Also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day [was] a solemn assembly, according unto the manner.
Ver. 18. Also day by day] Not only on the first and last day ("that great day of the feast," Joh 7:37), but every day, this good man was at it, being insatiabilis Dei cultor (as Chrysostom saith of St Paul), an insatiable worshipper of God; and accounting quod nimis augusta pietas est, ad legem bonum esse, to do nothing for God more than needs must was too little.
And they kept the feast seven days] The people were as willing to hear (and do other holy duties) as Ezra was to preach. So were Chrysostom's hearers, who were wont to say that they could better be without the sunlight than Chrysostom's daily sermons. So likewise were Calvin's hearers at Geneva, where he preached every day in the week for the most part, and had a constant audience that even too admired (some of them at least) his most excellent pains and parts; as Zanchy shows and complains in the Epistle Dedicatory set before his Miscellanies; taxing them of ανθρωπολατρεια, man worship.
And on the eighth day was a solemn assembly] Heb. A restraint, viz. from servile works; or a retention, viz. a holding of the congregation together for holy uses. Tremellius rendereth it diem interdicti forbidden day, the Vulgate Latin of Lyra thus, They made a gathering, sc. for necessaries about the Temple. This eighth day thus kept might prefigure the Christian sabbath, that first day of the week.