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. The passage describes 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 social, economic, and 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 once again worship the Lord their God without fear of punishment. The successful completion of the rebuilding of the temple was therefore a fulfillment of God’s promise to them. The tears that the people were shedding as they heard the words of the Lord were tears of joy. They were overjoyed at the sight of themselves gathered once more around the temple since it was a sign that the Lord their God was still with them.  
Secondly, after so many years of being deprived of the opportunity to worship the Lord their God without any restrictions, the community was able to hear the words of the law read to them publicly. To this community, the law was not just a set of rules, guides, and regulations outlining for them what they should or shouldn’t do. The law contained the life-giving 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 the same as hearing the Lord their God speaking to them. There was 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. The Lord had indeed remembered them.