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 to the ordinance.
All Commentaries on Nehemiah 8:18 Go To Nehemiah 8
Bede
AD 735
The literal sense is clear to this extent: the Feast of Tabernacles itself was customarily celebrated for seven days (i.e., from the fifteenth moon of the seventh month to the twentyfirst); then, on the eighth day (i.e., the twentysecond day of the month), a second assembly of the people was held, an assembly notable for its greater festivity. For it is written in Leviticus, “From the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in all the crops of your land, you shall celebrate a festival of the Lord for seven days; on the first day and on the eighth there will be a sabbath, that is, a day of rest. And on the first day you shall take for yourselves the fruits of the most beautiful tree,” and so on. Therefore, for the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles, Ezra read to the people from the Book of the Law of God, doubtless because this is our true feast of the mind in this life—that each day (i.e., through all the good works by which we are illuminated by the Lord), we should make time for reading, hearing and performing his words with a resolute heart. But this feast begins “on the fifteenth day of the month when the moon is at its fullest in the evening,” when all the obscurities of our mind are dispersed by the most luminous light of Christ. And the eighth day of the sabbath (i.e., of rest) follows it, namely, at the moment of our resurrection in the life to come by whose joys in our present life we are uplifted in hope but that we will then enjoy in reality when the most longedfor gathering, the whole assembly of the saints (both of angels and of human beings), having been gathered in their Creator’s sight and never to be separated, will rejoice.
