The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Kings — Section 388

rend 11, portion to the king. Horeupon the the ark "-which may well havo been lost king "rent his clothes," e.nd required the.t in the time of Manasseh or Amon, a.nd 1pecie.l inquiry should be me.de of the Lord which was now happily "fonnd." And concerning the words of the book, a.nd Rilkiah ge.ve the book to She.phan, a.nd he rea.d it. Wo need not suppose that Sha.- pu.rliculu.rly concerning the thxee.teninga phan read the whole. But he read enough contained in it. The persons entrusted to show him how important the work was, with this te.sk thougM it best to lo.y the a.nd how necessary a was to make it knowc me.tter before Hulde.b, e. prophetess, ,vl10 to the king. lived in Jeruee.lem e.t the time, o.nd pro- Ver. !!.-And Bha.pha.n the soribe ea.me « the king, a.nd brought the king word e.ga.in, eeeded to confer with her a.t her residence. and said, Thy serva.nts have gathered the money that we.a in the house (see above, Ver. 8.-And B'.ilkiah the high priest ea.id vers. 4--6), and have delivered it into the unto Sha.phan the eoribe, I have found the hand of them tha.t do the work, tha.t ha.ve book of the Law in the house of the Lord. the oversight of the house of the Lord ; i.e. There ha.a been great difference of opinion "We have carried out the king's orders e.s to whe.t it was which Hilkiah he.d found. exactly, in every particular." Ewald believes it to he.ve been the Book of Ver. 10.-And Shaphan the scribe showed Deuteronomy, which had, he thinks, been the king, saying, Rilkia.h the priest ha.th composed some thirty or forty years before delivered me a book. Shaphan does not in Egypt by a Jewish exile, and ha.d found venture to chu.rocterize the book, as Hilkiah its way, by a son of chance, into Po.lestine, has done. He is not officially learned in where "some priest" had placed a. copy of the Law. And he has only read a few it in the temple (' History of Israel,' vol. passages of it. To him, therefore, it is only iv. pp. 233-235). Thenius suggests "a. "11, book," the authorship and value of collection of the lu.wd and ordinances of which he leaves it to others to determine. Moses, which was u.fterwards worked up And Shaphan read it before the king. It into the Pentateuch;" Bertheau, "the is most natural to understand here, as in three middle books of the Pentateuch, ver. 8, that Shapha.n re!ld portions of the Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers;" Gram- book. Where the author intends to say berg, "Exodus by itself." But there seem that tho whole book was read, he expresses to be no sufficient grounds for questioning himself differently (see eh. xxiiL 2, "The . the ancient opinion-that of Josephus, u.nd king read in their ears all the worda of the of the Jews genere.lly-tha.t it was n copy book of the covenant"). of the entire Pente.teuch. (So De Wette, Ver. 11.-And it co.me to pe.ss, when the • Einleitung in das Alt. Test.,' § 162 a; king had hee.rd the words of the b~ok of Keil, • Commentary on Kings,' pp. 477, 4 78; the La.w, the.t he rent his clothes. To Bahr, 'Commentary,' vol. vi. p. 257; a.nd Josiah the book was evidently, as to Hil- others). The words, nJ\r-iiJ ,;19., "the book kiah, in some sort a discovery. It was not, of the La.w," a.re really sufficient to decide however, 11, wholly new thing; rather, he the point; since, as Keil says, they "can• accepted it os the recovery of a thing tlrnt not mean anything else, either gra.mma.- was known to have been lost, u.nd was now tically or histotioa.lly, than the Mosaic happily found. Ami in accepting it he book of the Law (the Pento.teuch), which regarded it as authoritativo. It wa.s not is so designated, e.s is genere.lly e.dmitted, to him "a book of Law" (Ewald), but in the Chronicles and the Books of Ezra. and "the book of the Lu.w." 'We can well Nehemie.h." The ea.me conclusion follows imu.gine thut, although the book may have from the expression, "the book of the been lost early in Maoasseh's reign, yet covenant" (n•:i:;i;:, ,i;i,t;>), in eh. xxiii. l!, e.nd echoes of it had lingered on (1) in the also from eh. ixiii. 24, 25, a.nd 2 Chron. liturgies of the Jehovistio worship; (2) in :uxiv. 14. Whether or no the copy w11s the teachings of the prophets; (3) in the the e.etunl origiuu.l deposited in the ark of trnditionu.l teaching of religious families; the covene.nt by Moses (Deut. xxxi. 26), u.s so that the pious ear recognized its phrases Keil believes, is doubtful. As Egyptian as fomiliar. It is also probable that there mu.nuseripts which a.re from three to four were externu.l tokens a.bout the book indica- thousand ye11rs old still exist in good tive of its oharo.cter, which co.used its ready condition, there ou.n be no renson why e. acceptance. manuseript of Moses' time should not he.ve Ver. 12.-Alld the king oommanded Hil- been found 1md he.ve been legible in kiah the priest, and Ahika.m the son of Josiah's, But, if not the e.ctual hand- Bhapha.n. "Ahikam the son of Sbo.phan '' writing of Moses, it w11s probably its lineal is almost certRinly Jeremi,\h's protector e.\ descendant-the copy me.de for the temple the court of Jehoinkim (Jor. xxvi. 2-l:), the 1erviee, u.nd kept ordine.ril7 " in the side of father of tho Gecluliuh who wus lll~ue go-  438 THE SECOND BOOK OF 'l'HE KINGS. [en. xxu. l-20.