They stood up in their place and read …: The pronoun they grammatically refers to “those of Israelite descent” in the previous verse. They stood up for the reading of the Law as in Neh 8.5, 7. Alternatively, they may refer to the Levites as the subject of both verbs stood up and read, but this is not the meaning that is generally accepted. The Hebrew verb read can be understood as impersonal. Traduction œcuménique de la Bible in French states this in the indefinite form as “one read,” and Bible en français courant renders it “the reading was done” without specifying who did the reading. Some languages will express this with the indefinite third person plural pronoun “they.” This may also be stated “people read to them.” However, it would be expected that the Levites actually did the reading. In some languages this will be stated “they arose and stood and Levites read to them.”
In their place means they stood still or they stood in the same place without moving about (see Neh 8.7). There was no disorder or confusion among the people.
For a fourth of the day …: The Hebrew form for the word fourth is the ordinal of the number four. For a fourth of the day means “for one quarter of the day” (New Jerusalem Bible) or “For three hours” (Contemporary English Version). For three hours they read from the book of the law and for another fourth, that is, an additional three hours, they made confession and worshiped the LORD their God.
The LORD their God does not mean that the Jews possessed God or that he belonged to them. Instead, it refers to the God that they worshiped and served (see Ezra 5.5). For LORD see Ezra 1.1.
They made confession is stated in more current English in Good News Translation with “they confessed their sins.” New Living Translation renders it “they took turns confessing their sins,” but the text does not indicate whether the confession was collective or individual.
For worshiped, see the comments at Neh 8.6.
Quoted with permission from Noss, Philip A. and Thomas, Kenneth J. A Handbook on Nehemiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2005. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .