So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Hold your peace, for the day is holy. Don’t be grieved.”
Parallel Translations
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So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Hold your peace, for the day is holy. Don’t be grieved.”
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So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, Hold your peace, for the day is holy; neither be ye grieved.
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So the Levites stilled all the people, saying: 'Hold your peace, for the day is holy; neither be ye grieved.'
Cross-references (1)
Passages linked to Nehemiah 8:11 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Numbers 13:30 Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, “Let’s go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it!”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (10 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Neh 8:11 So the Levites stilled all the people,…
Neh 8:11 So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, Hold your peace, for the day [is] holy; neither be ye grieved.
Ver. 11. So the Levites stilled all the people] Made them hold their tongues, and forbear their groans and moans, the expressions of their great grief conceived for their sins, making a wailing like the dragons, mourning as the owls, and saying, "Look away from me; I will weep bitterly, labour not to comfort me," &c., Mic 1:8 Isa 22:4. But these holy Levites did comfort them, and quiet them.
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Saying, Hold your peace] Or, Sit; peace, and be still.
For the day is holy] And God loves not the bread of mourners for a sacrifice, is like as none might come into the court of Persia in mourning weeds, Est 4:4. See Neh 8:9.
Neither be ye grieved] It seems their hearts were even leavened and soured with sorrow, as David’s was, Psa 73:21.
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 The Levites stilled all the people; whose passions being…
The Levites stilled all the people; whose passions being once raised, could not suddenly be composed.
Hold your peace; cease from weeping and mournful cries, and turn your lamentations into thanksgivings.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain So the Levites stilled all the people,.... Made them…
So the Levites stilled all the people,.... Made them quiet and easy, being backed by the governor:
saying, hold your peace; refrain from weeping and mourning:
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for the day is holy; a festival, set apart for joy and gladness:
neither be ye grieved; inwardly; as they were not to show any signs of sorrow outwardly, so they were not to cherish grief inwardly.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Neh 8:11-12. So the Levites stilled the people —…
Neh 8:11-12. So the Levites stilled the people — Whose passions, being once raised, could not very soon be composed. Saying, Hold your peace, for the day is holy — Cease from weeping and mournful cries, and turn your lamentations into thanksgivings. And the people went their way to eat, &c. — Their weeping was stilled, and they complied with the directions that were given them. Because they understood the words that were declared to them — Because they now knew God’s will, and their own duty, which they were resolved to practise. This gave them ground of hope and trust in God’s mercy, and consequently of just and great joy.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 11. Stilled all the people — Hushed their loud…
11. Stilled all the people — Hushed their loud lamentation. The call to observe the feast of trumpets, and the comforting words that accompanied it, cheered and strengthened the hearts of the people, and they went forth to enjoy the rest of the day with becoming festivity.
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 11. Hold your peace] This expression has been compared…
11. Hold your peace] This expression has been compared with the Latin ‘Favete linguis.’ It was ill-omened to make use of words or signs of lamentation on a holy day, cf. Hab_2:20, ‘The Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him;’ Zep_1:7, ‘Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God: … for the Lord hath prepared a sacrifice, he hath sanctified his guests;’ Zec_2:13.
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 (11) So the Levites.—As before, what Ezra said was…
(11) So the Levites.—As before, what Ezra said was repeated to the people in various directions by the Levites. But there was evidently an almost irrepressible emotion.
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 Comfort for penitents.
Comfort for penitents.
"Neither be ye grieved." God"s word grieves, yet soon says, Be ye not grieved.
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I TO WHOM THIS MAY BE SAID.
1. To true penitents. Such as mourn over sin with a "godly sorrow," and seek mercy through the mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ; whether sinners first awakened, or Christians conscious of recent sin.
2. To all such. Even the chief of sinners, the worst of backsliders.
II ON WHAT GROUNDS IT MAY BE SAID.
1. The assurance of forgiveness. "Though your sins be as scarlet," etc. "He will abundantly pardon.
2. The certain results of forgiveness. Adoption into the family of God. The enjoyment of his favour. The constant aids of the Holy Spirit. Support in conflict and trouble. The cooperation of all things for good. Life everlasting. In a word, salvation now and for ever.
3. The many injunctions to rejoice.
4. The injurious influence of over-much and over-prolonged sorrow. On him who cherishes it. Christian graces thrive best in an atmosphere of confidence and joy. Much sorrow blights them. On others. Discouraging inquirers. Repelling unbelievers. Bringing discredit on religion.
III BY WHOM IT SHOULD BE SAID. By ministers of the gospel, and by the Church in general. We should not be afraid to comfort mourning sinners. To others our exhortation should be, "Be ye grieved." "Be afflicted, and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness." (See more under Neh_2:3 Neh_8:10)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain 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.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 "Be quiet!" or "Be silent!"
Hush!
"Be quiet!" or "Be silent!"
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Do not be grieved
This can be stated in active form. AT: "Do not grieve" (See: Active or Passive)
celebrate with great joy
The abstract noun "joy" can be expressed as a verb. AT: "rejoice greatly" (See: Abstract Nouns)
the words that were made known to them
This can be stated in active form. AT: "the words that he declared to them" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
Levi
holy
joy
word
know
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.