Nehemiah 8:8 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. Gave the sense. Commentators are divided in opinion as to the import of this statement, some thinking that Ezra read the law in pure Hebrew, while the Levites who assisted him translated it sentence by sentence into Chaldee, the vernacular dialect which the exiles spoke in Babylon; while others maintain that the duty of these Levites consisted in explaining to the people, many of whom had become very ignorant, what Ezra had read.