es modelled on those which had attended
the promulgation of Deuteronomy in the time of Josiah. On the first day
of the seventh month, a little before the autumn festival, the people
assembled at Jerusalem in "the broad place which was before the water
gate." Ezra mounted a wooden pulpit, and the chief among the priests sat
beside him. He "opened the book in the sight of all the people... and...
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." Then began the reading of the sacred text. As each
clause was read, the Levites stationed here and there among the people
interpreted and explained its provisions in the vulgar tongue, so as
to make their meaning clear to all. The prolix enumeration of sins and
their expiation, and threats expressed in certain chapters, produced
among the crowd the same effect of nervous terror as had once before
been called forth by the precepts and maledictions of Deuteronomy. The
people burst into tears, and so vehement were their manifestations of
despair, that all the efforts of Ezra and his colleagues were needed to
calm them. Ezra took advantage of this state of fervour to demand the
immediate application of the divine ordinances. And first of all, it was
"found written in the law, how that the Lord had commanded by Moses
that the children of Israel should dwell in booths." For, seven days
Jerusalem was decked with leaves; tabernacles of olive, myrtle, and palm
branches rose up on all sides, on the roofs of houses, in courtyards,
in the courts of the temple, at the gates of the city. Then, on the 27th
day of the same month, the people put on mourning in order to confess
their own sins and the sins of their fathers. Finally, to crown the
whole, Ezra and his followers required the assembly to swear a solemn
oath that they would respect "the law of Moses," and regulate their
conduct by it.* After the first enthusiasm was passed, a reaction
speedily set in. Many even among the priests thought that Ezra had gone
too far in forbidding marriage with strangers, and that the increase of
the tithes and sacrifices would lay too heavy a burden on the nation.
The Gentile women reappeared, the Sabbath was no longer observed either
by the Israelites or aliens; Eliashib, son of the high priest Joiakim,
did not even deprive Tobiah th