoning against it; it is often more effectual to meet it with a counteracting joy; and this is the course here followed by this son of consolation. This is a call, moreover, to relieve sorrow by the exercise of benevolence to poor brethren. Send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared. To inherit the full blessing of life it is not enough to partake of the comforts of Providence; there requires to be joined with this a compassionate charity to the needy and the destitute. This compassion of the needy sanctifies all the enjoyments of life. It possesses a wonderful power of removing the load of sorrow from the givers heart and of chasing the cloud of sadness from his brow. (W. Ritchie.)
The open-air meeting
We see here--
I. That the word of God is the great means for the instruction of his people.
II. That the word of God is not only to be read, but understood.
III. That it must be read with prayer.
IV. That this worn will often rebuke us and lead us to mourn after a godly sort.
V. That it will also encourage us, and in the end bring us much joy and great gladness.
VI. That the source of joy and the secret of strength is divine. (W. P. Lockhart.)
And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation.
Hearty appreciation of Gods Word
1. The people of Jerusalem, like the disciples at Pentecost, were of one accord, in one place. Their hearts were inclined to Gods testimonies.
2. The standing position is one of respect. Men stand before their superiors. Moses before Pharaoh, Daniel before Nebuchadnezzar.
3. The messages of a king are entitled to respect. I once witnessed the reception of a royal message by the Parliament of Prussia. As the messenger entered the hall and the royal seal was broken all the people stood up. Officers, members, and visitors by one impulse rose to hear the writing of their king. A like impulse moved the people before whom Ezra brought the law.
4. A proper appreciation of Gods Word is necessary to spiritual success.
5. Respect for Gods Word involves respect for His day. It is interesting, in this age of Sabbath desecration, to notice that in the revival of Jewish institutions the observance of the fourth commandment was enforced both among Jews and unbelievers.
6. Respect for Gods Word also involves respect for His worship (verses 14-16). Worship will be a delight.
7. Religion is not only joyous, but unselfish.
8. Respect for Gods Word involves respect for all His commandments.
9. A proper appreciation of the Bible is possible only as its Divine authorship and object are recognised.
10. The object of the Bible is to reveal God and the duty He requires of men.
11. How are we to show our appreciation of the Bible? Our duty is to receive and use it. The whole mind suet soul must lay hold of and appropriate its truths. It must be esteemed above all books, and its decisions recognised as final, a wealthy gentleman, having built him a library, placed in it, on a pedestal high above all the shelves, a copy of the Bible. We should do for the sacred volume what he signified by this act. We should give it also a place in our affections--such a place as it had in the heart of the Scotch girl, who, when driven from her burning home, cared first for her copy of the Scriptures.
12. We do appreciate the Bible. We read it at family prayers, and in our closets, and learn verses, and hear it on Sabbath from the pulpit. I have heard that when, in a long war, the city of Haarlem had been desolated by fire and sword, the news of peace was a long letter, which a feeble old man read from a window. His voice could scarcely be heard, yet the people gave profound attention. When the Bible is read men should listen as those burghers listened.
13. The best acceptance of such news is an acceptance of the relief it brings. So the best appreciation of the Bible is an acceptance of its salvation in Christ.
14. Respect for Gods Word places it above all creeds and criticism.
15. Respect for Gods Word also demands that it be handled reverently. This condemns all trifling with Gods truth. All puns, parodies, and riddles based upon misquotation of the Scriptures are hereby condemned. (F. C. Monfort, D. D.)
Reading the law
I. A neglected Divine ordinance may be restored as a channel of Divine grace. Is there not a suggestion in this incident of how we may often return to methods of service, to means of grace that have been passed by, as useful for the present time? Certain truths have been allowed to remain in the background for a time which may be wisely pressed at another. Currents never carry all that floats on their surface to the sea. Much is left on the banks of the channel. So currents of thought in any age or time do not carry forward all that is valuable. There are cargoes of flotsam and jetsam that will reward the wreckers along the shore.
II. Religious quickening may result from moral reforms and wise measures of civic rulers.
III. All Divine ordinances, as well as providential experiences, are channels for the joy of the Lord. (Monday Club Sermons.)
Reading the law
Concerning the book, in the law of God, and the giving of the sense to the people, we remark in explanation--
I. The actual speech in which the gospel was first uttered by Jesus and proclaimed by the apostles among the Israelites is here, probably for the first time, publicly put to sacred use. The old Hebrew language in which the law was written had become, when the exile was over, the tongue of the learned. It was unknown to the common people, as that of Spencer and Chaucer is unknown to us. Interpreters were necessary. Ezra knew the need, and provided for it. The Levites gave the sense and caused the people to understand the reading.
II. In this event we behold the rise of the synagogue and of systematic bible study. From the time of Ezra the temple gradually retired into the background, and the synagogue came into prominence. The pulpit and sermons were institutions. The soul was nurtured by Bible study. Less and less did the priests wield power in the regions beyond Jerusalem, and more and more did the congregations or synagogues become like our best modern prayer-meetings, where speech and devotional service are free. When Christianity spread over the world the synagogue was its cradle. Everywhere the apostles found first welcome here and the place and privilege of preaching Christ. In the substitution of prayer for sacrifice, in the triumph of moral over mechanical functions of worship, we see a tremendous advance, and read for our times an inspiring lesson. (W. Elliot Griffis.)
The reading of the law
In this scene are suggested--
I. Some sources of power in preaching.
1. The simple proclamation of the law of God.
2. The statement of Gods work in human history.
3. The earnest utterance of intelligent faith.
II. The conditions for profitably hearing the word of God.
1. An aroused interest.
2. A prayerful spirit.
3. Listening with the resolve to obey.
III. Practical lessons.
1. Love for the law makes noble men.
2. Honouring the law insures the prosperity of the Church. (Monday Club Sermons.)
Ezra expounding the law
I. A large gathering. There are two important advantages connected with a numerous congregation over one that is thinly attended.
1. It gives an opportunity for more extensive usefulness. We grant that there is not a little to encourage even those whose hearers are few, For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them. A sportsman, says Jay, has fired into a flight of birds and not killed one, and he has killed one when he had only one to aim at. That maybe true; but on the other hand, if two anglers went forth with rod and line to spend a day in fishing, it would be naturally expected that the largest number would be caught by him who had secured a pond where fish were abundant, rather than by the other, who had toiled from morning till night in a place where they were scarce.
2. Large congregations possess a peculiar power of stimulating those who have to address them. Probably the man has never yet lived who could long be an orator before a small assembly. Even Cicero could not deliver his famous oration in behalf of the poet Archias, though addressed to a single man, without having all that was learned and great in Rome to listen to him. Those who love the means of grace should do all they can to induce their friends and neighbours to attend.
II. An open-air gathering.
III. A protracted gathering.
IV. An attentive gathering.
V. A devout, earnest, and reverential, gathering. To stand in awe of Gods holy Word, whenever it is read and expounded in our hearing, indicates a right state of mind; and those who are thus influenced are regarded by God with approval and delight (Isa_66:2).
VI. An intelligent and well-instructed gathering. (Expository Outlines.)
The Scriptures related to revivals of religion
Every great revival of religion has had its beginning in this hunger for the Word, and has been permanent and widespread exactly in proportion as it has been rooted in the Scriptures. There is Wickliffe, frightened like the rest of the nation by the plague that had swept from Asia to Europe, and now had burst upon England, sounding in the ears of men like the trump of the judgment day. Lying in his cell poring over the pages of an old Latin Bible, he finds the truth that fills his soul with the sweetness of Gods peace and the music of heaven. At once he began to translate passages of the blessed book into English, and sent them forth by his poor priests, as they were called, to be read as best they might amongst the peasants of England; and so came the dawning of the day of God upon our land. Thus, too, was it that the later reformation had its birth. Erasmus had sent to Cambridge his new translation of the Greek Testament; and a copy of it comes into the hands of Little Bilney, who tells us how that on the first reading of it he chanced on these words, It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all men to be embraced, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. These words, says he, by Gods inward working did so lift up my poor bruised spirit, that the very bones within me leapt for joy and gladness. Then forthwith, he, unable to keep the sweet secret to himself, goes to confess his soul to Father Latimer, and pours out the story of his great discovery, how that being justified by faith he has peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ; and thus Latimer was led into the light, and became the great preacher of the English Reformation. And Luther, more slowly, but no less surely, is led by the study of the Word of God to the great truth which comes back again to him, as from the lips of God, whilst crawling up the steps of the sacred stairs in Rome, The just shall live by faith. It was two hundred years later that a little meeting was being held in Aldersgate Street, London, where one was reading Luthers Preface to the Romans; and amongst the company was one who, as he listens, tells us that he felt his heart strangely warned: I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation, says he, and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine. So was it that John Wesley went forth to claim the whole world for his parish(and uplift the nation by the Word of truth, the gospel of our salvation. (Sunday School.)
Improper hearing of the Scriptures
Suppose a company of people coming, not to an elbow, but to a working goldsmiths shop; one buys a chain, another a diamond ring; this buys a jewel, that a rich piece of plate; and that there should be one amongst them so self-conceited, should take up a coal from off the floor, and handle it so long, till he had all besmeared his fingers, refusing what the shop afforded, so as he might but have that coal along with him. Were not this great absurdity? Yet such and more is the condition of those captious hearers of Gods Word, that while others carry away good and wholesome doctrine, precious promises, such as is food for their souls, they come only to carp and catch at their minister, that so they may more easily traduce him, and brand him with the black coal of infamy and disgrace. (J. Spencer.)
All the Bible wanted
A little blind girl in Cairo, who had read a copy of the Psalms in Arabic, by the aid of Dr. Moons Alphabet for the Blind, sent a message by a gentleman who was coming to England, Please tell Dr. Moon, when you see him, I am so hungry, I want all the Bible. (Great Thoughts.)
Familiarity with the Bible; its danger
There were no listless or indifferent ones among them. They had been so long without the Word of God that their appetites were whetted. We are so familiar with it that possibly we are not as sensitive to its Divineness as we should be. Our familiarity induces a measure of indifference. The settlers of Arizona walled over their fields for years without knowing that untold treasures of precious ore lay just below the surface. Thus we treat our Bibles as we treat other books; but other books are mere pasture-land, while this is a goldfield. (D. J. Burrell, D. D.)
And the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.--
Constant attention
One of Mr. Brownings particular pleasures was to lie beside a hedge, or deep in meadow grasses, or under a tree, and there to give himself up so absolutely to the life of the moment that even the shy birds would alight close by, and sometimes venturesomely poise themselves upon his body. I have heard him say that his faculty of observation would not have appeared despicable to an Iroquois Indian. He saw everything--the bird on the wing, the snail dragging its shell up the wood, bine, the bee adding to his golden treasure, the green fly darting hither and thither like an animated seedling, the spider weaving her gossamer from twig to twig, the woodpecker scrutinising the lichen on the gnarled oak, the passage o! the wind across the grass, the motions and shadows of the clouds. And his own words are Keep but ever looking, whether with the bodys eye or the minds, and you will soon find something to look on! (William Sharp.)
Attention and retention of Divine truth
It is related that Gotthold had for some purpose taken from a cupboard a phial of rose-water, and, after using it, inconsiderately left it unstopped. Observing it some time after, he found that all the strength and sweetness of the perfume had evaporated. Here, thought he, is a striking emblem of a heart fond of the world and open to the impression of outward objects. What good does it do to take such a heart to the house of God, and there fill it with the precious essence of the roses of paradise, which are the truths of Scripture? What good to kindle in a glow of devotion, if we afterward neglect to close the outlet--that is, keeping the Word in an honest and good heart? (Luk_8:15). How vain to hear much, but to retain little, and practise less! How vain to experience within us sacred and holy emotions, unless we are afterward careful to close the heart by careful and diligent reflection and prayer, and so keep it unspotted from the world[ Neglect this duty, and the whole strength and spirit of devotion evaporates and leaves only a lifeless froth behind. (Christian Age.)
And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood.--
The oldest pulpit
We offer three remarks upon this old pulpit.
I. It was occupied by duly qualified men. Ezra the priest and scribe, with thirteen other Levites, occupied this pulpit. They were the recognised teachers of Israel. Who is the duly qualified preacher of the truth? The man who is superior to the people in mental capability, spiritual intelligence, and practical godliness, having the power to convey his thoughts acceptably, and with propriety and force.
II. This old pulpit was attended by an exemplary congregation.
1. It Was a congregation disposed to hear.
2. It was a congregation competent to understand.
3. It was a congregation deeply interested in the discourse.
4. It was a congregation inspired with religious reverence.
III. This old pulpit accomplished the grand end of preaching.
1. It imparted spiritual instruction.
2. It made a deep religious impression.
3. It stimulated a practical godliness. (Homilist.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 9 THE fragmentary nature of the chroniclers work is nowhere…
THE LAW
Neh_8:1-8
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THE fragmentary nature of the chroniclers work is nowhere more apparent than in that portion of it which treats of the events immediately following on the completion of the fortifications of Jerusalem. In Nehemiah 7 we have a continuation of the governors personal narrative of his work, describing how the watch was organised after the walls had been built and the gates set up. {Neh_7:1-3} This is followed by a remark on the sparseness of the city population, {Neh_7:4} which leads Nehemiah to insert the list of Zerubbabels pilgrims that the chronicler subsequently copies out in his account of Zerubbabels expedition. {Neh_7:5-73 Ezra 2} Here the subject is dropped, to be resumed at Nehemiah 11, where the arrangements for increasing the population of Jerusalem are described. Thus we might read right on with a continuous narrative-allowing for the insertion of the genealogical record, the reason for which is obvious-and omit the three intermediate chapters without any perceptible hiatus, but, on the contrary, with a gain in consecutiveness.
These three chapters stand by themselves, and they are devoted to another matter, and that a matter marked by a certain unity and distinctive character of its own. They are written in the third person, by the chronicler himself. In them Ezra suddenly reappears without any introduction, taking the leading place, while Nehemiah recedes into the background, only to be mentioned once or twice, and then as the loyal supporter of the famous scribe. The style has a striking resemblance to that of Ezra, from whom therefore, it has been conjectured, the chronicler may here have derived his materials.
These facts, and minor points that seem to support them, have raised the question whether the section Nehemiah 8-10., is found in its right place; whether it should not have been joined on to the Book of Ezra as a description of what followed immediately after the events there recorded and before the advent of Nehemiah to Jerusalem. Ezra brought the book of The Law with him from Babylon. It would be most reasonable to suppose that he would seize the first opportunity for making it known. Accordingly we find that the corresponding section in 1 Esdras is in this position. {RAPC 1 Esdras 9:37-55} Nevertheless it is now generally agreed that the three chapters as they stand in the Book of Nehemiah are in their true chronological position. Twice Nehemiah himself appears in the course of the narrative they contain. He is associated with Ezra and the Levites in teaching The Law, {Neh_8:9} and his name stands first in the list of the covenanters. {Neh_10:1} The admission of these facts is only avoided in 1 Esdras by an alteration of the text. If we were to suppose that the existence of the name in our narrative is the result of an interpolation by a later hand, it would be difficult to account for this, and it would be still more difficult to discover why the chronicler should introduce confusion into his narrative by an aimless misplacement of it. His methods of procedure are sometimes curious, it must be admitted, and that we met with a misplaced section in an earlier chapter cannot be reasonably questioned. {Ezr_4:7-23} But the motive which probably prompted that peculiar arrangement does not apply here. In the present case it would result in nothing but confusion.
The question is of far more than literary interest. The time when The Law was first made known to the people in its entirety is a landmark of the first importance for the History of Israel. There is a profound significance in the fact that though Ezra had long been a diligent student and a careful, loving scribe, though he had carried up the precious roll to Jerusalem, and though he had been in great power and influence in the city, he had not found a fitting opportunity for revealing his secret to his people before all his reforming efforts were arrested, and the city and its inhabitants trampled under foot by their envious neighbours. Then came Nehemiahs reconstruction. Still the consideration of The Law remained in abeyance. While Jerusalem was an armed camp, and while the citizens were toiling at the walls or mounting guard by turn, there was no opportunity for a careful attention to the sacred document. All this time Ezra was out of sight, and his name not once mentioned. Yet he was far too brilliant a star to have been eclipsed even by the rising of Nehemiah. We can only account for the sudden and absolute vanishing of the greatest figure of the age by supposing that he had retired from the scene, perhaps gone back to Babylon alone with his grief and disappointment. Those were not days for the scholars mission. But now, with the return of some amount of security and its accompanying leisure, Ezra emerges again, and immediately he is accorded the front place and Nehemiah-the "Saviour of Society"-modestly assumes the attitude of his disciple. A higher tribute to the exalted position tacitly allowed to the scribe, or a finer proof of the unselfish humility of the young statesman, cannot be imagined. Though at the height of his power, having frustrated the many evil designs of his enemies and completed his stupendous task of fortifying the city of his fathers in spite of the most vexatious difficulties, the successful patriot is not in the least degree flushed with victory. In the quietest manner possible he steps aside and yields the first place to the recluse, the student, the writer, the teacher. This is a sign of the importance that ideas will assume in the new age. The man of action gives place to the man of thought. Still more is it a hint of the coming ecclesiasticism of the new Jewish order. As the civil ruler thus takes a lower ground in the presence of the religious leader, we seem to be anticipating those days of the triumph of the Church when a king would stand like a groom to hold the horse of a pope. And yet this is not officially arranged. It is not formally conceded on the one side, nor is it formally demanded on the other side. The situation may be rather compared with that of Savonarola in Florence when by sheer moral force he overtopped the power of the Medici, or that of Calvin at Geneva when the municipal council willingly yielded to the commanding spirit of the minister of religion because it recognised the supremacy of religion.
In such a condition of affairs the city was ripe for the public exposition of The Law. But even then Ezra only published it after having been requested to do so by the people. We cannot assign this delay of his to any reluctance to let his fellow countrymen know the law which he had long loved and studied in private. We may rather conclude that he perceived the utter inutility of any attempt to thrust it upon inattentive hearers-nay, the positive mischievousness of such a proceeding. This would approach the folly described by our Lord when He warned His disciples against casting pearls before swine. Very much of the popular indifference to the Bible among large sections of the population today must be laid at the doors of those unwise zealots who have dinned the mere letter of it into the ears of unwilling auditors. The conduct of Ezra shows that, with all his reverence for The Law, the Great Scribe did not consider that it was to be imposed, like a civil code, by magisterial authority. The decree of Artaxerxes had authorised him to enforce it in this way on every Jew west of the Euphrates. {Ezr_7:25-26} But either the unsettled state of the country or the wisdom of Ezra had not permitted the application of the power thus conferred. The Law was to be voluntarily adopted. It was to be received, as all true religion must be received, in living faith, with the acquiescence of the conscience, judgment, and will of those who acknowledged its obligations.
The occasion for such a reception of it was found when the Jews were freed from the toil and anxiety that accompanied the building of their city walls. The chronicler says that this was in the seventh month, but he does not give the year. Considering the abrupt way in which he has introduced the section about the reading of The Law, we cannot be certain in what year this took place. If we may venture to take the narrative continuously, in connection with Nehemiahs story in the previous chapters, we shall get this occurrence within a week after the completion of the fortifications. That was on "the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul" {Neh_6:15} - i.e., the sixth month. The reading began on "the first day of the seventh month." {Neh_8:2} That is to say, on this supposition, it followed immediately on the first opportunity of leisure. Then the time was specially appropriate, for it was the day of the Feast of Trumpets, which was observed as a public holiday and an occasion for an assembly-"a holy convocation." {Lev_23:24} On this day the citizens met in a favourite spot, the open space just inside the Water Gate, at the east end of the city, close to the temple, and now part of the Haram, or sacred enclosure. They were unanimous in their desire to have no more delay before hearing the law which Ezra had brought up to Jerusalem as much as thirteen years before. Why were they all on a sudden thus eager, after so long a period of indifference? Was it that the success of Nehemiahs work had given them a new hope and confidence, a new idea, indeed? They now saw the compact unity of Jerusalem established. Here was the seal and centre of their separateness. Accepting this as an accomplished fact, the Jews were ready and even anxious to know that sacred law in which their distinction from other people and their consecration to Jehovah were set forth.
Not less striking is the manner in which Ezra met this welcome request of the Jews. The scene which follows is unique in history-the Great Scribe with the precious roll in his hand standing on a temporary wooden platform so that he may be seen by everybody in the vast crowd-seven Levites supporting him on either side-other select Levites going about among the people after each section of The Law has been read in order to explain it to separate groups of the assembly-the motley gathering comprising the bulk of the citizens, not men only but women also, for the brutal Mohammedan exclusiveness that confines religious knowledge to one sex was not anticipated by the ancient Jews, not adults only, but children also, "those that could understand," for The Law is for the simplest minds, the religion of Israel is to be popular and domestic-the whole of this multitude assembling in the cool, fresh morning when the first level rays of the sun smite the city walls from over the Mount of Olives, and standing reverently hour after hour, till the hot autumn noon puts an end to the lengthy meeting.
In all this the fact which comes out most prominently, accentuated by every detail of the arrangements, is the popularisation of The Law. Its multiplex precepts were not only recited in the hearing of men, women, and children, they were carefully expounded to the people. Hitherto it had been a matter of private study among learned men, its early development had been confined to a small group of faithful believers in Jehovah, its customary practices had been privately elaborated through the ages almost like the mysteries of a secret cult, and therefore its origin had been buried in hopeless obscurity. So it was like the priestly ritual of heathenism. The priest of Eleusis guarded his secrets from all but those who were favoured by being solemnly initiated into them. Now this unwholesome condition was to cease. The most sacred rites were to be expounded to all the people. Ezra knew that the only worship God would accept must be offered with the mind and the heart. Moreover, The Law concerned the actions of the people themselves, their own minute observance of purifications and careful avoidance of defilements, their own offerings and festivals. No priestly performances could avail as a substitute for these popular religious observances.
Yet much of The Law was occupied with directions concerning the functions of the priests and the sacrificial ritual. By acquainting the laity with these directions, Ezra and his helpers were doing their best to fortify the nation against the tyranny of sacerdotalism. The Levites, who at this time were probably still sore at the thought of their degradation and jealous of the favoured line of Zadok, would naturally fall in with such a policy. It was the more remarkable because the new theocracy was just now coming into power. Here would be a powerful protection against the abuse of its privileges by the hierarchy. Priests, all the world over, have made capital out of their exclusive knowledge of the ritual of religion. They have jealously guarded their secrets from the uninitiated multitude, so as to make themselves necessary to anxious worshippers who dreaded to give offence to their gods or to fail in their sacrifices through ignorance of the prescribed methods. By committing the knowledge of The Law to the people, Ezra protected the Jews against this abuse. Everything was to be above board, in broad daylight, and the degradation of ignorant worship was not to be encouraged, much as a corrupt priesthood in later times might desire it. An indirect consequence of this publication of The Law with the careful instruction of the people in its contents was that the element of knowledge took a more exalted position in religion. It is not the magical priest, it is the logical scribe who really leads the people now. Ideas will mean more than in the old days of obscure ritual. There is an end to the "dim religious light." Henceforth Torah instruction is to be the most fundamental ground of faith.
It is important that we should see clearly what was contained in this roll of The Law out of which Ezra read to the citizens of Jerusalem. The distress with which its contents were received would lead us to suppose that the grave minatory passages of Deuteronomy were especially prominent in the reading. We cannot gather from the present scene any further indications of the subjects brought before the Jews. But from other parts of the Book of Nehemiah we can learn for certain that the whole of the Pentateuch was now introduced to the people. If it was not all read out of the ecclesia, it was all in the hands of Ezra, and its several parts were made known from time to time as occasion required. First, we may infer that in addition to Deuteronomy Ezras law contained the ancient Jehovistic narrative, because the treatment of mixed marriages {Neh_10:30} refers to the contents of this portion of the Pentateuch. {Exo_34:16} Secondly, we may see that it included "The Law of Holiness," because the regulations concerning the sabbatic year {Neh_10:31} are copied from that collection of rules about defilement and consecration. {Lev_25:2-7} Thirdly, we may be equally sure that it did not lack "The Priestly Code"-the elaborate system of ritual which occupies the greater part of Numbers and Leviticus-because the law of the first-fruits {Neh_10:35-39} is taken from that source. (Lev_27:30; Num_15:20 ff; Num_18:11-32) Here, then, we find allusions to the principal constituent elements of the Pentateuch scattered over the brief Book of Nehemiah. It is clear, therefore, that the great accretion of customs and teachings, which only reached completion after the close of the captivity, was the treasure Ezra now introduced to his people. Henceforth nothing less can be understood when the title "The Law" is used. From this time obedience to the Torah will involve subjection to the whole system of priestly and sacrificial regulations, to all the rules of cleanness and consecration and sacrifice contained in the Pentateuch.
A more difficult point to be determined is, how far this Pentateuch was really a new thing when it was introduced by Ezra. Here we must separate two very different questions. If they had always been kept apart, much confusion would have been avoided. The first is the question of the novelty of The Law to the Jews. There is little difficulty in answering this question. The very process of reading The Law and explaining it goes on the assumption that it is not known. The people receive it as something strange and startling. Moreover, this scene of the revelation of The Law to Israel is entirely in harmony with the previous history of the nation. Whenever The Law was shaped as we now know it, it is clear that it was not practised in its present form by the Jews before Ezras day. We have no contemporary evidence of the use of it in the earlier period. We have clear evidence that conduct contrary to many of its precepts was carried on with impunity, and even encouraged by prophets and religious leaders without any protest from priests or scribes. The complete law is new to Israel. But there is a second question-viz., how far was this law new in itself? Nobody can suppose that it was an absolutely novel creation of the exile, with no roots in the past. Their repeated references to Moses show that its supporters relegated its origin to a dim antiquity, and we should belie all we know of their character if we did not allow that they were acting in good faith. But we have no evidence that The Law had been completed, codified, and written out in full before the time of Ezra. In antiquity, when writing was economised and memory cultivated to a degree of accuracy that seems to us almost miraculous, it would be possible to hand down a considerable system of ritual or of jurisprudence by tradition. Even this stupendous act of memory would not exceed that of the rhapsodists who preserved and transmitted the unwritten Iliad. But we are not driven to such an extreme view. We do not know how much of The Law may have been committed to writing in earlier ages. Some of it was, certainly. It bears evidence of its history in the several strata of which it is composed, and which must have been deposited successively. Deuteronomy, in its essence and original form, was certainly known before the captivity. So were the Jehovistic narrative and the Law of the Covenant. The only question as regards Ezras day turns on the novelty of the Priestly Code, with the Law of Holiness, and the final editing and redaction of the whole. This is adumbrated in Ezekiel and the degradation of the Levites, who are identified with the priests in Deuteronomy, but set in a lower rank in Leviticus, assigned to its historical occasion. Here, then, we see the latest part of Ezras law in the making. It was not created by the scribe. It was formed out of traditional usages of the priests, modified by recent directions from a prophet. The origin of these usages was lost in antiquity, and therefore it was natural to attribute them to Moses, the great founder of the nation. We cannot even affirm that Ezra carried out the last redaction of The Law with his own hand, that he codified the traditional usages, the "Common Law" of Israel. What we know is that he published this law. That he also edited it is an inference drawn from his intimate connection with the work as student and scribe, add supported by the current of later traditions. But while this is possible, what is indubitable is that to Ezra is due the glory of promulgating the law and making it pass into the life of the nation. Henceforth Judaism is legalism. We know this in its imperfection and its difference from the spiritual faith of Christ. To the contemporaries of Ezra it indicated a stage of progress-knowledge in place of superstitious bondage to the priesthood, conscientious obedience to ordinances instituted for the public welfare instead of careless indifference or obstinate self-will. Therefore its appearance marked a forward step in the course of Divine revelation.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Neh_8:1. Street] Rather “square.” An open place at the…
EXPLANATORY NOTES.]
Neh_8:1. Street] Rather “square.” An open place at the gate of Oriental cities where trials were held and wares set forth for sale.—Gesenius. The water gate] Sec addenda to chap. 3. They spake unto Ezra] “The assembled people. This reading, then, was desired by the assembly. The motive for this request is to be found in the desire of the congregation to keep the new moon of the seventh month as a feast of thanksgiving for the gracious assistance they had received from the Lord during the building of the wall, and through which it had been speedily and successfully completed, in spite of the attempts of their enemies to obstruct the work. This feeling of thankfulness impelled them to the hearing of the word of God for the purpose of making his law the rule of their life.”—Keil. Ezra the scribe] “In the next verse it is Ezra the priest. This is the first mention of Ezra in the book of Nehemiah. He had come to Jerusalem thirteen years previously. He had forced the Jews to separate from their heathen wives, and had then probably returned to Persia. As we do not meet with his name in Nehemiah till now, it is probable he followed Nehemiah to Judæa to assist him in another movement of reform.”—Crosby.
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Neh_8:2. All that could hear with understanding] Men, women, and elder children. The first day of the seventh month] Distinguished above the other new moon’s of the year as the feast of trumpets, and celebrated as a specially sacred festival (Lev_23:23-25; Num_29:1-6).
Neh_8:3. From the morning] “From the light till mid-day.” About six hours.
Neh_8:4. Pulpit] A very high platform. Beside him stood Mattithiah, &c.] Probably priest. “Perhaps Urijah is the father of the Meremoth of Neh_3:4; Neh_3:21; Maaseiah, the father of the Azariah of Neh_3:23; Pedaiah, the individual named Neh_3:21; the Azariah to be inserted, according to 1 Esdras, the same named Neh_3:23; a Meshullam occurs, Neh_3:4; Neh_3:6; and a Malchiah, Neh_3:11; Neh_3:14; Neh_3:31.”—Bertheau.
Neh_8:6. Ezra blessed the Lord] Perhaps with a sentence of thanksgiving, as David did (1Ch_29:10).
Neh_8:7. Also Jeshua, &c. caused the people to understand] “To instruct by expounding.”—Keil.
Neh_8:8. So they read, &c.] The Rabbis understand it to be a paraphrase in the Chaldee language for those who were not acquainted with the ancient Hebrew. Others, exposition and application. “Perhaps Ezra first read a section of the law, and the Levites then expounded to the people the portion just read; the only point still doubtful being whether the Levites expounded in succession, or whether they all did this at the same time to different groups of people.”—Keil.
Neh_8:10. Send portions] See Deu_16:11-12; Est_9:19; Est_9:22; Est_9:14-15.] The law concerning the feast of the tabernacles, of which the essentials are here communicated, is found Lev_23:39-43.
Neh_8:17. Since the days of Jeshua.… had not the children of Israel done so] The emphasis is on so. The feast of tabernacles had often been observed, but not in such a way as on this occasion, when the whole community dwelt in booths.
Neh_8:18. Also day by day] The law enjoined such a public reading once in seven years at the feast of tabernacles (Deu_31:10-11).
HOMILETICAL CONTENTS OF CHAPTER 8
Neh_8:4-8. The Church’s Common Service a Primitive and Reasonable Service.
Neh_8:5-6. Effect of Ezra’s Preaching.
Neh_8:9. Ezra Reading the Law.
Neh_8:10. The Christian in his Spiritual Joys.
Neh_8:10. The Joy of the Lord.
Neh_8:10. The Joy of the Lord is our Strength.
Neh_8:10. On Religious Joy, as giving Strength and Support to Virtue.
Neh_8:18. Daily Bible Reading.
THE CHURCH’S COMMON SERVICE A PRIMITIVE AND REASONABLE SERVICE
Neh_8:4-8. And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood, &c.
WE might search long among the different histories of the world before we should find a scene more impressive and affecting than that which is here represented. A whole people recently re-established by God’s mercy in their own country, from which for their sins they had been long banished; assembled together to hear the solemn reading and exposition of their Divinely-inspired law, now about to be revived amongst them; and bowing down in lowly adoration of the Lord, the great God, from whom they had received it. So arduous and laborious an enterprise as the resettling of a people in full possession of their own land, and in the complete enjoyment of their several religious, social, and domestic relations, was necessarily a work of time. Many obstacles were raised to it by the malicious opposition of enemies from without, and many interruptions occurred from a want of spirit and energy within. The work gradually proceeded. Under the directions of Zerubbabel, then of Ezra, and lastly Nehemiah, the people had the satisfaction of contributing to the restoration of their dwellings, of their altars, of their temple, and finally of the gates and walls of their city. But another want remained to be supplied. The knowledge of their sacred Scriptures had been almost totally lost among the Jews. Together, therefore, with anxiety and diligence in restoring their material buildings, Ezra, who is recorded to have been “a ready scribe in the law of Moses,” combined an equal degree of care and industry in restoring the Holy Scriptures.
I. First, then, the reading of the Holy Scriptures thus publicly for the instruction of the people became, from the time of Ezra, a constant practice in the Jewish synagogues. The practice was continued in our Saviour’s days, and those of his apostles. “Moses of old time,” &c. (Act_15:21). And together with the reading of Moses was united that of the prophets (Act_13:15; Act_13:27). The propriety of this practice might be inferred from our Lord’s custom (Luk_4:16). The utility of the practice may be inferred from the fact, that to this practice has been attributed the preservation of the Jewish people from the idolatrous usages of the neighbouring nations. The practice thus observed in the Jewish Church was continued in the Early Christian. Apparently recognized by St. Paul (1Th_5:27; Col_4:16). “On the day” (saith Justin Martyr) “which is called Sunday there is an assembly of all those who live either in the cities or in the country, and those things which are written of or by the apostles, and the writings of the prophets, are read as long as time will permit.” Upon this primitive practice is founded that of our apostolical Church. To the Scriptures of the Old Testament are added those of the New. The types of the law are accompanied with the antitypes of the gospel. The promises of the prophets are combined with the historical completion of them recorded by the apostles. Thus by means of the lessons, gospels, and epistles which are read in our churches much benefit accrues to the people. Many persons cannot read the Scriptures themselves. Many who can, will not or do not read them. But no small number of these persons is drawn together to attend the public service of the congregation. And although they may not have the alacrity of the people spoken of here, who “gathered themselves together as one man,” and “spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses,” yet, when the book of God is brought, they can hardly fail of hearing some portion of its contents, and acquiring some knowledge of the truths which it reveals or records, and the duties which it teaches and inculcates. Not that any man who is able to attain more knowledge of the Scriptures ought to be contented with this. He ought not only to hear, but read, search, search daily—so to study the Holy Scriptures as to know them (Joh_5:39; Act_17:11; 2Ti_3:15).
II. The reading of the law was the express object of the assembly. The manner, however, in which this business was undertaken is well worthy of our regard. “And Ezra opened,” &c. (Neh_8:5-6). Here is the union which subsists between the reading of the Scriptures to the people and the offering of adoration and thanksgiving to Almighty God. All public service implies this. We assemble and meet together to render thanks to God for the great benefits that we have received at his hands. The union between the devotions of the priest and the congregation. “Amen.” Liturgical responses. In those forms of prayer which the Church hath provided we inherit the most valuable examples of Christian piety and devotion, a rich treasury of evangelical doctrine, and perpetual monuments and memorials of practical holiness.
III. Together with the reading of the law and the accompanying benedictions and adoration, a third service was combined, namely, that of expounding the law to the people. “So they read,” &c. (Neh_8:8). One cause of difficulty may have been the change of language between the law as originally written by Moses and as now recited by Ezra. A thousand years had elapsed. Religious, political, civil, and domestic revolutions had occurred. From whatever cause, the fact is expressly stated. “The Levites caused the people to understand the law,” &c. Practice continued in the service of the synagogue. Sanctioned by the presence and practice of our Lord and his apostles. “When the reader hath done” (continues Justin Martyr), “he that presides in the assembly admonishes and exhorts us to put those good things which we have heard in practice. And afterwards we rise up with one consent, and send up our prayers to God.” The sermon—the exposition and application of Scriptural truth.
Application.
1. Give a reverential attention to the word of God, as read in the public services of the congregation. Grateful for the mercies of God, and sensible withal of their own manifold infirmities and acts of disobedience, these Jews received the word with lowly expressions of thankfulness, and tokens of humiliation and repentance.
2. With reverential attention to the Holy Scriptures unite a constant and serious participation in the devotions of the Church. “All the people answered, Amen, and worshipped.” If you would derive benefit from God’s word, you must derive it through the medium of his grace. If you would enjoy his grace, you must solicit it by prayer.
3. Give attendance to those who are over you in the Lord, and who watch for your souls as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy. It is no abridgment of your Christian liberty to give heed to those who bear God’s commission to instruct you. We do not pretend to have dominion over your faith, but we would gladly be helpers of your joy. Let your feet habitually stand within the gates of the temple of God.—Bishop Mant, abridged.
EFFECT OF EZRA’S PREACHING
Neh_8:5-6. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, &c.
Though in the time of our Lord it was the custom to read the law of God in the synagogues, it does not appear to have been any regular part of the priest’s office to preach unto the people. On some occasions we find persons sent through the land of Israel to make known the law; and here we behold Ezra on a pulpit of wood elevated above the people, and surrounded by an immense congregation, who had come together on purpose to hear the word of God expounded to them. Since the introduction of Christianity, the preaching of the gospel to men has been the particular office assigned to men who are set apart for that purpose; and though we must chiefly look to the apostles as our examples, and to the effects of their ministrations as the pattern of what we may expect to see amongst our auditors, yet may we profitably look back to the time of Ezra to learn from him and his ministry.
I. In what manner the word of God should be dispensed. The mode adopted by Ezra, namely, the expounding of Scripture, we conceive to be peculiarly worthy of imitation. It is indeed but little practised at the present day, though at the time of the Reformation it generally obtained; and it has very great advantages above the plan which has superseded it.
1. It leads the people into a better acquaintance with the Scriptures. The Scriptures, except as a book for children, are but little read; persons are discouraged from perusing them by an idea that they are unintelligible to common capacities. But a very little explanation would render them, for the most part, easy to be understood by all. And what an advantage would this be! The people studying the word of God at home would be abundantly better qualified to understand it when read in public; and the explanations given to them in public would enable them to study it to better purpose at home; whereas the present plan of taking only a small passage for a motto, or merely as a groundwork for some general observations, leads to an extreme neglect of the Holy Scriptures, and to a consequent ignorance of them among all classes of the community.
2. It brings every part of the sacred records into view. There are some who bring forward the doctrinal part of Scripture exclusively, and leave the practical part entirely out of sight; there are others who insist only on the practical parts, and leave out the doctrinal. There are some also to whom many of the doctrines contained in the sacred volume are perfectly hateful, and who never in all their lives so much as mentioned the doctrines of predestination and election but to explain them away, and to abuse the persons who maintained them. But by expounding whole books of Scripture every doctrine must be noticed in its turn, and the connection between them and our practice must be pointed out. True it is that this mode of preaching would not altogether exclude false doctrine; but it would render the establishment of errors more difficult, because the hearers would be able to judge, in some good measure, how far the true and legitimate sense of Scripture was given, and how far it was perverted. The benefit of this, therefore, cannot be too highly appreciated.
3. It brings home truth, to the conscience with more authority. The word of man, though true, has little weight in comparison of the word of God; “that is quick and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword.” It is inconceivable what advantage a preacher has when he can say, “Thus saith THE LORD;” then every doctrine demands the obedience of faith, and every precept the obedience of righteousness. When told that the word which is delivered to them will judge them at the last day, the people will not dare to trifle with it, as they will with the declarations of fallible men. Were this matter more attentively considered, we have no doubt but that more frequent appeals would be made to Scripture in our public harangues, and that the obsolete method of expounding Scripture would have at least some measure of that attention which it deserves. But, in considering the word of God as explained to the people of Jerusalem, we are more particularly led to notice—
II. In what manner it should be heard. Truly admirable was the conduct of the people on this occasion. Observe—
1. Their reverential awe. When Ezra opened the book of God, all the people, in token of their reverence, stood up; and when he blessed God for giving them so rich a treasure, they “all with uplifted hands cried, Amen, Amen;” yea, they bowed their heads also, “and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.” This was a deportment which became sinners in the presence of their God; they did not look to the creature, but to God, whose voice they heard, and whose authority they acknowledged, in every word that was spoken. What a contrast does this form with the manner in which the word of God is heard amongst us! How rarely do we find persons duly impressed with a sense of their obligation to God for giving them a revelation of his will! How rarely do men at this day look through the preacher unto God, and hear God speaking to them by the voice of his servants! Even religious people are far from attending the ministration of the word in the spirit and temper that they ought; curiosity, fondness for novelties, and attachment to some particular preacher too often supply the place of those better feelings by which men ought to be actuated in their attendance on the preached gospel. To “stand in awe of God’s word,” and “to tremble at it,” are far more suitable emotions than those which we usually see around us. The Lord grant that our duty in this respect may be more justly estimated, and more generally performed.
2. Their devout affections. “When the people heard the words of the law,” they all wept, as feeling that they had sinned greatly against it (Neh_8:9). And when they were reminded that, as the design of the present feast was to bring to their view the tender mercies of their God, and to encourage them to expect all manner of blessings at his hands, they ought rather to rejoice (Neh_8:10-11), they did rejoice, insomuch that “there was very great gladness” amongst them; and they rejoiced especially on this account, that “they had understood the words that had been declared unto them” (Neh_8:12). Now it is in this way that we should hear the word delivered to us. When it shows us our sins, we should weep, as it were, in dust and ashes; and when it sets forth the exceeding great and precious promises of the gospel, we should rejoice, yea, “rejoice with joy unspeakable.” We should have our hearts rightly attuned, so that we should never want a string to vibrate to every touch of God’s blessed word. But may it not be said to the generality in the present day, “We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented”? Yes; the gospel has little more power over the affections of men than if it were “a cunningly devised fable.” But we entreat you to consider, that if the law when expounded was so powerful, much more should the gospel be, since “it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”
3. Their unreserved obedience. No sooner was it discovered that an ordinance appointed by Moses had been neglected, than they hastened to observe it, according to the strict letter of the law, and actually did observe it with greater fidelity than it had ever been observed even from the days of Joshua to that present hour (Neh_8:13-18). This showed that the impression made on their affections was deep and spiritual. And it is in this way that we also must improve the ministration of the word. If we attend to the gospel as we ought to do, we shall find out many things which we have neglected, and many that we have done amiss; yea, many things which are not generally noticed even among the godly will occur to our minds, and show us the defectiveness not of our obedience only, but of the obedience of the best of men. Let us have our minds then open to conviction, and attentive to every commandment of our God. Nor let us be satisfied with paying only customary attention to his revealed will, but let us aspire after higher degrees of purity, and a more perfect conformity to the Divine image. This will serve as the best test of our sincerity, and it will show that neither have you heard in vain nor we dispensed his word in vain.—Simeon.
EZRA READING THE LAW
Neh_8:9. And Nehemiah, which is the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the Lord your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law.
Ezra and Nehemiah amongst the neglected books of the Bible. Contain no specific prophecies of our Saviour’s days nor of the nature of his kingdom. They do not immediately connect themselves with the consideration of our Saviour’s ministry, and therefore we are tempted to pass them by. Yet, not withstanding, they form part of “the whole counsel of God.” Their subject-matter. The character of Nehemiah shows how Divine grace, whilst it sustains the lowly, is still the best safeguard to protect those who stand in the high places of the earth. The full and perfect patriotism of Nehemiah’s character. Describe the bright contrast which it presents to the base and selfish purposes which are so often sheltered beneath that honourable name.
The people of Jerusalem mourning when they heard the words of the law. The law had not been read to the Jewish people since their return from Babylon. A large stage was erected in the most spacious street of the city, near to the water-gate. Ezra ascended to it with thirteen others of the principal elders. Ezra read the law in the Hebrew text, the Levites translated it into Chaldee. This was repeated daily during the entire festival, till they had gone through the whole law.
Observe the impression made upon the people. Their eyes were opened to the clear knowledge of those things which they had before seen only through the partial instruction of teachers in the land of captivity. Their hearts were touched with the consciousness of the great mercies which the Lord their God had wrought for them, and upon the sad return which the history of their own sins and the sins of their fathers presented. They were overwhelmed with sorrow.
The reading of the law revealed the spectacle of Jehovah’s creative glory, Jehovah’s avenging power, Jehovah’s redeeming mercy. Patriarch, prophet, and apostle had been overwhelmed with awe at this spectacle. [Story of the past rehearsed again.] Is not this day holy unto the Lord our God? Are we not assembled to hear the words of his revealed will? And do not the characters of man’s perverseness and rebellion which that revelation depicts stand out in as strong and humiliating contrast with the mercy of God now, as they did in the day of Jerusalem’s redemption from captivity? Can we listen to the counsels of God’s gracious providence unmoved? Our revelation fuller. Our redemption from a mightier oppressor. We are no longer under the law, but the gospel. Let us take heed, however, to ourselves that in so confessing that truth of Christ which has made us free we mar not the confession by abusing the freedom. We are freed from the law as a covenant; but we are not freed from the law as a rule. In preaching the law let us not put forth its terrors, in order that men may be affrighted or despair; but that they may be startled from the slumber of a false security, and fly for refuge unto Christ. “To preach the law alone” (saith Bishop Reynolds) “by itself we confess is to pervert the use of it; neither have we any power or commission so to do, for we have our power for edification, and not for destruction. It was published as an appendant to the gospel, and so must it be preached; it was published in the hand of a Mediator, and it must be preached in the hand of a Mediator; it was published evangelically, and it must be so preached. We have commission to preach nothing but Christ, and life in him; and therefore we never preach the law but with reverence and manuduction to him.”—Rev. J. S. M. Anderson, M. A., abridged.
THE CHRISTIAN IN HIS SPIRITUAL JOYS
Neh_8:10. Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
A sacred festival. “Go your way.” They were to return home and refresh themselves. He does not forbid the delicacies which they had provided. Eat the fat, and drink the sweet. But all this was to be accompanied with two things. First, liberality towards the destitute. “Send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared.” Law of Moses, gospel of Jesus inculcate this. Secondly, with cheerfulness. “Neither be ye sorry.” Joy becomes a feast. And this joy, says Nehemiah, is as important as it is becoming; for the joy of the Lord is your strength. It will strengthen your bodily frame, and, what is more, it will renew the strength of your souls. Let us contemplate the Christian—I. In the Divinity, and, II. In the utility of his joy.
I. The Divinity of it. It is the joy of the Lord. So it is called by the Judge of all in his address at the last day. “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Now this joy enters the Christian, and as he is so contracted a vessel, he cannot contain much; but THEN he will enter the joy, and he will find it a boundless ocean. It is the joy of the Lord.
1. His in the authority that binds it upon us as a duty. “Rejoice evermore.” “Rejoice in the Lord always.” “Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous.”
2. His in the assurance which holds it forth as a privilege. “The redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy.” “Blessed are the people that know the joyful sound; in thy name shall they rejoice.”
3. His in the resemblance it bears to his own. Christians are “partakers of the Divine nature.” Do we feel the joy of God’s salvation? He feels it too; and this salvation is called “the pleasure of the Lord.”
4. His in the subject. The material of it, so to speak, is found in him, and in him alone. “Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.” With him is the fountain of life. We are accepted in the beloved. “I will go in the strength of the Lord God.” All his relations are mine. He is my Physician, my Friend, my Shepherd, my Father. All his perfections are mine—his wisdom, his power, his mercy, and his truth. All the dispensations of his providence, all the treasures of his word are mine. All his grace, all his glory is mine.
5. His, finally, in the production. There may be reasons for rejoicing when yet no joy is experienced; for the mourner may be unable to lay hold of them, and appropriate them to his own use. David therefore says, “Thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.” And he prays, “Rejoice the soul of thy servant.” And he acknowledges, “Thou hast put gladness in my heart.”
II. The utility of this joy. It is efficacious because Divine. To know the force of an argument, we apply it. To know the power of an implement, we make trial of it. To ascertain the strength of a man, we compare him with others, we task him with some exertion, we judge by the difficulty of the work which he achieves, and especially by the might of opposition which he overcomes. Let us examine this joy. Let us bring it to six tests, some of them very severe ones.
1. Let us review the Christian in his profession of religion. The joy of the Lord is the very strength of this profession. For in proportion as a man possesses it, he feels satisfied with his portion, he glories in his choice, he is ready to avow it. “I am not ashamed; I know whom I have believed.” “I will speak of thy testimonies.” Let us observe the Christian—
2. In his concern to recommend religion to others. Godliness must begin at home, but it can never end here. “The joy of the Lord gives us confidence in our addresses. We speak not from conjecture, or opinion, but experience. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you.” This also adds conviction and force to our testimony and commendation. Men see what our religion has done for us, and what it can do for them also. Will anything recommend a master more than the cheerfulness of his servants?
3. Let us view the Christian in the discharge of his duties. These are numerous, and extensive, and difficult. Fear chills, despondency unnerves, sorrow depresses. But hope is encouragement: joy inspires, excites, elevates. It renders our work our privilege. We not only have life, but have it more abundantly. “I will run in the way of thy commandments when thou shalt have enlarged my heart.”
4. Let us view the Christian in his perils. Perpetually surrounded with temptations in the world. These flatter him, and would entice him away from God. These he is to resist, steadfast in the faith. How? By constraints? By threatenings? These may indeed induce him actually to refuse the offers and allurements, but not in affection. The joy of the Lord is his strength; and without this a man will only leave the world as Lot’s wife left Sodom—she left it, but her heart was still in the place. Prohibition, so far from killing desire, has a tendency to increase it. Having found the pure spring, the Christian no longer kneels to the filthy puddle. Having tasted the grapes of Eshcol, he longs no more for the leeks, and garlic, and onions of Egypt. The palace makes him forget the dung-hill. The only effectual way of separating the heart from the world is to subdue the sense of an inferior good by the enjoyment of a greater.
5. We shall see that the joy of the Lord is his strength if we view the Christian in his sufferings. Afflictions try religious principle.
6. This joy of the Lord is the Christian’s strength in death. What but this can be his support then? God’s comforts delight his soul. What says our subject in a way of practical improvement?
1. Inquire what your joy is.
2. See how greatly religion is libelled.
3. What an inducement is here to seek the Lord and his strength, to seek his face evermore.
4. Your religion is to be suspected if you are habitually destitute of joy.
5. Let this joy be a peculiar object of attention to every Christian. Let him never forget that it is his strength.
6. Some know the worth of this joy from the want rather than from the experience. Seek, immediately and earnestly, an increase of it.—Jay, abridged.
THE JOY OF THE LORD
Neh_8:10. The joy of the Lord is your strength
A man does not take leave of happiness by knowing Christ. The believer has a sick-bed joy, a death-bed joy—a joy that shall depart with him out of this world, go with him to the judgment, live with him through eternity.
I. The nature of the true believer’s joy. “The joy of the Lord”—a description.
1. The Lord is its AUTHOR. He creates it and establishes it in the hearts of his people. The joy of true believers is no mere animal sensation. Not “good spirits.” Not a natural feeling, but a spiritual gift. St. Paul enumerates it among “the fruits of the Spirit,” calls it “joy of the Holy Ghost” (1Th_1:6).
2. The Lord is the SUBJECT of this joy. His people not only rejoice by him, but they rejoice in him—they “joy in the God of their salvation. His grace, his gifts, his glories, his perfections constitute the subject-matter of their joy.” In his presence is “their fulness of joy.” He is the Sun of their souls. And why? What is there belonging to their Lord to give occasion, for this joy?
(1) The freeness of his great salvation. Here is a daily, hourly song for the believer.
(2) The imputation of his justifying righteousness.
(3) The Giver of their present privileges, and the Preparer of their future glories.
II. The effects of this joy. “Your strength.”
1. Spiritual joy strengthens a man for DUTY.
2. Spiritual joy strengthens a man for SUFFERING.
Application.
1. To the confident professor.
2. To the desponding penitent.—Roberts’s Village Sermons.
THE JOY OF THE LORD IS OUR STRENGTH
Neh_8:10. The joy of the Lord is your strength
The preaching of God’s word is a very ancient ordinance. In the context we have a description of the manner in which Nehemiah conducted it. These means of instruction were useful in that day. Nor are they less necessary in every place and age. People need not only reproof for what is wrong, but direction in what is right. The Jews wept bitterly at the hearing of the law; but Nehemiah corrected their sorrow as ill-timed, and exhorted them to rejoice in God, who had done so great things for them.
I. What reason we have to rejoice in the Lord. God is often said to rejoice over his people (Zep_3:17). But the joy here spoken of must be understood rather of that which we feel in the recollection of God’s goodness towards us. The Jews at that season had special cause for joy in God. Delivered from Babylon, they had prospered even to a miracle in their endeavours. Their sorrow, however just, was not to exclude this joy. Such reason also have all the Lord’s people to rejoice in the Lord. They have experienced a redemption from sorer captivity, and been delivered by more stupendous means. Every day’s preservation is, as it were, a miracle. The work of their souls is carried on in spite of enemies; yea, is expedited through the means used to defeat it. Surely, then, they should say, like the Church of old, “The Lord hath done great things for us” (Psa_126:3). These mercies are pledges and earnests of yet richer blessings. They may well confide in so good and gracious a God. They have indeed still great cause for sorrow. Yet it is their duty to rejoice always in the Lord. To promote and encourage this we proceed to show—
II. In what respects this joy is our strength. We are as dependent on the frame of our minds as on the state of our bodies. Joy in God produces very important effects.
1. It disposes for action. Fear and sorrow depress and overwhelm the soul (Isa_57:16). They enervate and benumb all our faculties. They keep us from attending to any encouraging considerations (Exo_6:9). They disable us from extending any relief to others (Job_2:13). They indispose us for the most necessary duties (Luk_22:45). We cannot pray or speak or do anything with pleasure. On the contrary, a joyous frame exhilarates the soul (Pro_17:2). David well knew the effect it would produce (Psa_51:12-13). Every one may safely adopt his resolution (Psa_119:32).
2. It qualifies for suffering. When the spirit is oppressed the smallest trial is a burthen. In those seasons we are apt to fret and murmur both against God and man. We consider our trials as the effects of Divine wrath. Or, overlooking God, we vent our indignation against the instruments he uses. But when the soul is joyous afflictions appear light (Heb_10:34; Heb_12:2). How little did Paul and Silas regard their imprisonment (Act_16:25). How willing was Paul to lay down his very life for Christ (Act_20:24). This accords with the experience of every true Christian (Rom_5:2-3; 2Co_6:10).
Application.
1. Let us not be always brooding over our corruptions. Seasonable sorrows ought not to be discouraged. But we should never lose sight of all that God has done for us. It is our privilege to walk joyfully before the Lord (Psa_89:15-16; Psa_138:5; Psa_149:5). If we abounded more in praise, we should more frequently be crowned with victory (2Ch_20:21-22).
2. Let us carefully guard against the incursions of sin. It is sin that hides the Lord from our eyes (Isa_59:2). Joy will not consist with indulged sin (Psa_66:18). Let us then mortify our earthly members and our besetting sins. Let us be girt with our armour while we work with our hands; nor ever grieve the Spirit, lest we provoke him to depart from us.
3. Let us be daily going to God through Christ. If even we rejoice in God at all it must be through the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom_5:11). It is through Christ alone that our past violations of the law can be forgiven (Col_1:20). It is through Christ alone that the good work can be perfected in our hearts (Heb_12:2). And since all things are through him, and from him, let them be to him also (Rom_11:36).—Rev. Charles Simeon, M.A.
ON RELIGIOUS JOY, AS GIVING STRENGTH AND SUPPORT TO VIRTUE
Neh_8:10. The joy of the Lord is your strength
On hearing the words of the book of the law, all the people wept. Nehemiah exhorts them to prepare themselves for serving the God of their fathers with a cheerful mind. These words contain this important truth, that to the nature of true religion there belongs an inward joy which animates, strengthens, and supports virtue.
I. Joy is a word of various signification. By men of the world it is often used to express those flashes of mirth which arise from irregular indulgences of social pleasure. The joy here mentioned signifies a tranquil and placid joy, an inward complacency and satisfaction, accompanying the practice of virtue and the discharge of every part of our duty. A joy of this kind is what we assert to belong to every part of religion; to characterize religion wherever it is genuine, and to be essential to its nature. In order to ascertain this, let us consider—
1. In what manner religion requires that a good man should stand affected towards God. Rational, enlightened piety presents God not as an awful, unknown Sovereign, but as the Father of the universe, the lover and protector of righteousness, under whose government all the interests of the virtuous are safe. With delight the good man traces the Creator throughout all his works, and beholds them everywhere reflecting some image of his supreme perfection. In the morning dawn, the noontide glory, and the evening shade; in the fields, the mountains, and the flood, where worldly men behold nothing but a dead, uninteresting scene; every object is enlivened and animated to him by the presence of God. Amidst that Divine Presence he dwells with reverence, but without terror. He is under the protection of an invisible guardian. He receives the declarations of his mercy.
Objection. Are there no mortifications and griefs that particularly belong to piety—the tear of repentance, humiliation of confession, and remorse? Reply. There may be seasons of grief and dejection, yet this is not inconsistent with the joy of the Lord, being, on the whole, the predominant character of a good man’s state; as it is impossible that during this life perpetual brightness can remain in any quarter without some dark cloud. And even the penitential sorrows and relentings of a pious heart are not without their own satisfactions. It is no unusual thing for pleasure to be mixed with painful feelings. And where the mind is properly instructed in religion, it will not long be left in a state of overwhelming dejection, but will return to tranquillity, and repossess again the joy of the Lord.
2. Consider next the disposition of a good man towards his fellow-creatures. That mild and benevolent temper to which he is formed by virtue and piety, a temper that is free from envious and malignant passions, is a constant spring of cheerfulness and serenity.
3. With respect to that part of religion which consists in the government of a man’s own mind, of his passions and desires, it may be thought that much joy is not to be expected. For there religion appears to lay on a severe and restraining hand. Strict temperance and self-denial are often requisite. But in purity, temperance, and self-government there is found a satisfaction. A man is conscious of soundness. There is nothing that makes him ashamed of himself.
II. In what respects the joy of the Lord is justly said to be the strength of the righteous.
1. It is the animating principle of virtue; it supports its influence, and assists it in becoming both persevering and progressive. Few undertakings are lasting or successful which are accompanied with no pleasure. Not until a man feels somewhat within him which attracts him to his duty can he be expected to be constant and zealous in the performance of it.
2. The joy of the Lord is the strength of the righteous, as it is their great support under the discouragements and trials of life. A good man’s friends may forsake, fortune may fail, his health decay; calumny and reproach may attack his character. Then, when worldly men become peevish, dispirited, and fretful, he can possess himself calm and undisturbed. He has resources within. Much is against us in our endeavours to cultivate this disposition. We must study to correct false ideas; persuade ourselves that there are other things besides riches, honours, and sensual pleasures that are good for man; that there are joys of a spiritual and intellectual nature which directly affect the mind and heart, and which confer a satisfaction both more refined and more lasting than any worldly circumstances can confer. To endeavours of our own for rectifying and improving our taste of pleasure let us join frequent and fervent prayer to God, that he may enlighten and reform our hearts, and by his Spirit communicate that joy to our souls which descends from him, and which he has annexed to every part of religion and virtue as the strength of the righteous.—Blair, abridged.
SAME THEME
Joyfulness is the invigorating tonic of the Christian character. The thing that makes you a strong Christian or a weak one is your possession or deprivation of the joy of the Lord. Religion many-sided. Faith, hope, joy. Yet many whose religious principle is strong do not take bright views of Christian service. Some people go to sea because the blood of the sailor is in their veins; they love the sea; almost regret to read in Revelation that in the new heavens and earth of St. John there will be no more sea. Now others go to sea because duty drives them there. If they could go over-land they would; but there is neither bridge nor tunnel, so they must go to sea, and with much fear and sickness they go. It is very like that going to heaven. Some have delight at every step, and that is as it ought to be; some go with the hard constraint of duty upon them, and that is as it should not be. Take, as illustrative of the latter view, two types of religious character that have played an important part in the past of this country—Popery and Puritanism. Roman Catholicism—full of austerities; services mournful; chantings; suffer here or in purgatory; pictures; biographies of the ideal saint; dress of the religious orders; portraits of eminent saints. Whole tone a strange contrast to the “glad tidings of great joy.” Puritanism—grand but severe men and women; many fasts, but few festivals. This sentiment of the text about the strengthening power of joy was spoken by one of those grand, all-round honourable men who come as ornaments and saviours of society—Nehemiah. His people had been captive, and were restored, and wept at their restoration, and this was said to cheer them. Bring the thing into our own times. English captive among heathen holding fast to Bible and Christian faith. Patriot rising—a Nehemiah or Garibaldi—to restore. London rebuilt—reading of law. First day of national religious celebration for 150 years. Memories of past bringing tears. But sagacious leader says, “You must above all things keep up your hearts. Weeping will cleanse, but joy is the strengthener.” Thankful gladness. Is not our fathers’ God our God? Eat the fat, and send portions to the poor. Weep not, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. They were Jews, and the Jewish religion is a religion of joy. One fast and many feasts. Sabbath joyous. “O be joyful in the Lord.” Judaism was, in spite of Sinai, a service of joy. Much more is the gospel joyous. “Glad tidings.” “The joy set before him.” “We rejoice.” “Joy in presence of the angels.” Strange, after that, that anybody should have brought gloom into religion. If God did not make his creatures to be happy, why did he make them at all? If God meant us to have no joy on earth, why did he fill earth with beauty and with gladness? But he did, for God is love. The joy of the Lord is your strength.
Everybody knows what joy is. Joy means that faculty has seized what it wanted. Now religion aims at perfection; to make most of all life. Hence its attainment is attainment of joy. In this way it takes possession of the body. “Glorify God in your body.” Use it for what God has made it. Look at a machine. As those gloriously artistic ribbons come out of the loom you are glorifying, honouring the maker. Sinful gratification is against the laws of the body; for God’s laws are written on the body as truly as on the Sinaitic tables of stone. Religious joy is harmony with natural law. Same with active business. Handcraft and head-craft in righteous way. And the righteous way means the right way, and the right way means the true way. There are people who tell you that business on Christian principles means bankruptcy. There are proofs that godliness will actually pay. Golden rule. There is a divinity in business. Paul is as Christian and as holy when he sits at Damascus making tents as when he stands on Mars’ Hill and preaches a sermon. To a Christian man all life is holy, all life is joyous. The same is true of intellectual life. Search for truth is pleasant. The tree of knowledge bears good fruits. So with the relative and social aspect. Laughter and jest, wit and humour, are Divine; for Divinity stamped them into us. The laughter of some men is blighting as the laughter of a fiend, and you shrink from it as much; the laughter of another is always against wrong, and on the side of right, and is healing as medicine.
Of course we must wisely distinguish between religion and the joy of religion. Let not a man suppose he is necessarily under the condemnation of God because he lacks brightness and buoyancy. Salvation is one thing, and the joys of salvation are supplementary things:—these we may do without, but that we should not be without. Joy comes out of a steady continuous sense of acceptance with God. But a man may be a true Christian and yet often fail here. For instance, in every-day life a case like this may occur. A man gets for a little while into an unaccountably nervous state. He fears the worst. Friends laugh; doctor examines; the man is assured. Is he really more healthy? No; but still he is stronger. Joy is his strength. A great many Christians act that out in spiritual things. They are safe, if anybody is safe; but oh! for this assurance of safety. If they could believe the word of God joy would come.
Joy then is the proper result of Christian faith. “Believing, we rejoice.” Must not forget other side. “Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” Trivial nature that always wants the countenance wreathed into smiles. Does not deep joy often fly as a resource to tears? Jesus Christ anointed with oil of gladness, and yet acquainted with grief; anointed with oil of gladness, and yet crowned with thorns. So deep and earnest and sympathetic that it must have been thus. Sorrow on surface, and joy in depths. “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” “My joy.” “My peace.” That joy is our strength.
Then joy is a thing we are exhorted to. Joy is in our power. Not that joy must express itself after one pattern. Two persons watching a spectacle, or listening to music—one jubilant, the other silent. Prospect in nature—one exclamatory, the other still. Both have the deep joy of the scene, each in a form suited to himself. So there are these varying forms of religious experience—silent and speaking, calm and rapturous. Imaged in Revelation—voice of many waters, silence in heaven. Exultation when we say, “Come, let us sing unto the Lord a new song!” “Speechless awe that dares not move.” In Book of Genesis it says the vegetables were to increase after their kind, and animals after their kind; and so we must serve God and enjoy his salvation after our kind. The only thing is this, that if we are not enjoying the salvation of Christ we miss the mark more or less. We have not as much as God’s love has designed for us. Joy is a controllable thing. We can put ourselves in the shade or in the sunshine. We can be for ever dissecting ourselves, or contemplating Christ. Lack of faith brings joylessness. Not enough confidence in God. A sceptical man cannot be a happy man. Giant Despair’s Castle is in the way of scepticism. Sometimes we are afraid to boldly claim all that is ours. “I know whom I have believed.” “Now are we the sons of God.” Trust Christ, and all is yours. The joy of the Lord is our strength. “A merry heart goes all the day.” Band at head of regiment. Do a task you have no joy in, and one that is a delight, and see the difference. Take salvation for granted, and work from it, not for it. And, my brother, yet uncertain as to whether you ought to be a Christian or not, don’t be nervous. Christ invites you to joy. A man who has less joy as a saint than as a sinner is a very poor saint, that is all. His ways are ways of pleasantness. The joys of forgiveness are the beginning of heaven. Christian joy is the strength and manliness of all true human character. And when a man enters into the saved state it is as when he enters heaven—he enters into the joy of his Lord.
DAILY BIBLE READING
Neh_8:18. Also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the law of God
Daily reading of the word of God.
I. Why?
1. Because of its infinite preciousness and value. “The book of the law of God.” Not a book, but the book. Value it as the gift of a Father’s love; as the legacy of the Saviour’s grace; as the instrument of the Spirit’s power. Dear to all the faithful, because they feel that they hang upon that truth all that is most precious for time and eternity. It comes clothed with the authority of infinite truth, and crowned with the attractions of infinite love. It may be compared to that river that went out of Eden to water the garden, dividing itself into four heads:—“that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;” and it is most significantly added, “and the gold of that land is good.” ’Tis a broad land of wealth unknown. Study it every day. The Scriptures are styled oracles—oracles of God which we may consult for our guidance. Not like the lying oracles of the heathen, which were distinguished for their ambiguity; these are the true sayings of God. It is like the Urim and Thummim, the holy oracle of the Jews, which they were privileged to consult for guidance and direction in all doubtful cases. It is given to be a lamp to our feet. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” God gave these oracles to convince of sin, to convert to Christ, to confirm in grace, and to direct and comfort in obedience. The book is called the Testament. The Old Testament—a legacy of God to the Jewish Church; the New—a legacy of Christ to the Christian Church. “All the promises are in him yea”—the promises of the Old and the promises of the New. The gospel describes the legacy of blessing Christ has bequeathed to his redeemed people, a legacy for both states of being, and we should study it as an heir to a great estate does title-deeds and documents. If a man does not study it, it is a sign that he does not consider there is any legacy left to him in it. And he who does may be sure to find his name in some codicil or other. “I call that legacy my own.” It is called the book of the law of God. A man ought to know something of the law of the country in which he lives, and something of the character of the country to which he goes. It is at once the statute book of the King of kings and the great charter of his people’s privileges. The law of God’s government and the law of God’s grace “the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” Study it every day. Revelation, like the sun, must be seen by its own light, and the best of all arguments of its truth are those derived from its own pages. Those parts of the word are most precious which we have made our own by personal examination, inquiry, and experience. It is a law of compensation which obtains in Divine things as well as human, that any species of property obtained by our own effort has a heightened value: an acre of ground cultivated by our own hand, or a plant or flower reared and tended by our own care, exceeds all that we obtain or inherit by the labour or the bounty of others. So one promise examined, prayed over, and applied is more useful than whole books read in a cursory manner. “He that believeth hath the witness in himself.” “Now we believe, not because of thy saying!”
2. Because of its tendency to build up the inner and spiritual life—the life of God in the soul. Hence compared to manna, to bread, to living water. The life of the natural man is important; of the spiritual man surely not less. “The life I live is by the faith,” and the life of faith can only be supported by the word of life. “Man doth not live by bread alone.” All life seeks its natural food and aliment. A scientific man reads works of science; a poet converses in spirit with Chaucer and Milton; the Christian, the Divine word. “The words that I speak, they are spirit and they are life.” There has been a great education of our race going on from the morning of time, by which the souls of men have been trained for eternity, by these Divine words. The humblest Christian, in studying the word, mingles with the greatest minds, with the kingly spirits that have enthroned themselves in the hearts of mighty nations. He makes himself a fellow-student with Moses on the mount; with Elijah at the cave of Horeb; with Daniel when he conversed with Gabriel; with John the Baptist in the wilderness; with the beloved disciple as he leaned on Jesus’ bosom; nay, with Jesus himself; and he says, lifting to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” How can you hope for spirituality without retirement for these purposes? How can you hope for peace and joy in believing if the closet is deserted and the Bible is unread? Where is the wonder you complain, “My leanness, my leanness,” when you feed only on the husks of worldly opinion and worldly writings, and neglect to sit down at the banquet of truth? Can you wonder that you are without the comforts of the Spirit when you do not put yourself in communion with the Spirit?
3. Because all great revivals of the power of religion have been associated with high reverence for the written word. It was in the mount that Moses received the tables of stone written by God’s own finger. The prophets commenced their addresses by a careful memorial of the time and date of God’s manifestation to them: “The word of the Lord came unto me.” The finding of the book of the law was the commencement of better times in the later date of the Jewish monarchy. And it was when strengthened by these reports of faith that the ancient worthies wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, out of weakness were made strong. Our Saxon forefathers valued and prized the word of God. King Alfred translated the Psalms for them, and the Venerable Bede the Gospel of John. It was a little leaven, but it served to keep a better faith alive; a little salt, but it tended to purify the fountains of public opinion. Before Luther the Waldenses held the faith of Christ in the fastnesses of the Alps and in the valleys of Piedmont. Our own countryman Wickliffe gave to the people the whole New Testament in their mother tongue, by which he gave a resting-place to the mind, and widely sowed the seed of the kingdom. So much so that a contemporary says, “You could not meet two people by the way but one of them was a disciple of Wickliffe.” This was the crowning work of Luther—the unsealing the fountains of Divine truth to the millions in Germany. In Italy the Reformation dawned in the same manner. If ever the flame of holiness and devotion burn brightly in your bosom, it must be fed by the word.
4. Because by this word you must be judged. “God shall judge men by my Gospel.” “The words I speak, the same shall judge you at the last day.”
II. How? Different minds take different courses. Some a chapter of Old Testament in the morning, and New Testament at night; some Psalms; some Gospels; some histories; some epistles. Whate’er is best administered is best. As to states of mind.
1. With reverence. “Take off thy shoe!” There should be a pause of solemn seeking and solemn waiting for a spiritual frame. Who feels the sublime dignity of a saying fresh descended from the porch of heaven? Who feels the awful weight of one of the words of the living God? How awestruck were Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk. On the frontispiece of some Bibles is written, “How awful is this place!” “So ought we,” as Owen says, “to look upon the word of God with holy awe and reverence for the presence of God in it.”
2. With special affection and prayerfulness. Go to God by prayer for a key to unlock the mysteries of the word. St. John by weeping got the sealed book open. Daniel by prayer drew an angel down from heaven to give him more light. Bow your knees before you open your Bibles. “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” Honour the prophetical office of Christ. It is the prerogative of the Lion of the tribe of Judah to open the books and unloose the seals. Honour the work of the Holy Spirit. No man can say that Christ is Lord but by the Holy Ghost.
3. Take time. Not time? You have time to sin—none to repent? time for the world—none for God? Could God find time to write this book, and will not you to read it? Shall the sick man find no time to read his Physician’s prescriptions? the condemned malefactor find no time to read his Judge’s pardon? Must Joshua in the midst of war and cares of government find time to meditate on the law; and shall thy shop, or plough, or a few trivial duties discharge you?
4. Keep the end in view.—Thodey.
ADDENDA TO CHAPTER 8
FESTIVALS
THE religious times ordained in the Law fall under three heads:—
(1) Those formally connected with the institution of the Sabbath;
(2) The historical or great festivals;
(3) The Day of Atonement.
Immediately connected with the institution of the Sabbath are—(a) The weekly Sabbath itself. (b) The seventh new moon, or Feast of Trumpets, (c) The Sabbatical year, (d) The year of Jubilee.
The great feasts (in the Talmud, pilgrimage feasts) are—(a) The Passover. (b) The Feast of Pentecost, of weeks, of wheat harvest, or of the First-fruits. (c) The Feast of Tabernacles, or of ingathering.
On each of these occasions every male Israelite was commanded “to appear before the Lord,” that is, to attend in the court of the tabernacle or the temple, and to make his offering with a joyful heart (Deu_27:7; Neh_8:9-12). The attendance of women was voluntary, but the zealous often went up to the Passover. Thus Mary attended it (Luk_2:41), and Hannah (1Sa_1:7; 1Sa_2:19). As might be supposed, there was a stricter obligation regarding the Passover than the other feasts, and hence there was an express provision to enable those who, by unavoidable circumstances or legal impurity, had been prevented from attending at the proper time to observe the feast on the same day of the succeeding month (Num_9:10-11). On all the days of Holy Convocation there was to be an entire suspension of ordinary labour of all kinds (Exo_12:16; Lev_16:29; Lev_23:21; Lev_23:24-25; Lev_23:35); but on the intervening days of the longer festivals work might be carried on. Besides their religious purpose, the great festivals must have had an important bearing on the maintenance of a feeling of national unity. This may be traced in the apprehensions of Jeroboam (1Ki_12:26-27), and in the attempt at reformation by Hezekiah (2Ch_30:1), as well as in the necessity which, in later times, was felt by the Roman government of mustering a considerable military force at Jerusalem during the festivals. The frequent recurrence of the sabbatical number in the organization of these festivals is too remarkable to be passed over, and (as Ewald has observed) seems, when viewed in connection with the sabbatical sacred times, to furnish a strong proof that the whole system of the festivals of the Jewish law was the product of one mind. Pentecost occurs seven weeks after the Passover; the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles last seven days each; the days of Holy Convocation are seven in the year—two at the Passover, one at Pentecost, one at the Feast of Trumpets, one on the Day of Atonement, and two at the Feast of Tabernacles; the Feast of Tabernacles, as well as the Day of Atonement, falls in the seventh month of the sacred year; and, lastly, the cycle of annual feasts occupies seven months—from Nisan to Tisri.
The agricultural significance of the three great festivals is clearly set forth in the account of the Jewish sacred year contained in Leviticus 23. The prominence which, not only in that chapter, but elsewhere, is given to this significance in the names by which Pentecost and Tabernacles are often called, and also by the offering of “the first-fruits of wheat harvest” at Pentecost (Exo_34:22), and of “the first of the first-fruits” at the Passover (Exo_23:19; Exo_34:26), might easily suggest that the origin of the feasts was patriarchal, and that the historical associations with which Moses endowed them were grafted upon their primitive meaning. It is, perhaps, however, a difficulty in the way of this view that we should rather look for the institution of agricultural festivals amongst an agricultural than a pastoral people, such as the Israelites and their ancestors were before the settlement in the land of promise.
The times of the festivals were evidently ordained in wisdom, so as to interfere as little as possible with the industry of the people. The Passover was held just before the work of harvest commenced; Pentecost at the conclusion of the corn harvest, and before the vintage; the Feast of Tabernacles after all the fruits of the ground were gathered in. In winter, when travelling was difficult, there were no festivals. After the Captivity the Feast of Purim (Est_9:20) and that of the Dedication (1Ma_4:56) were instituted. The festivals of wood-carrying, as they were called, are mentioned by Josephus. What appears to have been their origin is found in Neh_10:34. The term “the Festival of the Basket” is applied by Philo to the offering of the first-fruits described in Deu_26:1-11.—Rev. Samuel Clark, M. A., in Smith’s ‘Bible Dictionary.’
SENTENCES FROM OLD WRITERS
I. The Reading and Exposition of the Law. They spake unto Ezra the scribe. “The people may, if need be, say to Archippus, Look to thy ministry that thou fulfil it. The gifts and abilities of all good ministers are theirs, and they may call for them” (1Co_3:22). “Ezra knew that the best need hear the law, that they might be kept within the bounds of obedience. Not the unruly colt only, but the horse that is broken, hath a bit and bridle also.” “The commandment was a lamp, and the law a light. The Greeks call the law the standing mind of God. And if Demosthenes could say of men’s laws, that they were the invention of God; if Xenophon could say of the Persian laws, that they kept the people even from coveting any wickedness; if Cicero durst say of the Roman laws, that they far excelled and exceeded all the learned libraries of the philosophers, both in weight and worth, how much more may all this and more be said of this perfect law of God, the book whereof was here brought forth by Ezra, and read and expounded in the ears of all the people?” Before the congregation both of men and women. “Souls have no sexes. In Christ there is no difference.” “Little pitchers have ears, and little children will understand much if well principled.” “As a scribe Ezra wrote the law; and as a priest he read and expounded it.” “Five or six hours they spent in holy duties, whereas the most amongst us think long of an hour; they sit, as it were, in the stocks whiles they are hearing the word read or preached, and come out of the church, when the tedious sermon runneth somewhat beyond the glass, like prisoners out of a gaol.” “St. Paul laid one text to another, as artificers do the several pieces of their work, that they may perfectly agree the one with the other.” “The prophets give us Moses unveiled.” “Parallel texts, like glasses, set one against another, do cast a mutual light; like the sun, the Scriptures show other things, and themselves too.”
II. Religious Joy. “The joy which has the Lord for its object, and comes from him, is the cause of renewing spiritual strength, so as to run and not be weary, walk and not faint, in the ways of God.” “Thou canst not be fully comforted, nor have perfect refreshment, but in God.” “It is no hard matter to despise human comfort when we have Divine.” This day is holy unto the Lord your God. “Your mourning, therefore, now is as much out of season as Samson’s wife’s weeping was at her wedding.” “One being asked whether a good man might not feed upon sweet and delicate meat; eat the fat and drink the sweet, even the choicest wines and chiefest viands? answered, Yes; except God made bees only for fools.” “Spiritual joy is such a precious commodity, as that no good can match it, no evil overmatch it.” “The peace of a man’s conscience will appear in his countenance, as Stephen’s did.” “To the truly joyous the cross is anointed.” And all the people went their way to eat. “To do all that they were directed to do. They had been in the furnace of mortification; and now they were willing to be cast into the mould of God’s word and to be whatsoever the Lord would have them to be. They were only his clay and wax, a willing people, waiting for his law.” And to make great mirth. “All kind of honest jollity; for the better exciting their hearts to true thankfulness.”
III. Sacred service. On the second day they were gathered together. “Divine knowledge is as a great lady, that will not easily be acquainted with us but upon further suit.” “Popular men should esteem knowledge as silver, noblemen as gold, princes prize it as pearls.” The priests and Levites. “These teachers of others took no scorn to learn of Ezra, that perfect scribe.” “The greatest part of those things which we know is the least part of the things which we know not.” “God will not take up with a careless and slubbered service.” “To do nothing for God more than needs must account too little.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. The text teaches that there is a time…
Neh 8:10
I. The text teaches that there is a time to be cast down with godly sorrow and there is a time to be uplifted with holy joy; and the second of these is always the fruit of the first. No heart was really ever moved with godly sorrow that did not, in God’s good time, come to holy joy, and no heart ever came to holy joy that had not first been moved to godly sorrow.
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II. Consider how we may get this joy of the Lord for ourselves, and what good it would do for us if we got it. (1) Its coming may be hastened in our hearts by looking more to Jesus and less to ourselves. (2) You may deepen this joy or hasten its coming by more thanksgiving in your approaches to the throne of grace. No believer is strong for God who has not learnt to rejoice in God.
III. The joy of the Lord is our strength when following after holiness. It is the want of this which makes many of us so slow in our progress in spiritual things. Let us ask God for more joy—joy to give us strength to do and to suffer for Him, strength to follow after and be made like Him, strength to trust Him at all times and look to Him in all circumstances, as Nehemiah did.
Bishop Maclagan, Penny Pulpit, No. 597.
I. Joy in the Lord is the natural result of Christian faith. There is a natural adaptation or provision in the Gospel, both in what it brings to us and in what it takes away from us, to make a calm, and settled, and deep gladness the prevalent temper of the Christian heart. I am not forgetting that, on the other side, it is equally true that the Christian faith has as marked and almost as strong an adaptation to produce a solemn sorrow—solemn, manly, noble, and strong. These two things are not contradictory; these two states of mind, both of them the natural operations of any deep faith, of any deep religious feeling, may coexist and blend into one another, so as that the gladness is sobered, and chastened, and made manly and noble, and that the sorrow is like some thunder-cloud, all streaked with bars of sunshine, that go into its deepest depths. The joy lives in the midst of sorrow; the sorrow springs from the same root as the gladness. And yet the sorrow is surface and the joy is central; yet the sorrow springs from circumstance, and the gladness from the essence of the thing; and therefore the sorrow is transitory and the gladness is perennial.
II. The "joy of the Lord" (rejoicing in God, that is to say) is a matter of Christian duty. It is a commandment here, and it is a command in the New Testament as well. The joy of the Lord is a duty (1) because the natural adaptation of the Gospel is to produce it; (2) because you can control your emotions; and (3) because you can wisely and rightly apprehend the prevalent cast of the Gospel as an outward system which you profess to believe and, if you do it, it will be joy, and not sorrow, which will mainly mark your Christian experience. There are two things which have a great deal more to do with the absence of gladness from the Christian life than disposition and temperament. The one is an actual deficiency in the depth and reality of our faith, and the other is a misapprehension of the position which we have a right to take and are bound to take.
III. Rejoicing in the Lord is a source of strength. All gladness, all cheerfulness, has something to do with our efficiency; for it is the prerogative of man that this force comes from his mind, not from his body. For strength there must be hope; for strength there must be joy. If the arm is to smite with vigour, it must smite at the bidding of a calm and light heart. The Christian work is of such a sort as that the most dangerous opponent to it is simple despondency and simple sorrow. "The joy of the Lord is strength."
A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Union Chapel, Manchester, p. 151.
Notice:—
I. The essential joyousness of God. This is seen in three illustrations—(1) in nature; (2) in the Christian revelation; (3) in the spiritual life.
II. The blessedness of apprehending the essential joyousness of God. Joy is the tonic of the mind. (1) The joy of others may be our strength. (2) The name of the Lord is, above all, the strong tower into which the righteous runneth and is safe. There is an infinite geniality in God. To contemplate the joyousness of God is to have our trust in Him made as tender as it is firm; it inspires us with the perfect love which "casteth out fear," the love which is, and ever must be, the true fortitude of the soul.
A. Mackennal, Life of Christian Consecration, p. 146 (see also Christian World Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 314).
I. There are some precepts introduced into the Bible which would seem superfluous. One of these is St. Paul’s command to rejoice evermore. There is a seeming incongruity in the command to rejoice thus introduced among such profound spiritual actions as "Pray without ceasing," etc. Paul wished to counteract the tendency to a life of dreamy, speculative idleness; he sought to teach that God had not only spoken from eternity chaste cheerfulness for men’s hearts, but He urged them on with a Diviner knowledge to make them glad in the possession of His secret.
II. The proper tone of the Christian mind is not sadness and severity, but brightness and cheerfulness, and this not for the Christian’s pleasure only, but as his strength in the day of trial. It is the looking away from self into the mysteries of God which ministers to the "joy of the Lord." The more we grasp with our whole heart the objective truths of the Gospel, the more bright will glow our hearts, the more filled will be our souls with a Divine joy.
III. Look at this gladness, not as a mere source of pleasure, but as a source of spiritual strength. (1) There are certain temptations to which a joyous temperament is at once a bar. For example, hardness in judging others, malice, pride, can scarcely coexist with brightness and cheerfulness of heart. (2) The power of exertion revives after sorrow from the habit of looking at the brighter side. (3) Gladness in God is essentially strength against unbelief. Teach a man to find happiness in his Sundays, a gladness in the going up to the house of the Lord, knitting the pleasures of his life with the mysteries of his faith, and the wave of unbelief will only break itself upon him.
Bishop Woodford, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 248.
The crowning revelation of Old Testament times is given to that reformer who, coming up from the land of exile to re-create and renew the people of the Lord, cheers and inspirits them with the assurance that God overflows with delight in His chosen, works out their salvation in a festal mood, and commissions them to minister to each other’s necessities with ungrudging bounty and a deathless hope; for, says he, "the joy of the Lord is your strength."
I. God’s joy a stronghold! Assuredly and unspeakably. (1) When once there is breathed into us, so as to fill and uplift us above the low zones of our world-life, this sense of the eternal Father delighting in the sons of men and in the mercy He gives them, forthwith the world of nature is a new creation, instinct with a new significance, and potent with an evangelical energy. (2) Nor is this less true of the bitter and painful experiences that make so large and obtrusive a portion of our earthly life; for they, too, are a part of the Divine order and plan of a loving and rejoicing Father, who finds His own joy diminished by our needless pain, and is seeking by all means to make us partakers of His holiness, so that we may be sharers of His happiness. (3) The joy of the Lord is a stronghold into which we may run and be safe from the fear of death.
II. The joy of the Lord is the source of our active, self-forgetting generosity. Whatever God is for us and to us, it is that we may be the same for and to others. The exhaustless fountain of the Divine gladness fills our cisterns till they overflow for the refreshing of a thirsty world. Joy in the Lord is strength, positive, actual power, for ministry.
J. Clifford, Daily Strength for Daily Living, p. 401.
I. The source of Christian joy is God. God is absolutely happy in Himself, and happy in relation to His creatures. (1) We can tell something of a man’s character and disposition by his works. God’s works are full of gladness. There is joy in the streams, the woods, the meadows, the cornfields. (2) As in nature, so in grace. The note to which all the music of the Gospel is attuned is "glad tidings of great joy." (3) God makes us joyful by removing from us the sources and elements of our misery. He bestows salvation, and gives His Spirit, and "the fruit of the Spirit is joy."
II. This joy is the secret of Christian strength. The joy of the Lord is our strength (1) for service; (2) against temptation; (3) for endurance.
III. The joy of the Lord therefore becomes a Christian law of life. To neglect our joys is to leave our work undone.
J. W. Burn, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 163.
References: Neh 8:10.—S. Cox, Congregationalist, vol. i., p. 710; J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. x., p. 77; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xi., p. 83; H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1521; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 146; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vi., p. 153; Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 112.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 11 Neh 8:1 - Neh 8:12.
Nehemiah
READING THE LAW WITH TEARS AND JOY
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Neh 8:1 - Neh 8:12.
The wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, which was the sixth month. The events recorded in this passage took place on the first day of the seventh month. The year is not given, but the natural inference is that it was the same as that of the finishing of the wall; namely, the twentieth of Artaxerxes. If so, the completion of the fortifications to which Nehemiah had set himself, was immediately followed by this reading of the law, in which Ezra takes the lead. The two men stand in a similar relative position to that of Zerubbabel and Joshua, the one representing the civil and the other the religious authority.
According to Ezr 7:9, Ezra had gone to Jerusalem about thirteen years before Nehemiah, and had had a weary time of fighting against the corruptions which had crept in among the returned captives. The arrival of Nehemiah would be hailed as bringing fresh, young enthusiasm, none the less welcome and powerful because it had the king’s authority entrusted to it. Evidently the two men thoroughly understood one another, and pulled together heartily. We heard nothing about Ezra while the wall was being built. But now he is the principal figure, and Nehemiah is barely mentioned. The reasons for Ezra’s taking the prominent part in the reading of the law are given in the two titles by which he is designated in two successive verses {Neh 8:1 - Neh 8:2}. He was ‘the scribe’ and also ‘the priest,’ and in both capacities was the natural person for such a work.
The seventh month was the festival month of the year, its first day being that of the Feast of trumpets, and the great Feast of tabernacles as well as the solemn day of atonement occurring in it. Possibly, the prospect of the coming of the times for these celebrations may have led to the people’s wish to hear the law, that they might duly observe the appointed ceremonial. At all events, the first thing to note is that it was in consequence of the people’s wish that the law was read in their hearing. Neither Ezra nor Nehemiah originated the gathering together. They obeyed a popular impulse which they had not created. We must not, indeed, give the multitude credit for much more than the wish to have their ceremonial right. But there was at least that wish, and possibly something deeper and more spiritual. The walls were completed; but the true defence of Israel was in God, and the condition of His defending was Israel’s obedience to His law. The people were, in some measure, beginning to realise that condition with new clearness, in consequence of the new fervour which Nehemiah had brought.
It is singular that, during his thirteen years of residence, Ezra is not recorded to have promulgated the law, though it lay at the basis of the drastic reforms which he was able to carry through. Probably he had not been silent, but the solemn public recitation of the law was felt to be appropriate on occasion of completing the wall. Whether the people had heard it before, or, as seems implied, it was strange to them, their desire to hear it may stand as a pattern for us of that earnest wish to know God’s will which is never cherished in vain. He who does not intend to obey does not wish to know the law. If we have no longing to know what the will of the Lord is, we may be very sure that we prefer our own to His. If we desire to know it, we shall desire to understand the Book which contains so much of it. Any true religion in the heart will make us eager to perceive, and willing to be guided by, the will of God, revealed mainly in Scripture, in the Person, works, and words of Jesus, and also in waiting hearts by the Spirit, and in those things which the world calls ‘circumstances’ and faith names ‘providences.’
II. Neh 8:2 - Neh 8:8 appear to tell the same incidents twice over-first, more generally in Neh 8:2 andNehemiah 8:8, and then more minutely. Such expanded repetition is characteristic of the Old Testament historical style. It is somewhat difficult to make sure of the real circumstances. Clearly enough there was a solemn assembly of men, women, and children in a great open space outside one of the gates, and there, from dawn till noon, the law was read and explained. But whether Ezra read it all, while the Levites named in Neh 8:7 explained or paraphrased or translated it, or whether they all read in turns, or whether there were a number of groups, each of which had a teacher who both read and expounded, is hard to determine. At all events, Ezra was the principal figure, and began the reading.
It was a picturesque scene. The sun, rising over the slopes of Olivet, would fall on the gathered crowd, if the water-gate was, as is probable, on the east or south-east side of the city. Beneath the fresh fortifications probably, which would act as a sounding-board for the reader, was set up a scaffold high above the crowd, large enough to hold Ezra and thirteen supporters-principal men, no doubt-seven on one side of him and six on the other. Probably a name has dropped out, and the numbers were equal. There, in the morning light, with the new walls for a background, stood Ezra on his rostrum, and amid reverent silence, lifted high the sacred roll. A common impulse swayed the crowd, and brought them all to their feet-token at once of respect and obedient attention. Probably many of them had never seen a sacred roll. To them all it was comparatively unfamiliar. No wonder that, as Ezra’s voice rose in prayer, the whole assembly fell on their faces in adoration, and every lip responded ‘Amen! amen!’
Much superstition may have mingled with the reverence. No doubt, there was then what we are often solemnly warned against now, bibliolatry. But in this time of critical investigation it is not the divine element in Scripture which is likely to be exaggerated; and few are likely to go wrong in the direction of paying too much reverence to the Book in which, as is still believed, God has revealed His will and Himself. While welcoming all investigations which throw light on its origin or its meaning, and perfectly recognising the human element in it, we should learn the lesson taught by that waiting crowd prone on their faces, and blessing God for His word. Such attitude must ever precede reading it, if we are to read aright.
Hour after hour the recitation went on. We must let the question of the precise form of the events remain undetermined. It is somewhat singular that thirteen names are enumerated as of the men who stood by Ezra, and thirteen as those of the readers or expounders. It may be the case that the former number is complete, though uneven, and that there was some reason unknown for dividing the audience into just so many sections. The second set of thirteen was not composed of the same men as the first. They seem to have been Levites, whose office of assisting at the menial parts of the sacrifices was now elevated into that of setting forth the law. Probably the portions read were such as bore especially on ritual, though the tears of the listeners are sufficient proof that they had heard some things that went deeper than that.
The word rendered ‘distinctly’ in the Revised Version {margin, with an interpretation} is ambiguous, and may either mean that the Levites explained or that they translated the words. The former is the more probable, as there is no reason to suppose that the audience, most of whom had been born in the land, were ignorant of Hebrew. But if the ritual had been irregularly observed, and the circle of ideas in the law become unfamiliar, many explanations would be necessary. It strikes one as touching and strange that such an assembly should be needed after so many centuries of national existence. It sums up in one vivid picture the sin and suffering of the nation. To observe that law had been the condition of their prosperity. To bind it on their hearts should have been their delight and would have been their life; and here, after all these generations, the best of the nation are assembled, so ignorant of it that they cannot even understand it when they hear it. Absorption with worldly things has an awful power of dulling spiritual apprehension. Neglect of God’s law weakens the power of understanding it.
This scene was in the truest sense a ‘revival.’ We may learn the true way of bringing men back to God; namely, the faithful exposition and enforcement of God’s will and word. We may learn, too, what should be the aim of public teachers of religion; namely, first and foremost, the clear setting forth of God’s truth. Their first business is to ‘give the sense, so that they understand the reading’; and that, not for merely intellectual purposes, but that, like the crowd outside the water-gate on that hot noonday, men may be moved to penitence, and then lifted to the joy of the Lord.
The first day of the seventh month was the Feast of trumpets; and when the reading was over, and its effects of tears and sorrow for disobedience were seen, the preachers changed their tone, to bring consolation and exhort to gladness. Nehemiah had taken no part in reading the law, as Ezra the priest and his Levites were more appropriately set to that. But he joins them in exhorting the people to dry their tears, and go joyfully to the feast. These exhortations contain many thoughts universally applicable. They teach that even those who are most conscious of sin and breaches of God’s law should weep indeed, but should swiftly pass from tears to joy. They do not teach how that passage is to be effected; and in so far they are imperfect, and need to be supplemented by the New Testament teaching of forgiveness through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. But in their clear discernment that sorrow is not meant to be a permanent characteristic of religion, and that gladness is a more acceptable offering than tears, they teach a valuable lesson, needed always by men who fancy that they must atone for their sins by their own sadness, and that religion is gloomy, harsh, and crabbed.
Further, these exhortations to festal gladness breathe the characteristic Old Testament tone of wholesome enjoyment of material good as a part of religion. The way of looking at eating and drinking and the like, as capable of being made acts of worship, has been too often forgotten by two kinds of men-saints who have sought sanctity in asceticism; and sensualists who have taken deep draughts of such pleasures without calling on the name of the Lord, and so have failed to find His gifts a cup of salvation. It is possible to ‘eat and drink and see God’ as the elders of Israel did on Sinai.
Further, the plain duty of remembering the needy while we enjoy God’s gifts is beautifully enjoined here. The principle underlying the commandment to ‘send portions to them for whom nothing is provided’-that is, for whom no feast has been dressed-is that all gifts are held in trust, that nothing is bestowed on us for our own good only, but that we are in all things stewards. The law extends to the smallest and to the greatest possessions. We have no right to feast on anything unless we share it, whether it be festal dainties or the bread that came down from heaven. To divide our portion with others is the way to make our portion greater as well as sweeter.
Further, ‘the joy of the Lord is your strength.’ By strength here seems to be meant a stronghold. If we fix our desires on God, and have trained our hearts to find sweeter delights in communion with Him than in any earthly good, our religion will have lifted us above mists and clouds into clear air above, where sorrows and changes will have little power to affect us. If we are to rejoice in the Lord, it will be possible for us to ‘rejoice always,’ and that joy will be as a refuge from all the ills that flesh is heir to. Dwelling in God, we shall dwell safely, and be far from the fear of evil.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Reading of the Law by Ezra
The Reading of the Law by Ezra
1. The street] RV 'the broad place': and so in Neh_8:3, Neh_8:16. The water gate] This probably led to the spring of Gihon (the Virgin's spring).
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2. Ezra] It has been argued in the note on Ezr_10:44 that the effort to fortify Jerusalem described in Ezr_4:6-23 was made whilst Ezra was present there, and that the failure of it destroyed for a time his influence among his countrymen. The interval that elapsed between the destruction of the newly-built walls and Nehemiah's arrival was probably not long, and during it Ezra may have remained in retirement at Jerusalem. Some, however, have supposed that after effecting the reforms described in Ezra 9, 10, he returned at once to Babylon, and only revisited Palestine after Nehemiah's arrival there. The absence of his name amongst those who helped to build the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 3) has been urged in favour of this view; but there would be little reason to distinguish his co-operation from that of the other priests (Neh_3:1). To bring.. of Moses] The teaching of the Law was the purpose of Ezra's journey to Jerusalem some fourteen years before.
2. The first day of the seventh month] This was one of the festivals (cp. Neh_8:9) of the New Moon, termed in the Law the Feast of Trumpets, and kept with special rites: Lev_23:24-25; Num_29:1-6.
7. And the Levites] omit and.
8. Gave the sense] i.e. with such additional explanation as was required for the people to understand what was read.
9. The Tirshatha] i.e. governor. The same title was borne by Zerubbabel (Ezr_2:63). All the people wept] from a consciousness of their transgressions which the reading of the Law had awakened.
11. Hold your peace] in order to guard against uttering words ill-suited to a holy day.
14. Should dwell in booths] This command in connexion with the Feast of Tabernacles (kept on the fifteenth day of the seventh month) occurs only in Lev_23:42.
15. The mount] better, 'the hill-country.' Pine branches] RV 'branches of wild olives' (or oleaster).
16. The roof of his house] This was flat, and available for walking or sleeping: cp. Deu_22:8; 1Sa_9:25; 2Sa_11:2; 2Sa_16:22. The gate of Ephraim] in the N. wall, facing the former kingdom of Ephraim.
17. Since the days of Jeshua] i.e. of Joshua. The exceptional feature in this observance of the ancient Feast of Tabernacles seems to have been the dwelling in 'booths,' though the dwelling in 'tents' had been previously practised (cp. Hos_12:9). Either the command of Lev_23:42 had been disregarded, or it was a modification of the older usage which had only recently been incorporated in the Law.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 17 seventh month
seventh month
i.e. October; also, Neh 8:2; Neh 8:14.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. The reading of the law before the water…
II. THE SPIRITUAL REVIVAL
CHAPTER 8
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1. The reading of the law before the water gate (Neh 8:1-8)
2. A day of joy and not of mourning (Neh 8:9-12)
3. The keeping of the feast of tabernacles (Neh 8:13-18)
Neh 8:1-8. This interesting chapter gives the record of a gracious revival through the reading of the law. All the people gathered themselves together as one man in the street that was before the water gate, the place which suggests the cleansing and refreshing power of the Word. And as a united people they had but one desire, to hear the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded, to Israel. They gave orders to Ezra that he should bring the book of the law. This the people knew was the Word of the Lord, and for this they hungered. Every true revival must begin with the Word, and in believing submission to what the Lord has said. So, it has been in all the great revivals of the past, and so it will be in the future. The great need today is “back to the Bible”; and to listen to its message as the message of God. How willingly and joyfully Ezra must have responded, and how it must have cheered the aged servant of the Lord! He brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and those that understood in hearing (children of a certain age). Critics say that Ezra’s law of Moses must not be understood as meaning the Pentateuch; they claim that it was a collection of different laws, and part of the so-called “priestly codex,” which even then, according to the critical school, was not completely finished. Inasmuch as the destructive criticism denies that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch, they are obliged to resort to these arguments in order to sustain their theory. There is no valid reason to doubt when the book of the law of Moses was demanded and Ezra brought it before the people, that it was the Pentateuch, which the Jews call Torah, the law.
Then followed under great attention the reading, from the morning until the midday. Ezra stood upon a pulpit of wood, which was a raised platform which had been made for this purpose. Alongside of Ezra were thirteen men; in all, counting in Ezra, fourteen men faced the people. They probably took turns in reading from the law. Their names are interesting if we look at their meaning--Mattithiah (gift of the LORD); Shema (hearing); Anaiah (answer of the LORD); Uriah (the LORD is Light); Hilkiah (portion of the LORD); Maaseiah (work of the LORD); Mishael (who is as God is); Malchijah (King is the LORD); Hashum (wealthy); Hashbaddanah (esteemed by judging); Zechariah (the LORD remembers); Meshullam (reward). These names are suggestive of the Word itself Then Ezra unrolled the parchment seen by all the people. Great reverence was manifested to the Word by all the people standing up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. Amen, Amen was the people’s answer, with the lifting up of their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Ezra and the people believed that what they read is the Word of God. Hence this reverence, this praise and the attitude of submission. How little reverence for the Word of God our generation manifests. This too is a fruit of the destructive criticism, which has put the Bible on the same level with common literature. Thirteen others are mentioned who, with the Levites, caused the people to understand the law. Some think it means that the people did not understand Hebrew, and that the Hebrew text had to be translated into Aramaic. This is probably incorrect. Hebrew was not unknown after the captivity, for Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi spoke and wrote in that language. It rather means the interpretation of what had been read, that is, an exposition of it. The names of these thirteen expositors are also of interest. The first is Jeshua, which means “Jehovah is salvation”; this is the great truth which all Bible exposition must emphasize.
Neh 8:9-12. When the people heard the words of the Law they wept. They were conscience stricken on account of their individual and national sins; they judged themselves. The Word had been believed; their godly sorrow had been expressed by tears, and so they were ready for the words of comfort and cheer the Lord gave through Nehemiah, Ezra and the Levites. “This day is holy unto the LORD your God; mourn not nor weep ... go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy unto our Lord; neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” And this was done. They were the Lord’s people, separated unto Himself, and as they remembered all His goodness, they rejoiced in Him. Refreshed themselves, they were to remember those “for whom nothing was prepared.”
Neh 8:13-18. The feast of tabernacles was kept by them. They came in reading the law to the command of Moses that the children of Israel should “dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month.” Olive, pine, myrtle and palm tree branches were to be used to construct booths in commemoration of the wilderness journey. This was done at once by them in obedience to the Word. Thus we have three facts concerning the Word in this chapter; reading the Word, believing the Word, and obeying the Word. Hence there was great gladness in keeping the feast of tabernacles. The words, “for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so,” present a difficulty. We read in Ezr 3:4 that the feast of tabernacles was celebrated immediately after the arrival of Zerubbabel; nor does it seem possible that God-fearing kings in the past overlooked this feast. 1Ki 8:2; 1Ki 8:65 shows that Solomon kept this feast of the Lord. It therefore cannot mean that the people of Israel had neglected the keeping of the feast of tabernacles for a thousand years. The emphasis must be placed upon the word “so”--it means that never before had the feast of tabernacles been kept in such a manner. The reading of the Word and the revival which followed produced such a joyful and whole-hearted keeping of the feast, as had not been the case since the days of Joshua.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 9 The Law Read and Heard
The Law Read and Heard
v. 1. And all the people gathered themselves together as one man, with entire unanimity of mind, into the street that was before the Water Gate, a large open square near the subterranean water galleries of Ophel; and they spake unto Ezra, the scribe, who had come to Jerusalem some thirteen years before with about three thousand returned exiles, to bring the book of the Law of Moses which the Lord had commanded to Israel. Ezra may have returned to Babylon after instituting his reform measures, and now had made the trip a second time to assist Nehemiah in the further restoration of the Temple worship.
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v. 2. And Ezra, the priest, brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, either because they were old enough, or because they were within reach of Ezra’s voice, upon the first day of the seventh month. The beginning of the seventh month of the church-year, the new year of the civil year, was known as the Feast of Trumpets, which was held as a great day. It speaks well for the Jews at that time that there was a desire for hearing the Law of God read, for such public reading of the Word was required every seventh year. Cf Lev 23:24; Num 19:1-6.
v. 3. And he read therein, from the roll of parchment on which the Books of Moses were written, before the street that was before the Water Gate, before the great assembly in the public square, from the morning, from the time it became light, until midday, for some six hours, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the Book of the Law, whose principal sections could be read in that time.
v. 4. And Ezra, the scribe, stood upon a pulpit of wood, a high platform with space for more than a dozen men, which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, and Shema, and Anaiah, and Urijah, and Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand; and on his left hand, Pedaiah, and Mishael, and Malchiah, and Hashum, and Hashbadana, Zechariah, and Meshullam. These priests not only gave Ezra their moral support, but probably also relieved him from time to time in the reading of the Law.
v. 5. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, unrolling the parchment as he progressed with his reading; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up.
v. 6. And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God; he opened his reading with a solemn prayer, during which the people stood, and at the conclusion of which they gave their assent with the word used for that purpose to this day. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands, in a gesture of supplication; and they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground, the attitude of reverent adoration.
v. 7. Also Jeshua, and Bani, and Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodijah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, that is, other Levites, for the first thirteen were leaders among the Levites, caused the people to understand the Law, by explaining the sections read by Ezra to smaller groups, or by translating unusual Hebrew words into Aramaic, the language now chiefly spoken by the people; and the people stood in their place.
v. 8. So they, Ezra and his assistants, read in the book, in the Law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. That is the right kind of religious service, when the Word of God is read and explained, and when all who hear it accept it in all sincerity, with praise and thanksgiving to God.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13, 16, 18 All the people gathered as one man
All the people gathered as one man
The word "all" is a generalization that indicates the people as a whole came together. AT: "The people gathered all together" (See: Hyperbole and Generalization)
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Water Gate
This was the name of a large opening or doorway in the wall.
the Book of the Law of Moses
This would have been all or part of the first five books of the Old Testament.
On the first day of the seventh month
This is the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar. The first day of the seventh month is near the middle of September on Western calendars. AT: "On day 1 of month 7" (See: Hebrew Months and Ordinal Numbers)
brought the law
"brought The Book of the Law"
all who could hear and understand
This would include children who were old enough to understand what was being read.
He faced the open area
"He turned towards the open area"
he read from it
Here "it" refers to the Book of the Law of Moses.
translationWords
people group
water
gate
Ezra
scribe
law
Yahweh
command
Israel
day
priest
assembly
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18 8:1 The Water Gate was located toward the middle…
8:1 The Water Gate was located toward the middle of the eastern wall of Jerusalem, south of the Temple and east of the palace ruins (3:26; 12:37). There was plenty of open space so no one would be excluded.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.