us feeling did not tend towards a revolt: we know, moreover, that
Josiah, guided on this point by the prophets, would have believed that
he was opposing the divine will had he sought to free himself from the
Assyrian yoke by ordinary political methods; besides this, in 621, under
Assur-etililani, five years after the Scythian invasion, the prefect of
Samaria had possibly not sufficient troops at his disposal to oppose the
encroachments of the vassal princes. It was an affair of merely a few
months. In the following year, when the work of destruction was
over, Josiah commanded that the Passover should be kept in the manner
prescribed in the new book; crowds flocked into Jerusalem, from Israel
as well as from Judah, and the festival made a deep impression on the
minds of the people. Centuries afterwards the Passover of King Josiah
was still remembered: "There was not kept such a Passover from the days
of the Judges... nor in all the days of the Kings of Israel, nor of the
Kings of Judah."*

1 2 Kings xxiii. 21-23; cf. 2 Chron. xxxv. 1-19. The text of
the Soptuagint appears to imply that it was the first
Passover celebrated in Jerusalem. It also gives in chap.
xxii. 3, after the mention of the eighteenth year, a date of
the seventh or eighth month, which is not usually accepted,
as it is in contradiction with what is affirmed in chap,
xxiii. 21-23, viz. that the Passover celebrated at Jerusalem
was in the same year as the reform, in the eighteenth year.
It is to do away with the contradiction between these two
passages that the Hebrew text has suppressed the mention of
the month. I think, however, it ought to be considered
authentic and be retained, if we are allowed to place the
celebration of the Passover in what would be one year after.
To do this it would not be needful to correct the regnal
date in the text: admitting that the reform took place in
621, the Passover of 620 would still quite well have taken
place in the eighteenth year of Josiah, that being dependent
on the time of year at which the king had ascended the
throne.

The first outburst of zeal having spent itself, a reaction was ere long
bound to set in both among the ruling classes and among the people, and
the spectacle that Asia at that time presented to their view was truly
of a nature to incite doubts in the minds of the faithful. Assyria--that
Assyria of