Nehemiah 8:11

So the Levites stilled the people.

Probably those named in verse 7. They acted as the agents of Nehemiah and Ezra to make their words and wishes known. Now they repressed all manifestations of grief, and caused it to be understood that this was. feast of joy. During the exile the great feasts, celebrated only at Jerusalem, were necessarily omitted, and were, after the return, only gradually restored. The account reads as if this feast was now observed, in all its details, for the first time, since it was kept by Zerubbabel and those who returned with him. Ezra 3:4.