As Nehemiah was seeking to make plans and decide who should reside in the city that 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 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 person (that is, with one and the same faith and love) came together at the Lord’s temple; and they themselves asked their pontifex^[1] 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. This is why the Feast of Trumpets, by whose blast the people, amid their prayers and offerings, were more fervently moved to remembrance of the divine law, was placed in the beginning of this seventh month also. Even today too, according to the spiritual meaning, the construction of the holy city should be followed by divine reading and the frequent sounding of trumpets, no doubt because it is necessary that when a people has been initiated into the heavenly sacraments they should also, as occasion requires, be carefully instructed by divine discourses how they should live. Now he says that the people assembled in the square that is before the Water Gate. I think that by the Water Gate is meant the gate in the courtyard of the priests that surrounded the temple on all its sides in a square, especially on the temple’s eastern side, where there was the bronze sea for washing the hands and feet of those going into the temple, the ten bronze washbasins for washing the victims and the altar of burnt offering between which and the temple Zechariah son of Berechiah was stoned to death.^[1] The people did not have permission to enter inside the gate of this court but only the priests and ministers of the Lord; the people were accustomed to stand outside of this gate and especially in the square that was at its eastern side, in order to listen to the word or to pray. Therefore, it is appropriate that the people gathered before the Water Gate, because they were to be given spiritual drink by their high priest from the streams of Scripture. ^[2]

For it is a holy day of the Lord for us when we take pains to hear and carry out his words. On this day it is proper that, however much outwardly we have endured the obstacles of tribulations, we should be rejoicing in hope,^[1] in keeping with the apostle’s saying: As if sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.^[2] On this day we are also commanded to eat fat food and drink sweet drink, that is, to rejoice over the abundance of good action bestowed on us by God and over the very sweetness of hearing God’s Word.

These matters are written about more fully in Leviticus,^[1] and it is also written that they were ordered to be done in memory of that very long journey, on which the Lord, leading his people out of Egypt, made them dwell in tabernacles in the desert for forty years, daily revealing to them the precepts of his law through Moses. Moreover it was ordered that the setting up of tabernacles (which in Greek is called skeēnopeēgia) was to be done every year for seven days, that is, from the fifteenth day of the seventh month to the twenty-second. It is well worth our while to make a thorough examination of the mystery of this observance through spiritual investigation, especially since in the Gospel the Lord deigned to attend this same feast and, as he addressed the people who gathered there, dedicated it with his most holy words.^[2] Our ancestors too, therefore, were set free from slavery in Egypt through the blood of a lamb and were led through the desert for forty years that they come to the promised land when through the Lord’s passion the world was set free from slavery to the devil and through the apostles the primitive church was gathered and was led as it were through the desert for forty years until it came to the homeland promised in heaven, because in imitation of the forty-day fast that Moses and Elijah and the Lord himself fulfilled,^[3] the primitive church used to lead a life of great continence, thirsting always for its eternal homeland, and having set itself completely apart from all the distractions of this world, conducted its life as though in secret in daily meditation on the divine law. In remembrance of this time, we, too, ought to dwell in tabernacles, leaving our homes, that is, having forsaken the cares and pleasures of the world, we ought to confess that we are pilgrims in this life and have our homeland in heaven and desire that we may arrive there all the more quickly; this, too, in a holy feast in the seventh month (i.e., in the light of celestial joy) when the grace of the Holy Spirit, which was commended by the prophet as sevenfold,^[4] fills our heart. We are ordered to remain in these tabernacles for seven days because during the entire time of this life, which we accomplish in as many days, we must bear in mind that, like our ancestors, we are dwellers and pilgrims on earth in the eyes of the Lord.

The literal sense is clear to this extent: the Feast of Tabernacles^[1] itself was customarily celebrated for seven days (i.e., from the fifteenth moon of the seventh month to the twenty-first); then, on the eighth day (i.e., the twenty-second 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,^[2] 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,^[3] 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 longed-for 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.