At that time all the people gathered together in the square before the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded for Israel. On the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly of men and women and all who could listen and understand. So Ezra read it aloud from daybreak until noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate, in front of the men and women and those who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.
when all Israel comes before the LORD your God at the place He will choose, you are to read this law in the hearing of all Israel. Assemble the people—men, women, children, and the foreigners within your gates—so that they may listen and learn to fear the LORD your God and to follow carefully all the words of this law. Then their children who do not know the law will listen and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as you live in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess."
Significance
Nehemiah 8:1-3 describes Ezra reading the Torah to "the assembly of men and women and all who could listen and understand" in the seventh month — a direct fulfillment of Moses's command in Deuteronomy 31:11-12 to "read this law in the hearing of all Israel" when the people "assemble" (הַקְהֵל, haqhel, from קָהָל, qahal) — "men, women, children, and the foreigners within your gates — so that they may listen and learn to fear the LORD your God." The Nehemiah passage matches the Deuteronomic command in three key details: public reading to the full assembly, inclusion of both men and women, and the timing near the Feast of Tabernacles in the seventh month. This represents the post-exilic community's conscious restoration of a Mosaic institution that had apparently lapsed.
