7 : 73 AND when the seventh month was come, the children of Israel were in their cities. 8 : 1 And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the broad place 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. And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation, both men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month. And he read therein before the broad place that was before the water gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women, and of those that could understand ; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law. And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose ; and beside him stood Mattithiah, and Shema, and Anaiah, and Uriah, and Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand ; and on his left hand, Pedaiah, and Mishael, and Malchijah, and Hashum, and Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam. And 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 ; and Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with the lifting up of their hands ; and they bowed their heads, and worshipped the LORD with their faces to the ground. Also Jeshua, and Bani, and Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, caused the people to understand the law ; and the people stood in their place. And they read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly ; and they gave the sense, so that they understood the reading. And Nehemiah, which was the Theshatta, 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. Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto him for whom nothing is prepared ; for this day is holy unto our Lord ; neither be ye grieved ; for the joy of the LORD is your strength. So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, Hold your peace, for the day is holy ; neither be ye grieved. And 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. And on the second day were gathered together the heads of fathers’ houses of all the people, the priests, and the Levites, unto Ezra the scribe, even to give attention to the words of the law. And they found written in the law, how that the LORD 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 forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches, and branches of wild olive, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths, as it is written. So the people went forth, and brought them, and made themselves booths, every one upon the roof of his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the broad place of the water gate, and in the broad place of the gate of Ephraim. And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and dwelt in 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 very great gladness. Also 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 ordinance. 9 : 1 Now in the twenty and fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackcloth, and earth upon them. And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of the LORD their God a fourth part of the day ; and another fourth part they confessed, and worshipped the LORD their God. Then stood up upon the stairs of the Levites, Jeshua, and Bani, and Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani, and cried with a loud voice unto the LORD their God. Then the Levites, Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hediiah, Shebaniah, and Pethaiah, said, Stand up and bless the LORD your God from everlasting to everlasting ; and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. Thou art the LORD, even thou alone ; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things that are thereon, the seas and all that is in them, and thou preservest them all ; and the host of heaven worshipped thee. Thou art the LORD the God, who didst choose Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham ; and foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, even to give it unto his seed, and hast performed thy words ; for thou art righteous. And thou sawest the affliction

10 of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red Sea; and shewedst signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and on all his servants, and on all the people of his land; for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them; and didst get thee a name, as it is this day. 11 And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their pursuers thou didst cast into the depths, as a stone into the 12 mighty waters. Moreover thou leddest them in a pillar of cloud by day; and in a pillar of 13 fire by night, to give them light in the way wherein they should go. Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spake with them from heaven, and gavest them right judge- 14 ments and true laws, good statutes and commandments; and madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and commandedest them commandments, and statutes, and a law, by the hand 15 of Moses thy servant: and gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and commandedest them that they should 16 go in to possess the land which thou hadst lifted up thine hand to give them. But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their neck, and hearkened not to thy command- 17 ments, and refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them; but hardened their neck, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage; but thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and full of compassion, slow to 18 anger, and plenteous in mercy, and forsookest them not. Yea, when they had made them a molten calf, and said, This is thy God that brought thee up out of Egypt, and had wrought 19 great provocations; yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness; the pillar of cloud departed not from over them by day, to lead them in the way; neither 20 the pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and the way wherein they should go. Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their 21 mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst. Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled 22 not. Moreover thou gavest them kingdoms and peoples, which thou didst allot after their portions; so they possessed the land of Sithon, even the land of the king of Heshbon, and 23 the land of Og king of Bashan. Their children also multipliedst thou as the stars of heaven, and broughtest them into the land, concerning which thou didst say to their fathers, that 24 they should go in to possess it. So the children went in and possessed the land, and thou subduedst before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gavest them into their hands, with their kings, and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they 25 would. And they took fenced cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all good things, cisterns hewn out, vineyards, and oliveyards, and fruit trees in abundance; so they did eat, and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in thy great goodness. 26 Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their back, and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them again unto thee, and 27 they wrought great provocations. Therefore thou deliveredst them into the hand of their adversaries, who distressed them; and in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest from heaven; and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them 28 saviours who saved them out of the hand of their adversaries. But after they had rest, they did evil again before thee; therefore leftest thou them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them; yet when they returned, and cried unto thee, thou heardest from heaven; and many times didst thou deliver them according to thy mercies; and 29 testifiedst against them, that thou mightest bring them again unto thy law; yet they dealt proudly, and hearkened not unto thy commandments, but sinned against thy judgements, (which if a man do, he shall live in them,) and withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their 30 neck, and would not hear. Yet many years didst thou bear with them, and testifiedst against them by thy spirit through thy prophets; yet would they not give ear; therefore 31 gavest thou them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless in thy manifold mercies thou didst not make a full end of them, nor forsake them; for thou art a gracious 32 and merciful God. Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and mercy, let not all the travail seem little before thee, that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the time of the kings of Assyria unto this day. 33 Howbeit thou art just in all that is come upon us; for thou hast dealt truly, but we have 34 done wickedly; neither have our kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers, kept thy law, nor hearkened unto thy commandments and thy testimonies, wherewith thou didst 35 testify against them. For they have not served thee in their kingdom, and in thy great goodness that thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land which thou gavest before them, 36 neither turned they from their wicked works. Behold, we are servants this day, and as for the land that thou gavest unto our fathers to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof, be- 37 hold, we are servants in it. And it yieldeth much increase unto the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins: also they have power over our bodies, and over our cattle, 38 at their pleasure, and we are in great distress. And yet for all this we make a sure covenant, and write it; and our princes, our Levites, and our priests, seal unto it. 10: 1 Now those that sealed were, Nehemiah the Tirshatha, the son of Hacaiah, and Zede- 2, 3, 4 kiah; Seraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah; Pashhur, Amariah, Malchijah; Hattush, Shebaniah, 5, 6, 7 Malluch; Harim, Meremoth, Obadiah; Daniel, Ginnethon, Baruch; Meshullam, Abijah, 8, 9 Mijamin; Maaziah, Bilgai, Shemaiah: these were the priests. And the Levites: namely, 10 Jeshua the son of Azaniah, Binnui of the sons of Henadad, Kadmiel; and their brethren, 11, 12 Shebaniah, Hodiah, Kelita, Pelaiah, Hanan; Mica, Rehob, Hashabiah; Zaccur, Sherebiah,

13,14. Shebaniah; Hodiah, Bani, Beninu. The chiefs of the people: Parosh, Pahath-moab, 15, 16, 17 Elam, Zattu, Bani; Bunni, Azgad, Bebai; Adonijah, Bigvai, Adin; Ater, Hezekiah, 18, 19, 20 Azzur; Hodiah, Hashum, Bezai; Hariph, Anathoth, Nobai; Magpiash, Meshullam, 21, 22, 23 Hezir; Meshezabel, Zadok, Jaddun; Pelatiah, Hanan, Anaiah; Hoshea, Hananiah, 24, 25, 26 Hasshub; Hallohesh, Pilha, Shobek; Rehum, Hashabnah, Maaseiah; and Ahiah, 27, 28 Hanan, Anan; Malluch, Harim, Baanah. And the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the porters, the singers, the Nethinim, and all they that had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands unto the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daugh- 29 ters, every one that had knowledge and understanding; they clave to their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God’s law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our 30 Lord, and his judgements and his statutes; and that we would not give our daughters unto 31 the peoples of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons: and if the peoples of the land bring war or any victuals on the sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy of them on the sabbath, or on a holy day; and that we would forego the seventh year, and the exaction 32 of every debt. Also we made ordinances for us, to charge ourselves yearly with the third 33 part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God; for the shewbread, and for the continual meal offering, and for the continual burnt offering, of the sabbaths, of the new moons, for the set feasts, and for the holy things, and for the sin offerings to make atone- 34 ment for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God. And we cast lots, the priests, the Levites, and the people, for the wood offering, to bring it into the house of our God, according to our fathers’ houses, at times appointed, year by year, to burn upon the altar of 35 the LORD our God, as it is written in the law: and to bring the firstfruits of our ground, and 36 the firstfruits of all fruit of all manner of trees, year by year, unto the house of the LORD: also the firstborn of our sons, and of our cattle, as it is written in the law, and the firstlings of our herds and of our flocks, to bring to the house of our God, unto the priests that minister in the 37 house of our God; and that we should bring the firstfruits of our dough, and our heave offer- ings, and the fruit of all manner of trees, the wine and the oil, unto the priests, to the cham- bers of the house of our God; and the tithes of our ground unto the Levites; for they, the 38 Levites, take the tithes in all the cities of our tillage. And the priest the son of Aaron shall be with the Levites, when the Levites take tithes: and the Levites shall bring up the tithe of 39 the tithes unto the house of our God, to the chambers, into the treasure house. For the chil- dren of Israel and the children of Levi shall bring the heave offering of the corn, of the wine, and of the oil, unto the chambers, where are the vessels of the sanctuary, and the priests that minister, and the porters, and the singers: and we will not forsake the house of our God.

CHAPS. 8-10 constitute a section by themselves. This section might be entitled “An Account of the Great Convocation held under Nehemiah.” It differs from the opening and closing parts of the book in that it speaks of Nehemiah in the third person (for example, Neh 8: 9; 10: 1), while they are written in his name in the first person. It records events closely connected with those of the first chapters, since they deal with the first six months (Neh. 6: 15, etc.) of the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, while this section is concerned with the events of the seventh month (Neh. 8: 2, 13, 18; 9: 1). These events are separated by an interval of from twelve years to many years from those mentioned in the later chapters of Nehemiah. The account was written long enough after the events to make it proper (Neh. 8: 17) to say “that day.” The interval thus required might be anywhere from a few days to many years. One marked literary phenomenon of the account is its alternating between the third person and the first person plural when it speaks of Nehemiah and his associates. In general, the narrative is in the third person, while the prayer in chap. 9 and the covenant engagements in chap. 10 are in the first person plural. But besides those parts of the covenant that are given in the form of promises in the first person plural (Neh. 9: 38; 10: 29, last clause, 30-33, 35-39), another part is given in narrative form in the third person (Neh. 10: 28, 29a); and still another part is given in narrative form in the first person plural (Neh. 10: 34; but not 32, 33, 35, and 36, as in the English versions). These phenomena are most naturally accounted for by the hypothesis that the author was a participant in the events—that is, that he is either Nehemiah or some associate of his. There is no proof that Nehemiah himself did not write it. If he wrote it, he wrote it as a paper of an official nature, in which it was proper to speak of himself in the third person, and not in the first person singular, as in his memoirs.

This section describes a series of events of the greatest importance. Jewish and Christian tradition have much to say concerning the so-called Great Synagogue, to which many allege that we owe the completion and authentication of the Old Testament Scriptures. These traditions, whether we regard them as historical or legendary, radiate from this great convocation in Nehemiah’s time. But we now have less to do with these than with one particular design which Nehemiah had in mind. His design was to renew and enlarge the reforms which Ezra had begun thirteen years before, and especially the reform against marriages with foreign women. Evidently the work of Ezra had not proved a permanent success. Great disasters had followed it (Neh. 1:3, etc.), and such marriages were still in vogue (Neh. 6:18, etc.). Nehemiah intended to renew this reform. It is not necessary to say that this was his only, or even his chief object; but it was an object that he never lost sight of. Chaps. 8-10 are an account of transactions running through twenty-four days or more, by which Nehemiah brought this and other reforms into active operation. The first part of the eighth chapter (1-12) tells what happened in one day—the first day of the seventh month (verse 2). The remainder of the chapter is the second part, giving an account of events from the second to the twenty-third days of the month (verses 13, 18). Chaps. 9 and 10 constitute the third part, giving an account of what was done the twenty-fourth day of the month. W. J. B.

Outline of Events Narrated in Chaps. 8-10.

On the first day of the month the people were gathered as one man in the street before the water-gate, and Ezra again appears among them. At their desire he produced the Book of the Law, and having opened it amid marks of the deepest reverence from all the people, he read it to an audience wrapped in attention from morning to midday. The manner of reading was this: Ezra stood on a pulpit, with six Scribes or Levites on his right hand and seven on his left, who seem to have relieved him in the reading; for it is said, “they read in the book in the law of God distinctly.” The people stood in their ranks in front of the pulpit; and among them were thirteen other ministers, who, with the assistance of the Levites, “caused the people to understand the law.” There can be little doubt that this phrase refers to a translation of what Ezra read in Hebrew into the mixed Chaldee dialect, which had become the vernacular tongue during the Captivity. The reading produced an impression like that made on Josiah. All the people wept at what they heard; not only, we may well believe, with regret at the past glories of their nation, but at the recital of the sins for which that glory had departed, not unmixed with a penitent consciousness of their own guilt. But Nehemiah (who is now first mentioned in the transaction), supported by Ezra and the Levites, bade them cease their sorrow, and go home to “eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing was prepared, for the day was holy to Jehovah.” The people went away to make great mirth, because they understood the words that were declared unto them. When the reading was resumed on the following day, they came to the institution of the Feast of Tabernacles in this very month of Tisri. Their excited minds caught the signal for fresh rejoicing in Jehovah. They went forth into the mount to fetch branches of olive, and pine, and myrtle, and palm, and thick trees, and made booths on the roofs and in the courts of their houses, in the Temple court and along the streets to the city gates. Such a Feast of Tabernacles had not been kept since the days of Joshua. The reading of the law was continued for all the seven days of the feast, and the eighth was a solemn assembly, as Moses had commanded.

After the burst of joy for God’s mercy in restoring them, they turned to the solemn duty of humiliation and repentance for their sins. The Day of Atonement ought to have been kept on the tenth of this month. It had probably been passed over, as requiring more solemn preparation and a more orderly arrangement of the Temple service than was yet possible. In its place a fast was held two days after the Feast of Tabernacles, on the twenty-fourth day of Tisri. All who were of the seed of Israel, carefully separating themselves from the strangers, appeared in the deepest mourning, clad in sackeloth, and with earth upon their heads. The day seems to have been divided into four equal parts, only broken by the intervals necessary for refreshment. The first three hours were devoted to the reading of the law. The morning sacrifice fitly introduced the second quarter, which was spent in silent confession and prayer. When the hour of noon was past, the Levites, arranged on the steps of the Temple porch, or on a scaffold erected for the purpose, called upon the people to stand up and bless Jehovah. Then in a solemn prayer, the epitome of which is a fit model for all such services, they recited God’s mercies from the first call of Abram; they confessed the sins of their forefathers, and God’s forbearance in punishing without utterly consuming them; and they acknowledged His justice in their present state of humiliation and great distress, as servants to the kings set over them for their sins, to whom their land yielded its increase, and who had dominion over their bodies and cattle at their pleasure. Submissive to God’s will, they ended by making a new covenant with Him; and before the sun set, it was recorded in writing, and sealed by the princes, priests, and Levites, whose names are recorded by Nehemiah, while the rest of the people bound themselves by a curse and an oath to walk in the law which God had given by Moses. The chief points of this covenant were: To make no intermarriages with the heathen; to abstain from traffic on the Sabbath, and to keep the sabbatic year, with its release of all debts; to pay a yearly tax of a third of a shekel for the services of the sanctuary, which are carefully enumerated; to offer the first-fruits and first-born, and the tithes due to the Levites and the priests; and, in one final word, “We will not forsake the house of our God.” To most points of this covenant they remained faithful in the letter. The sins of the Jewish nation took henceforth a direction altogether different from the open rebellion and apostasy of their fathers. The more scrupulous their observance of the law, the more did they make it void by their traditions and pervert it to serve their selfishness. P. S.

8:1-12. General account of the reading of the Law. The events of the first day of the seventh month were the reading of the Law and certain results that followed. We have, first, a general account (verses 1-3); second, details in regard to the reading (verses 4-8); third, the weeping that followed, and the way in which the weeping was dealt with (verses 9-12). Nehemiah understood the importance of keeping an enterprise in motion. As soon as the wall was completed, the twenty-fifth day of the sixth month (Neh. 6:15), before the enthusiasm over that achievement had time to cool, he pushed forward to accomplish yet greater things; utilizing for his first movement the great national day of the blowing of trumpets. W. J. B.

1. They spake unto 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. B. C.—A gap of twelve or thirteen years occurs between the narrative with which the Book of Ezra ends, and the next appearance which Ezra makes upon the scene of history. It is uncertain how he was employed during this interval. “As Ezra’s commission was only of a temporary nature,” says Bishop Arthur Heyvey, “to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem, and to carry thither the silver and gold which the king and his counsellors had freely offered unto the God of Israel, and as there is no trace whatever of his presence at Jerusalem between the eighth and the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, it seems probable that, after he had effected his reformation, and had appointed competent judges and magistrates, with authority to maintain it, he himself returned to the King of Persia. This is in itself what one would expect, and what is borne out by the parallel case of Nehemiah; and it also accounts for the abrupt termination of Ezra’s narrative, and for that relapse of the Jews into their former irregularities which is apparent in the Book of Nehemiah. Such a relapse, and such a state of affairs at Jerusalem in general, could scarcely have occurred if Ezra had continued there.” On these grounds it seems best to conclude that from B.C. 457 to B.C. 445 the great priest and scribe was absent from the holy city, either employed by the Persian monarch in other secular work, or pursuing his literary labors in retirement, at Babylon or elsewhere.

But a time came when, again, a call was made on him to return to Jerusalem—the cradle and citadel of his race—and resume an active superintendence over the community, which had been the object of his deep affection and diligent care twelve years before. But, this time, he was not to be in sole charge. Providence had provided him with a coadjutor in the person of Nehemiah—a man after his own heart—zealous, active, intensely pious, and profoundly anxious for the true well-being of his nation. The two were excellently fitted to assist and supplement each other. One possessed in a high degree the qualities needed in a political leader, was an active warrior, a sagacious statesman, well suited to grapple with practical dangers and difficulties of all kinds; the other was above all things a teacher, able to impress men’s minds, to expound, convince, persuade, instruct, educate, guide in the way of true knowledge and pure religion.

Various reforms—which, while in some respects they restricted the liberties and increased the burdens of the Judean community, were yet of the highest advantage to it, by calling out its patriotism and waking up its religious zeal—must be assigned to the conjoint efforts of the two Hebrew leaders, who worked together in the most perfect harmony and agreement. The exact time which they occupied is uncertain; but it is on the whole most probable that they were begun and concluded within the space of a few months. The Book of Nehemiah is deficient in chronological notices; and, having been compiled from a number of distinct documents, lends itself to various interpretations. Nehemiah’s governorship lasted certainly for above twelve years (Neh. 5 : 14 ; 13 : 6) ; but during what portion of this time Ezra was associated with him cannot be determined. The later Israel, the Israel of the times of the Maccabees, and of our Lord’s day, was the natural fruit and outcome of their exertions. Without them it is almost certain that the wall of partition between Israel and the heathen, which was absolutely indispensable under the circumstances, as even Kuenen admits, would have been broken down, and the small Jewish nation would have lost itself among its neighbors, and have vanished without leaving a trace behind. G. R.

The Book of the Law of Moses. Evidently this book contained the laws which they were proposing to enforce ; and the prayer given in chap. 9, as having been offered after several days of public reading from the Book of the Law, is largely a recapitulation of the contents of the book. Applying these tests, it is evident that this book included our present Pentateuch (unless somebody can prove differences in details) ; but it is not so evident that Ezra’s Book of the Law was limited to the Pentateuch. The recapitulation in chap. 9 passes without a break from the history recorded in the Pentateuch to that recorded in the following books ; and the law against intermarriage with foreigners, as enforced by Ezra and Nehemiah, is not found in the Pentateuch, save as the Pentateuch may be regarded as interpreted or supplemented by the other books. Directly, the Pentateuch only forbids intermarriage with Canaanites. W. J. B.

Princes, priests, Levites, and people receive Ezra’s copy of the law as of unquestionable authority, and submit to it without opposition, though such submission, as we have seen, involved sacrifices the most distressing on the part of great numbers of the people, many of whom were of high rank and authority. Again : Ezra, Nehemiah, and the princes of the people went on harmoniously, as well as zealously, in the work of civil and ecclesiastical reform—a reform of great breadth and thoroughness, since it embraced the following specifications : the engagement of the people in a solemn covenant to walk in God’s law, as given by Moses ; the renunciation and avoidance of all intermarriages with idolatrous nations ; the rigid sanctification of the Sabbath ; the observance of the sabbatical year and the non-exaction of debts therein ; the payment of a tax of a third of a shekel yearly for the service of the Temple ; the bringing of the first-fruits of the ground, of their sons, and of their cattle, to the house of the Lord ; and the giving of tithes to the priests and Levites of all the proceeds of the land (Neh. 10 : 29-37). These details cover no inconsiderable part of the Pentateuch as we now have it ; and these details could not have been compiled at or subsequently to the time of the first return of the Jews out of their captivity. E. C. W.

4. Everything was prepared. Ezra had had a platform of wood constructed in the square, and had taken his station upon it at early dawn, together with thirteen other priests, six of them, with himself, occupying one side of the platform, and the remaining seven the other. He had brought “the Book of the Law” with him, and “opened it in the sight of all the people” (verse 5), while the people “stood up” in the attitude of attention and respect. Prefacing his reading with an ascription of praise to Almighty God, whereto all the people responded by a shout of “Amen, amen” (verse 6), he proceeded to read out such portions of the law to the assembled multitude as he judged best, and continued his occupation from early morning to midday (verse 3). Distributed among the people were thirteen Levites, whose task it was to repeat, and, where necessary, to explain the words read by Ezra. G. R.

Those colonists did not leave comfortable homes in Babylon to set up a temple at Jerusalem whose ritual had, in their estimation, anything short of a Divine sanction. Ezra brings forth the book, and the people receive it, as the law of Moses, the ancient constitution of the nation which they had sacrificed so much to restore ; and the modern theory gives no adequate explanation of this deeply rooted national belief. Ezra is a restorer, not an innovator. And although the high regard to Scripture which he inaugurated degenerated into a slavish worship of the letter, and the attention to the legal element ran into extravagance, it is the great merit of him and his associates that, at a critical time, they preserved the ancient writings which show how from earliest times the people of Israel had been the channel of the revelation of God’s will to mankind, and rallied around these writings the wondrous people that has been from age to age the witness of God’s truth to the world. James Robertson.

9-18. Through the study of God’s word there came to these people a revelation of themselves that made them ashamed and sorrowful. But through the same study there came to them a revelation of God that made them glad and exultant. Through twenty-three days of glad-some public services Nehemiah fostered in them this strength that comes from studying Jehovah’s law, and rejoicing in Him. In token of this joy, they went out by public proclamation into the mountain country, and brought in green branches, and covered the roofs and streets and open squares of Jerusalem with the booths in which dwelt the people who were keeping festival. W. J. B.

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—viz., 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—viz., 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.

10. 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, 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 share 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. A. M.

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.” God’s joy a stronghold! Assuredly and unspeakably. 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. 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. The joy of the Lord is a stronghold into which we may run and be safe from the fear of death. 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.

Nature and grace alike testify that there is strength in joy. A sorrowful man is a dispirited man. Melancholy breeds despair. Tears in the eyes blind the sight. Even when sanctified affliction imparts new power to the soul, as unquestionably it does, so that there is a victory through sorrow, it is by an exercise of faith which supplants the natural grief by a joy and peace in God—a truth recognized by the words of Scripture concerning “chastening,” that “afterward it worketh the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” W. W. Patton.

No vehement resolutions, no sense of your own sinfulness, nor even contrite remembrance of past failures, ever made a man strong yet. It made him weak that he might become strong, and when it had done that it had done its work. For strength there must be hope, for strength there must be joy. If the arm is to smite with vigor, 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.” You are weak unless you are glad; you are not glad and strong unless your faith and hope are fixed in Christ, and unless you are working from and not toward the assurance of salvation, from and not toward the sense of pardon, from and not toward the conviction of acceptance with God! A. M.—Those who serve God slavishly from no other motive loftier than fear know nothing of spiritual joy. The service of love is full of freedom, full of gladness, full of power. It finds sweetness in self-sacrifice, delights in giving, makes duty a constant delight, ennobles the most menial tasks by performing them royally. It makes the joy of the Lord our strength. Anon.

Our religion is not quite religion until it is clothed in a shining robe of gladness. It is only potent in degree as it becomes itself a gladness in us. All through the books of Moses we hear the perpetual overtone of an eleventh commandment, Thou shalt not clothe religion in the garments of heaviness. “And ye shall”—not the mere promise, the command—“rejoice before the Lord your God.” “And thou shalt be altogether joyful.” In other words, we are not merely to give ourselves good ground for joy, and let joy spring as it will, but we are to sow joy in that ground, and cultivate and harvest it. We are to strive to make, and feel, and show, every part and aspect of our religion delightful. What gives religion this vast advantage? First, it is the joy of contrition. Every child that has ever repented, and confessed a fault to a loving parent, knows what that is. Next, it is the joy of reconciliation to God, and harmony with His purposes and plans. Then, it is the joy of loving and being loved by God. And again, it is the joy of seeing and feeling everything, whether it seemeth for the present joyous or grievous work, and making it work in us the perfecting of that image of God, that Christ-likeness, which true religion makes our supreme desire. And, lastly, it is the joy of God’s personal presence with us, and personal and entire care over us; or, rather, this is the last—the taking of all our joys to God, and God into all our joys. Cable.

When we speak of joy, we do not speak of something we are after, but of something that will come to us, when we are after God and duty. It is a prize unbought, and is freest, purest in its flow, when it comes unsought. No getting into heaven, as a place, will compass it. You must carry it with you, else it is not there. You must have it in you, as the music of a well-ordered soul, the fire of a holy purpose, the welling up, out of the central depths, of eternal springs that hide their waters there. It is the rest of confidence, the blessedness of internal light and outflowing benevolence—the highest form of life and spiritual majesty. Being the birth of character, it has eternity in it. Rising from within, it is sovereign over all circumstance and hindrance. It is the joy of the Lord in the soul of man, because it is joy like His, and because it is from Him, participated by the secret life of goodness. Bushnell.

Joy in the Lord is the natural result of Christian faith. It takes away the sense of sin. It gives us, instead of the torpid conscience or the angrily-stinging conscience—it gives us a conscience all calm from its accusations, with all the sting drawn out of it; for quiet peace lies in the heart of the man that is trusting in the Lord. The Gospel works joy, because the soul is at rest in God; joy, because every function of the spiritual nature has found now its haven and its object; joy, because health has come, and the healthy working of the body or of the spirit is itself a gladness; joy, because the dim future is painted (where it is painted at all) with shapes of light and beauty, and because the very vagueness of these is an element in the greatness of its revelation. The joy that is in Christ is deep and abiding. Faith in Him naturally works gladness. A. M.

9:1-38. The feast was over—the “solemn assembly” of the eighth day had been held—and the Judean community, assembled from the farthest points of the territory, from Hebron and Beersheba, from Ziklag, Jarmuth and Lachish, from Bethel, from Jericho and Tekoa, expected probably to be dismissed to their homes, when a further religious duty was laid upon them. The desire to weep and mourn and afflict themselves, which Nehemiah and Ezra had checked when it showed itself inopportunely on the first day of Tisri (8:2-9), was now to be gratified. The feast having been celebrated and one day of rest allowed them, the twenty-fourth of Tisri was appointed to be a day of humiliation and abstinence, on which another solemn assembly should be held, a confession of sin made, and a formal renewal of their covenant with God entered into by the whole people. The real heart of the people had been touched; and on the twenty and fourth day of the seventh month “the children of Israel assembled with fasting, and with sackcloth and earth upon them” (verse 1). They had carefully “separated themselves from all strangers” (verse 2), and having gathered themselves together in the Temple court, “they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.” Passages from the law were read to them by the Levites during a fourth part of the day (verse 3); then during another fourth part the people knelt and confessed their sins to God and worshipped Him; after this they rose up from their knees, and, standing each in his place, blessed and praised the Lord (verse 5), according to a set form of words, which Ezra probably composed, and which has been preserved to us in the Book of Nehemiah (verses 5-38). God’s many mercies were recounted, and the people’s many backslidings; His justice was acknowledged, and His mercy appealed to; it was solemnly represented to Him that His people were “in great distress” (verse 37); and then the covenant was renewed—not, as on former occasions, merely by word of mouth, but in a documentary form (verse 38)—a formal deed being drawn out, to which the princes, Levites, and priests appended their seals, and which was no doubt laid up in the national archives. G. R.

6. Thou hast made. The history of the creation in Genesis is not merely a cosmogonic account of primitive date, but above all else it is an express counter-statement opposed to the conceptions of Egypt and of Babylon. The latter were formed in regions either naturally fertile or early animated by commercial intercourse; the Mosaic idea emerges upon the lonely heights of Sinai, which no terrestrial vicissitudes have ever touched, and where nothing interposes between God and the world. With the Egyptians and Babylonians everything is developed from the innate powers of the sun, the stars, and the earth itself. Jehovah, on the other hand, appears as the Creator of heaven and earth, as both the originator and the orderer of the world. With the Egyptians man is not distinguished in kind from the sun, from which he issues, rather as a product than as a creature, and the same is true of the Babylonian cosmogony, where the Divine element in man is only revealed through the blood of a God chancing to fall down to earth. All creatures are generically the same with man. In the Mosaic cosmogony, on the other hand, the elements, plants, and animals are called into being by a supreme, intelligent Will, which creates in the last place man after His own image. The divergence is immeasurable. In a passage which criticism asserts to belong to the oldest form of the original account, to man is assigned lordship over the fishes of the sea, the fowls of the air, and all beasts which move upon the earth. This is a conception distinct from that prevalent in Egypt, where the bull is worshipped with divine honors as symbolizing the creative powers of nature. The idea of Jehovah, far from having arisen from nature-worship, is set up in opposition to it. Ranke.

Heaven, the earth, and all things.

It astonishes all thought to observe the minuteness of God’s government, and of the natural and common processes which He carries on from day to day. His dominions are spread out, system beyond system, system above system, filling all height and latitude, but He is never lost in the vast or magnificent. He descends to an infinite detail, and builds a little universe in the smallest things. He carries on a process of growth in every tree, and flower, and living thing; accomplishes in each an internal organization and works the functions of an internal laboratory, too delicate all for eye or instrument to trace. He articulates the members and impels the instincts of every living mote that shines in the sunbeam. As when we ascend toward the distant and the vast, so when we descend toward the minute, we see His attention acuminated, and His skill concentrated on His object; and the last discernible particle dies out of our sight with the same divine glory on it as on the last orb that glimmers in the skirt of the universe. Bushnell.

Regard Nature as transparent, as a window to look through and see the living powers of infinite love and wisdom in manifestation and operation; then she both gladdens your affections and charms and invigorates your mind. On the other hand, regard Nature as her own cause—then she becomes opaque; and the mind of the inquirer is confounded, darkened, and brought to a dead stand. In this case man finds himself shut up within limits which are too little for his nature, and which yield no explanation or solution of his existence; in the other case he passes on through an open door to the Infinite Presence, and sees before him his own endless way. The distinction is between being in a prison, within which your grave is waiting for you, and being in a preparatory school of discipline and culture, to be qualified in due time for society, service, honor, and bliss in the home kingdom of larger space and clearer light. Pulsford.

For the susceptibility to natural beauty and grandeur God has provided. Nature is full of objects that correspond to this; it is among our purest and best sources of enjoyment, and is the forerunner and type of the higher enjoyment from the beauty of holiness. But the moral susceptibilities can be awakened only by character. For these the great provision is in God Himself, whose character is perfect; but aside from this, these susceptibilities may be drawn out in high activity by human character. If all people were to reflect the image of Christ in their radical character, the ideals of literature and art, or rather something more beautiful and better, would live and act before us, and no one can estimate the enhanced joy from moral beauty. Mark Hopkins.

The host of heaven in the Old Testament includes, as this passage of Nehemiah shows, the heavenly bodies and the celestial spirits. The Old Testament distinctly maintains not only the creaturehood of the heavenly host (Ps. 33:6), but also the distinction of the two above-named classes. It is only by a poetical personification that the stars are spoken of in the song of Deborah (Judg. 5:20) as the warriors of the Lord, who, leaving their courses, descend to fight for Israel against Sisera, and that the morning stars are said in Job 38:7 to have joined with the angels in celebrating the morning of creation. The greater the danger to the Israelites, surrounded as they were by Sabæanism, of being seduced into a worship of the heavenly bodies, the more important was it not only to declare Jehovah’s superiority to the heavenly bodies, and to forbid their adoration (De. 4:19; 17:3), but also to maintain such a view concerning them as might of itself exclude all worship of them. This is done from Gen. 1:14 onward. The heavenly bodies are declared to be merely light-bearers, created by God, and as such subserving earthly purposes. They manifest, indeed, by their splendor and their course, the greatness and wisdom of the Creator (Ps. 8:4; 19:5; Amos 5:8; Job 9:9; 38:31 sqq.), but their brilliancy admits of no comparison with the Divine glory. Thus they are the hosts of God, whom His almighty will commands (Isa. 40:26; 45:12); they serve to proclaim and to glorify His judgments (Joel 3:15; Isa. 13:10; Hab. 3:11). O.

7-31. Compare with this long historical résumé the still longer ones in Ps. 78:5-72 and Acts 7:2-47. God’s dealings with His people furnished a moral lesson of extraordinary force, and moral teachers naturally made frequent reference to them. But it is not often that we have so complete and elaborate a recapitulation as the present, which, beginning with the call of Abraham, brings the history down to the time of the Persian servitude. God’s goodness and His people’s ingratitude form the burden of the whole. P. C.

20. “Thou gavest Thy good Spirit to instruct them” refers to the occurrence (Num. 11:17, 25) where God endowed the seventy elders with the spirit of prophecy for the confirmation of Moses’ authority. Keil.—“Thou gavest Thy good Spirit to instruct them.” To such it was said, “Turn ye at My reproof: I will pour out My spirit to you, I will make known My words unto you” (Prov. 1 : 23, 24). We see whence their destruction came, not from God’s first restraint of His Spirit, but their refusing, despising, and setting at naught His counsels and reproofs. And when it is said, “They rebelled and vexed His Spirit; and He therefore turned and fought against them, and became their enemy,” it appears that before His Spirit was not withheld, but did variously and often make essays and attempts upon them. And when Stephen, immediately before his martyrdom, thus bespeaks the descendants of these Jews, “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye,” it is implied, the Holy Ghost had been always striving from age to age with that stubborn people. Hove.

30. Many years didst Thou forbear them.** The Ten Tribes for two hundred and sixty years from the revolt of Jeroboam, the remaining two tribes for one hundred and thirty-five years longer. Testifiedst against them by Thy Spirit in Thy prophets. Compare 2 K. 17 : 13, where the phrase used is nearly the same, and see also 2 Chron. 36 : 15, 16. There was a continual succession of prophets from the time of Solomon to and through the Captivity. Besides those whose writings have come down to us, we find mention of Ahijah the Shilonite, Iddo the seer, Shemaiah the prophet, Hanani, Jehu, the son of Hanani, Elijah, Elisha, Micaiah, the son of Imlah, Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, Huldah, and (perhaps) Hosai. The guilt of the Jewish people was enormously increased by the fact that they would not give ear to the exhortations constantly addressed to them by the messengers of God. Therefore they were delivered into the hands of the heathen, or people of the lands. P. C.

From this prayer we see that the history of the Pentateuch was at that time familiar to the people. There is remarkable evidence in the prayer of even a verbal acquaintance with it. The mention of the fact that the foot of the Israelites did not swell in the wanderings, and the word expressing it, are both peculiar to this prayer and to De. 8 : 4. It is highly improbable, not to say morally impossible, that there is no allusion here to the passage in Deuteronomy. But, in that case, it is certain that, in the time of Nehemiah, Deuteronomy was accepted as an authoritative record of the wanderings in the wilderness. There is evidence also that the authors of the prayer recognized in the troubles that had befallen their nation a fulfilment of the threatenings which had been pronounced against them in the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy (compare, e.g., Neh. 9 : 35-37 with De. 38 : 33, 47, 48, 51); and consequently they must have regarded that book as containing, not only true history, but also a veritable declaration on the part of God, which familiar and painful events have ratified; and it matters very little whether this portion of Nehemiah was written by him or by Ezra, or by any one else. The only matter of importance is that it should be credible as history, and there is not a shadow of suspicion attaching to it on this ground. We may rightly claim it, therefore, as documentary evidence of about the middle of the fifth century before Christ to the way in which the history of the Pentateuch was then regarded, and especially the Book of Deuteronomy. It is absolutely impossible that the Book of Deuteronomy could have been a forgery of the last two hundred years and the chiefs and leaders of the nation not have known it. If, as a matter of fact, it was not entitled to the position it held, it would not have been quoted as history, nor regarded as a Divine oracle that had been fulfilled. At all events, at this time the Book of Deuteronomy had obtained its position as an integral portion of the Pentateuch. The history embodied in the Pentateuch was familiar to the bulk of the people, and that Pentateuch itself was accepted as of Divine authority, and as substantially the work of Moses. And, with respect to this belief, it must be borne in mind that it was national, and of great antiquity. Their national unity and their national existence centred in their peculiar estimate of the law of Moses. And the belief, from its very nature, was one that could not but have been of great antiquity. In all the past there was no name at all to be compared with that of Moses. There was no character that occupied anything like the same position or had the same hold upon the national mind. The consciousness of this fact is so clear at every period of the history and on every page of the literature that you must sweep away the whole of the existing literature before you can successfully establish any opposite theory. Leathes.

Chap. 10. The names of those who sealed, and the terms of the covenant. The covenant which the Levites had recommended was at once accepted by the heads of the nation in Church and State, and was “sealed to” by Nehemiah, by his secretary, by the heads of the priestly and Levitical families, each sealing for his house, by the heads of various lay families or communities, and by a certain number of individual laymen. The rest of the people “clave to their brethren”—i.e., accepted the obligations of the covenant as fully as if they had put their seals to it. The people bound themselves, first of all, in general terms, to keep the whole law, “to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord their Lord, and His judgments and His statutes” (verse 29); after which they went on to particularize certain special points of the law, recently infringed upon, which they bound themselves to observe in future. These were chiefly the following: 1. The prohibition of intermarriage with the neighboring idolatrous nations (verse 30). 2. The command to hallow the Sabbath. 3. The law concerning the sabbatical year (verse 31). 4. The law of first-fruits (verses 35–37). 5. The obligation to pay tithes to the sacerdotal order (verses 37, 38). Finally, they undertook certain new obligations, not expressly contained in the law, but perhaps regarded as flowing from it by way of natural consequence, or else as desirable modes of carrying out its provisions. These were three in number—viz.: 1. The entire abolition of the custom which had grown up of lending money to their brethren upon pledge (see chap. 5:3–13). 2. The support of the Temple service by an annual tax upon each adult male, which was fixed for the present at the rate of one third part of a shekel (verse 32). 3. The supply of the wood requisite for keeping the fire alight upon the great altar, and for consuming the various offerings (verse 34). It is remarkable that these two latter regulations became permanent national institutions, maintaining themselves into Roman times, when we find them still continuing. (See Matt. 17:24.) P. C.

That this was practically a new thing, that the people hereby revived and made obligatory among themselves a host of observances from which they had been free as long back as they could remember, may be readily allowed; but the statement that “these ordinances were now made known and imposed upon the Jewish nation for the first time” (Kuenen) must be strenuously denied, rejected and contradicted. The double fiction of a forgery of Deuteronomy, which imposed on Hilkiah the high-priest in the days of Josiah, and of a further forgery at this time by Ezra and his Babylonian friends of a book of priestly ordinances, corresponding to Leviticus, Numbers, and part of Exodus, which imposed on the nation at large, will scarcely find acceptance with any honest and reverent reader of Scripture, who cannot fail to perceive that it contradicts the entire series of the historical sacred writings from Exodus to Chronicles, as well as many passages in the prophets, and in the New Testament. Ezra and Nehemiah are to be regarded, not as coming from Babylonia with ordinances drawn up there, and hitherto existing only in theory, which they proceeded for the first time to carry from theory into practice, but as recalling to the memory of the people the old laws under which the nation had lived from the Exodus to the Captivity, and re-introducing, re-promulgating, and re-imposing them. Otherwise, we must regard the two great reformers as impostors, cheating the nation into the belief that an entirely new legislation, considered by Ezra and his priestly friends to be advisable under the peculiar circumstances of the time, was in reality one communicated by God Himself to Moses.

Nehemiah’s first reformation was now complete. With Ezra’s assistance he had made the whole law of Moses, great parts of which had long been laid aside and even forgotten, known to the people. He had bound them to its observance. He had roused up in them a spirit of devotion and self-sacrifice, whereby they had been induced to accept fresh burdens and fresh obligations without a murmur. At the same time, he had provided for the sustenance and support of the ministers of religion—the priests and Levites. He had relieved them from troublesome secular duties—the cutting and storing of the Temple fuel—the collection and conveyance of the tithes and first-fruits—and he had enabled them to devote themselves more exclusively than before to the offices of religion. He had further secured the continuance of the Temple service by a tax, which could press heavily on no man, but which would yet suffice for its purpose, and prevent the ministers of religion from having their scanty resources unduly strained in times of depression and poverty. G. R.

NAMES OF COLONISTS. NEHEMIAH’S RETURN. DEDICATION OF WALL. RE-FORM OF ABUSES: TEMPLE DESECRATION, SABBATH-BREAKING, AND MIXED MARRIAGES.