Nehemiah 8:16 Commentary and Bible Study

There was a great response to what they had discovered in the words of the law. The people did not need to be made to do the right thing, for they wanted to do it. True religion is voluntary religion and comers from the heart, and it does not need to be imposed on people. There was a common sense of belonging to the people of God that made them happy to be carrying out together what the law taught. ‘For since the days of Jeshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so.’ This does not mean that the feast of tabernacles had never been observed since the time of Joshua, for it is recorded in 1 Kings 8:2, 65, 66; 2 Chronicles 7:9; and Ezra 3:4 that it had been kept at times long after Joshua, and surely on many other occasions not recorded explicitly. We therefore understand this to mean that had not kept it so joyfully and with such attention to detail as they did on this occasion.