Apparently, the Jews hadn’t celebrated the annual festivals properly, during the time they had been released from captivity, from Cyrus to Xerxes or for a period of nearly forty-nine years! It was Ezra who changed that. Indeed, Nehemiah built the city (Nehemiah 4:1, 6; 7:1), and protected the Jewish workers in Jerusalem against all opposition (Nehemiah 4:13-14). Furthermore, he was also somewhat familiar with scripture, because he caused the wealthy to stop taking advantage of the poorer classes. However, instead of quoting the Law, he held up his own example of treating the poor with respect in an effort to get the Jewish nobility and the rulers to release their brethren from the debts they owed (Nehemiah 5:1-12). He also mentioned how Solomon’s foreign wives corrupted the king, as reason for ending mixed marriages (cp. Nehemiah 13:26). However, as the Tirshatha (governor) of the province of Judah, he didn’t prevent the Jewish nobility, the priests, the Levites or the rest of the people from intermarrying with the heathen. Those reforms weren’t done until Ezra came to Jerusalem and taught the Jews the Law of Moses (Nehemiah 8:9; cp. 13:28)! Nehemiah was, indeed, zealous for the Lord, but it doesn’t appear that he was the expert in the Law that Ezra was.
While there may have been some familiarity with the judgments of the Law among the priests, none of the people, which included the nobility, the rulers, and the Levites, were so knowledgeable of the Law that one of them could act as its authority and command everyone else to obey the Mosaic Covenant. It was only after the coming of Ezra that Nehemiah searched for the genealogical record of the Jews, who had returned from the captivity with Zerubbabel (Nehemiah 7:5). This record was then used to determine the inheritance of obedient Jews and to exclude those who refused to divorce their heathen wives (cp. Nehemiah 7:61-65). If a pure genealogical record governed participation in priestly duties, then a pure genealogical record was also needed to inherit the land. The disobedient were, therefore, expelled from Judaism, and their property was confiscated (Ezra 10:8; cp. 7:25-26).
In this context, then, we read that on the second day of the seventh month the people gathered before Ezra to hear him speak, so they could understand the words of the Law and their responsibilities toward the Lord God of Israel and their covenant with him (Nehemiah 8:13). Therefore, in keeping with the season, Ezra read in the Law that Moses commanded the children of Israel to dwell in booths during the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles, which occurred in the seventh month of the Jewish calendar (Nehemiah 8:14). So, they in Jerusalem were commanded to take branches from particular trees and make temporary dwellings (Nehemiah 8:15), in order to commemorate their forefathers’ journey out of captivity in Egypt to their rewards in the Promised Land.
As they were commanded, so the people did. Even they who lived in Jerusalem made booths upon their rooftops and in the courtyards, while the pilgrims made them in the streets of Jerusalem, at the Water Gate, at the Gate of Ephraim, and in the courts of the House of God (Nehemiah 8:16). It is, therefore, recorded in the Book of Nehemiah that such a season of celebration wasn’t observed so well in their history to the time when Joshua and the children of Israel had done so, when they entered the Promised Land (Nehemiah 8:17), and so they did, day by day, until the festivals were closed with a solemn assembly on the eighth day of the feast in the 22nd of the seventh month (Nehemiah 8:18).
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