All the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law. The passage from the Book of Nehemiah which we read today is titled the Promulgation of the Law. It was a ritual that was held to celebrate the successful completion of the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem following the decree of King Cyrus (cf. Ezra 1:1ff). The completion of the reconstruction of the physical temple was worth celebrating because the reconstitution of the community’s religious life depended on it. As part of the ceremony, the priest-scribe Ezra read from the scroll of the law, and upon hearing the words of the law, the assembled community were moved to tears. And this was for two reasons. Firstly, one of the things that the exiled community missed a lot was to hear the words of the Lord their God read for them. Through the prophets, the Lord always assured the exiles that a day would come when they would return to their land and therein worship the Lord their God. The successful completion of the rebuilding of the temple was therefore a fulfillment of God’s promise to them. They were shedding tears of joy as the sight of themselves gathered once more around the temple was a sign that the Lord their God was still with them. Secondly, after so many years, the community was able to hear the words of the law read to them. To this community, the law was not just a set of rules, guides, and regulations. The law contained the words of the Lord their God. The law was the life-blood of the community. As the words of the Lord, the law was the living presence of God in the community. To hear the words of the law in their own land was nothing other than hearing the Lord their God speaking to them. There could be nothing sweeter than this. To hear the scribe Ezra read to them from the scroll of the law was to see the promises of God being fulfilled before their very eyes.