to the select few. Ezra, in the reign of
Artaxerxes, king of Persia, "was chief-priest. This Ezra went up from
Babylon, and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God
of Israel had given."[56] This was, then, no new matter to him. The book of
the law had been lost during the captivity. Yet, at the rebuilding of the
temple, Ezra was a ready scribe in that lost writing. As such he went up
from Babylon to Jerusalem.

The wisdom of God granted to Solomon, must have provided against the
foreseen loss of the sacred rolls, and determined a way for their
discovery, and the manner of reading them. The lost rolls were brought
forth by Ezra, and were read, notwithstanding the ignorance of their
ancient language. In what way, so consistent with reason, as by his
understanding the secret writing known only to the learned of that
race--the hidden scripture and instruction of a mysterious society, whose
only teaching was pure, in accordance with the divine commands of the
theocracy, and with the oriental manner of instruction in matters of
science and morality? Did this not furnish him a key to the original text?
The words of {54} the one must have been recognised by their original use
in application to the reading of the other; and though the language may
have changed, the old cipher must have interpreted all. We learn that,
"after the second veil, the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all,
which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round
about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod
that budded, and the tables of the covenant," were entered.[57]

The book (or rolls) of the law was commanded to be put within the ark.[58]
The end of laying it there was, that it, as the original, might be reserved
there as the authentic copy, by which all others were to be corrected and
set right.[59] Prideaux contends that, the ark deposited in the second
temple was only a representative of a former ark on the great day of
expiation, and to be a repository of the Holy Scriptures, that is, of the
original copy of that collection which was made of them after the
captivity, by Ezra and the men of the great synagogue; for when this copy
was perfected, it was then laid up in it. And in imitation hereof, the
Jews, in all their synagogues, have a like ark or coffer,[60] of the same
size or form, in which they keep the Scriptures belonging to the {55}
Synagogue; and whence they