New Year’s Day. It’s about celebration, reflection, looking back, looking ahead. And for the Jewish calendar New Year’s Day doesn’t start on January 1st, but rather on the first day of the seventh month. For our modern calendar that is late September/early October. What better time was there to bring back the Word of God to the people?
Ezra had a podium set up and then he gathered everyone, from women to children to anyone who could understand. He stood up to read to them and they shouted “Amen!” and then knelt in worship. And then he began to read to them from daybreak to noon.
The Levites were among them ready to teach and explain the Word. The Law of Moses had been away from them for so long that it wasn’t familiar. The Levites helped by making explanation and translating it to the people.
But there was a problem. When the people heard the words, they broke out in anguish and grief, mourning and sorrow. They had turned so far from what Moses had commanded.
This wasn’t unprecedented. Prior to the exile when King Josiah heard the Law after it had been neglected for years, he wept and mourned (2 Chr 34:19-21). They had fallen so far away from God.
So when the Israelites at the time of Ezra wept when they heard the word of the Lord, they too were overcome with grief at their ways. But Ezra stopped them. They had already been disciplined by God and were not back in the land. It was a new day. The Word of the Lord coming to them was of joy. Not only that but it was New Year’s Day in Israel, and that meant a day of great celebration and joy (Lev 23:23).
He therefore told them plainly to stop their weeping.
“”This day is holy to the LORD your God. Do not mourn or weep”…Then he said to them, “Go and eat what is rich, drink what is sweet, and send portions to those who have nothing prepared, since today is holy to our Lord” (Neh 8:9-10).
It wasn’t a day of mourning, but a day of feasting, a day of dancing, a day of great celebration. The people were back and the Law was being restored! Celebrate!
And so they did. Mightily.
But the celebrations weren’t over. In their renewed restoration of the Word of God to their lives, they studied the Scripture and learned they were also to celebrate the Feast of Booths.
The Feast of Booths was an 8 day celebration where the people were to live in booths. This was an act of remembering how when God brought Israel out of Egypt, the people had to live in tents or booth like structures (Lev 23:39-44). It was also a celebration of the harvest and the produce of the land. And it too, was a joyous celebration.
During this time Ezra read out of the book of the Law. And it wasn’t something serious or heavy, but rather something of great significant and rejoicing. Celebration.
“They had not celebrated like this from the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day. And there was tremendous joy” (Neh 8:17).