dicted in case of disobedience. When brought to the king and read in his presence, he was powerfully affected, and determined, if possible, to stem the tide of impending ruin by such salutary measures of reform as the injunctions of the newly-found Scripture seemed most urgently to call for. The concurrence of many critics has identified this scroll, written and published at or about the time when the youthful Josiah succeeded to the throne of his ancestors, with Deuteronomy, the fifth of the books of Moses. It differs materially from the more recent writings of the Pentateuch. The family of Aaron are not yet exclusively endowed with the priesthood. The priests are all Levites, the Levites all priests. There are, moreover, other vital differences, into which the limits of this article do not permit us to enter.[1] The date of the composition of Deuteronomy is thus referred to the closing decades of the seventh century b. c.[2]
The princes who succeeded Josiah fell back into the old course, and quite undid the work which had begun with such fair promise. Indeed, little permanent good was to be hoped for in so disordered a condition of political affairs, and from the degenerate rulers who then swayed the helm of state. The fortunes of the kingdom of Judah were swiftly declining, and, but a quarter of a century after the pious Josiah had breathed his last, Nebuchadnezzar burned the Temple of Jerusalem, and carried its inhabitants captive to Babylon.
Heretofore, with but a brief, brilliant interlude, idolatry had been the court religion of Judah. Early training, long usage, the example of revered ancestors, had endeared its forms and symbols to the affections of the people. Resistance to the innovating prophets was natural; men being then, as ever, loath to abandon the sacred usages which had come down to them from the distant generations of the past. But, in the long years of the captivity, a profound change came over the spirit of the Hebrew people; "by Babel's streams they sat and wept;" by Babel's streams they recalled the memories of their native land, that land which they had lost. It was then that the voices of Jehovah's messengers, which had so earnestly warned them of the approaching doom, recurred to their startled recollection. They remembered the message; they beheld its fulfillment; the testimony of the prophets had been confirmed by events; the one God to whom they testified had revealed his omnipotence in history; and with willing assent the exiles promised allegiance to his commandments in the future. The love of country, the dread of further chastisement, the dear hope of restoration, combined to win them to the purer worship of their God, and, in the crucible of Babylon, the national religion was purged of the last dregs of heathendom.
- ↑ E. g., the rebellion of Korah is unknown to the author of Deuteronomy.
- ↑ The language of Deuteronomy attests its late origin. Sixty-six phrases of Deuteronomy recur in the writings of Jeremiah. Vide Zunz, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, xxviii., p. 670.
