Remember, I beseech you, the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying,
If you transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations:
Read Chapter 1
Bede
AD 735
And the seventh month had come and the children of Israel “366” were in their cities. And all the people assembled as one man in the square which is before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel. As Nehemiah was seeking to make plans and decide who should reside in the city which they had built, the seventh month arrived, for it was not far off. For since the wall had been completed on the twenty-fifth day of the sixth month, not more than five days remained until the beginning of the seventh month. The whole of this seventh month, from its first day until the twenty-second, was consecrated with ceremonies prescribed by the Law; when these had been duly celebrated, only then /1075/ did he return with the leaders and common people to decide who should be residents of the rebuilt city. The point to note here is the devotion and also the like-mindedness of the people who as one man (that is, with one and the same faith and love) came together at the Lord's temple; and they themselves asked their pontifex1 to bring the book and recount for them the commandments of the Law that they must observe, so that along with the rebuilt city, a structure of good works pleasing to God might spring up in case, just as before, neglect of religion should lead to the ruination of the city as well. And it is appropriate that the city was completed in the sixth month and that the people gathered in it to hear the law in the seventh; for in the law there are six days for working and a seventh for resting.2 And this, after we have done good work, is the form of our rest that is most beloved and most acceptable to the Lord - to abstain from servile work (that is, from sin) and devote ourselves to hearing and fulfilling his commandments with due diligence.1 This is why the Feast of Trumpets, by whose blast the people, amidst their prayers and offerings, were more fervently moved to remembrance of the divine law, was placed in the beginning of this same seventh month also.
