THE ADOPTION OF THE NEW LAW

Manasseh reigned fifty-five years.  It was a long, weary time of waiting for the disciples of the prophets.  The new law book was put away in one of the closets of the temple for safe-keeping.  The years went by and most of the men who helped to write it died.  At last, however, the end came for Manasseh.  After a short period his grandson, Josiah, who was only eight years old, became king.  The boy’s older relatives and friends were all against the ideas of old Manasseh and on the side of the prophets.  Little by little the principles of the prophets were put in practice.  Among other things, orders were given to tear out from the Jerusalem temple the images and altars to the sun-god and the moon-god and other emblems of Assyrian worship.  The temple was also cleaned and renovated.  While the carpenters were at work the new law-book was discovered in the chest where it had been hidden and was brought to the young king and read before him.

=Josiah’s reforms.=—­Josiah was deeply impressed and gave orders that the reforms called for by the new law should be carried out.  Officers went all up and down the villages and towns of Judah tearing down the little temples, or “high places,” where so much heathenism had been practiced.  And the people were told that several times each year they were to bring their sacrifices to the temple at Jerusalem.  Those were also good days for the common people.  There was a king now who “judged the cause of the poor and the needy.”  Many a poor debtor, when his crops failed, appealed to the king’s court in Jerusalem and he himself and his children were saved from slavery and their home from ruin.

The reform only lasted a few years—­some twelve or thirteen—­and then King Josiah was killed in battle, and much of the old heathenism and greed and injustice came back again in a flood.  But the memory of the good days did not quickly fade.  It was the first great triumph of the teachings of the prophets—­the men who kept alive the true ideals of Abraham and Moses.

STUDY TOPICS

1.  Read any part of Deuteronomy 1-5.  Select any passages which seem to you truly eloquent.

2.  Read Deuteronomy 12. 10, 11.  What place is referred to by the author, when he writes, “The place that Jehovah your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there”?

3.  In the light of the history in this chapter, which is the more likely to change human history, a battleship or a Bible class?  Explain.

CHAPTER XX

A PROPHET WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISE