Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced,
&c.] Or many sacrifices, as Ben Melech interprets it; and these perhaps of the larger sort of cattle, oxen; and which, at least many of them, being peace offerings, the people feasted on them, so that it was a festival day:
for God had made them rejoice with great joy;
on account of the wall being set up all around, and so were in greater safety from their enemies:
the wives also and the children rejoiced;
while the priests blew the trumpets, and the singers sung and played on their instruments, the women and children gave loud shouts for joy:
so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off;
as at the laying of the foundation of the temple, ( Ezra 3:13 ) .