could this life-principle of the theocracy be repressed by wicked kings, forthwith to become vigorous and active again as soon as the pressure was removed.  As soon as Ahaz has closed his eyes, Hezekiah, in the first month of his first year, again restores the Mosaic cultus; and as soon as Josiah reaches years of discretion he makes good the sins of his fathers.  Being at his accession still too young, the eighth year of his reign is, as a tribute to propriety, selected instead of the eighth year of his life, and the great reformation assigned to that period which in point of fact he undertook at a much later date (xxxiv. 3-7 = 2Kings xxiii. 4-20> Thus the movement happily becomes separated from its historical occasion, and in character the innovation appears rather as a simple recovery of the spring after the pressure on it has been removed.  The mist disappears before the sun of the Law, which appears in its old strength; its light passes through no phases, but shines from the beginning with uniform brightness.  What Josiah did had also been done before him already by Asa, then by Jehoshaphat, then by Hezekiah; the reforms are not steps in a progressive development, but have all the same unchanging contents.  Such is the influence upon historical vision of that transcendental Mosaism raised far above all growth and process of becoming, which can be traced even in the Book of Kings, but is so much more palpable in the Book of Chronicles.

VI.II.3.  Apart from the fact that it represents the abiding tradition of the legitimate cultus at Jerusalem, the history of Judah in the Book of Chronicles has yet another instructive purpose.  In the kingdom of Judah it is not a natural and human, but a divine pragmatism that is operative.  To give expression to this is what the prophets exist for in unbroken succession side by side with high priests and kings; they connect the deeds of men with the events of the course of the world, and utilise the sacred history as a theme for their preaching, as a collection of examples illustrative of the promptest operation of the righteousness of Jehovah.  In doing so they do not preach what is new or free, but have at their command, like Jehovah Himself, only the Law of Moses, setting before their hearers prosperity and adversity in conformity with the stencil pattern, just as the law is faithfully fulfilled or neglected.  Of course their prophecies always come exactly true, and in this way is seen an astonishing harmony between inward worth and outward circumstance.  Never does sin miss its punishment, and never where misfortune occurs is guilt wanting.

In the fifth year of Rehoboam Judah and Jerusalem were ravaged by Pharaoh Shishak (1Kings xiv. 25).  The explanation is that three years they walked in the ways of David and Solomon, because for three years they were strengthened and reinforced by the priests and Levites and other pious persons who had immigrated from the northern kingdom (2Chronicles xi. 17); but thereafter in the fourth year, after the kingdom of Rehoboam had been strengthened and confirmed, he forsook the Law and all Israel with him (xii. 1)—­ and in the fifth year followed the invasion of Shishak.  A prophet announces this, and in consequence the king humbles himself along with his people and escapes with comparatively trifling punishment, being thought worthy to reign yet other twelve years.