house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, both great and small: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the LORD. 31And the king stood in his place, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book. 32And he caused all that were found in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers. 33And Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel, and made all that were found in Israel to serve, even to serve the LORD their God. All his days they departed not from following the LORD, the God of their fathers.
30. the Levites] In 2 Kin. "the prophets."
31. to walk after the LORD] Cp. Deut. x. 12, 13.
33. And Jonah took away] Cp. vv. 3—7.
all that were found in Israel] i.e. the remnant of the northern tribes, cp. ver. 21.
All his days] Contrast the evil record of his son Jehoiakim, xxxvi. 5—8.
Additional Note on ver. 14.
Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of the LORD] This remarkable statement has proved to be a fruitful subject of discussion. What precisely is meant by "the book of the law" said to have been found by Hilkiah in the Temple? It is essential to distinguish between the answer which the Chronicler would have given to this question and the conclusions reached by an independent survey of the problem. (1) Undoubtedly the Chronicler supposed "the book of the law" to be the whole Pentateuch, since he believed that the entire Law existed as it now is from the time of Moses. The argument against his view is obvious to us at the present time. Beside the practical objection of the impossibility of reading the whole Pentateuchal Law twice in succession to different persons on the same day (2 Kin. xxii. 8, 10)—a difficulty which perhaps the Chronicler himself perceived and sought to avoid, see note on ver. 18,—there is the overwhelming testimony of the general evidence that a large part of the Pentateuch in its final
