The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Kings — Section 398

even the outer fabric of ecclesiastical buildings in e. decent condition of repair. 2 . .Al,·eady roUected for. The means for executing the repairs on the Lord's house had been obtained by voluntary collections at the door of the temple. It is by the kina's or<l~r, sent through Shaphan the scribe to Hilkiah the high priest, to sum up tho mon~y wlnch had boen thus gathered, that the matter first comes before us in the narrative. These collections from the people, which must have been going on for some time show that the worship of Jehovah was now regularly conducted. They also afford us e. lcss~n as to the mode of meeti~g the expense connected with church building and repairs. (1) The money was raised before the repairs were commencetl. This was a so_11nd principle, and, if more frequently acted upon, would save a good deal of troublo with Church debt. The temple wn.s sorely in need of repair, and it might have been pleaded that the case was too urgent to admit of delay till the money was collected. It was resolved, however, to collect the money before a single workman was put upon the building. (2) It was raised by voluntary subscription. The people were not taxed, or forced in any way, t.o give this money. It was their own free-will offering. Yet apparently the sums required were raised without difficulty. The modern Church e:i;pedients of bazaars, etc., are surely inferior to this Old 'l'estament plan. ]f the appeal to voluntary liberality sometimes does not yield all that we could wish it is on the whole, the surest source of income to rely on, and reacts, as no other d;es, or: the heart of the giver. 3 . .After a good precedent. Alike in the collecting of the money, the distribution to the workmen, and the reliance placed in the fidelity of the overseers, those in charge of this business seem to have followed closely the precedents of the reign of Joash. It is good to learn from those who have gone before us.-J. O. Vers. 8-20.-Thefi,11.ding of the Law-book. The finding of the book of the Law by Ililkiah in the temple marks a distinct turning-point in Josia.h'd reforma.tion. It is admitted generally that this Law-book included, if it did not exclusively consist of, the Book of Deuteronomy. As it is further allowed that some of the main narrative documents of our present Pentateuch, and the book of the covenant (Exod. xxi.-xxiii.), if not also collections of priestly laws, were then in existence, and bad long been, we see no reason to doubt that the "book of the Law" discovered by Hilkiah included the bulk of the writings which make up" the five books of Moses." Several legitimate inferences may be drawn from the narrative. 1. A "book of the Law" was known to have been once in existence. Hilkiah speaks of it as "the book of the Law "-a book long lost, now found, and at once recognized. 2. The copy found was the complete, standard, authoritative copy. lt was this which gave it its peculiar value. 3. It would seem as if no other copies of the book were then known to exist, at any rate none were in possession of the parties named in this chapter. If they bad been, we can hardly doubt that tbe contents would have been in some way communicated to the king. This last inference, however, must not be pushed too far. Complete copies of the Law would at all times be rare, and amidst the troubles and persecutions of Manasseb's long reign may well have been lost, especially as there do not seem to have been in Judah organized prophetic guilds such as existed in Israel, or o.t least the prophets we know, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Huldah, etc., did not belong to them (cf. the state of matters before the Reformation in Europe, and the finding of the Latin Bible by Luther in the convent at Erfurt). But it does not follow that in prophetic circles no parts or fragments of the Law were in existence. The narrative parts of the Law would be more frequently copied than the legislative, and abstracts or summaries of the book of the covenant, or of the laws in Deuteronomy, perhaps selected passages from these books, may have been in circulation. There was even an order of "scribes" whom Jeremiah accuses of using their false pens to falRify the Law. "How do ye say, We are wise, and the Law of the Lord is with us? But, behold, the false pen of the scribes bath wrought falsely" (Jer. viii. 8). The scribes may have falsified the Law it~elf, altering its text, expunging its denunciations against idolatry, or making unaut~onzed additions to it; or they may have falsified it by their comments and int~rpretat1ons of its meaning. The only thing certain is that the portions of the Law which eo affected the conscience of the king were not in any current summaries or copies. I. FINDING Goo's Woao. "And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Sbaphan the 11Cribe, I have fow1d the book of the La.win the house of the Lord," Tbis L"w-book-- OH, x.im. 1-20.] THE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS, 449