Nehemiah 8 · a question people ask
Had no one kept the feast of booths since Joshua?
Nehemiah 8:17 says, "All the assembly of those who had come back out of the captivity made temporary shelters and lived in the temporary shelters, for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun to that day the children of Israel had not done so" (8:17). Other books speak of the feast of booths after Joshua's day. Solomon offered "during the feast of booths" (2 Chronicles 8:13). Those who came back at the first "kept the feast of booths, as it is written" (Ezra 3:4). Nehemiah 8 doesn't mention these, and the Bible doesn't set them side by side or say how they fit together. This study sets the verses down as they are and doesn't reconcile them.
The verses
“All the assembly of those who had come back out of the captivity made temporary shelters and lived in the temporary shelters, for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun to that day the children of Israel had not done so. There was very great gladness.”
“even as the duty of every day required, offering according to the commandment of Moses on the Sabbaths, on the new moons, and on the set feasts, three times per year, during the feast of unleavened bread, during the feast of weeks, and during the feast of booths.”
“They kept the feast of booths, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the ordinance, as the duty of every day required;”