[Footnote I: Joshua xxiv, 26.]
When the form of government of Israel was changed into a monarchy, Samuel explained the character of the new kingdom to the people, "and wrote it in a book and laid it up before the Lord."[J] This was three hundred and fifty years after Moses, and yet the practice of laying up these important records before the Lord, as Moses had done with his books, still prevailed; and I doubt not were placed side by side with the books of Moses and Joshua, if not attached to them.
[Footnote J: I. Sam. x: 25.]
Four centuries and a half later than Samuel, bringing us to about 640 B. C., in the reign of good king Josiah, Hilkiah, the high priest, when the temple was undergoing some repairs, found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord,[K] and sent it to the king, who read it; and when he saw how far Israel had departed from the observance of it, and the judgments pronounced against them on condition of their forsaking the law, he sought to lead his people to repentance.
[Footnote K: II. Kings xxii—see the whole chapter.]
Isaiah, some seventy years before this, when wishing to confirm some of his own prophecies, recommended the people to seek out the Book of the Lord and read it.[L] The value of this passage is, that it gives us the testimony of Isaiah that such a book as "the Book of the Lord" was known to the people, that they had access to it, that it was a recognized authority on questions about which there might arise doubts. And there can scarcely be two opinions as to this book, alluded to by Isaiah, being either the original or an authorized copy of the writings placed in the keeping of the priests, and found by Hilkiah.
[Footnote L: Isaiah xxxiv: 16.]
We have traced this matter down to 640 B. C.; there is one more step to take, to reach Ezra, in whose days the books of the Old Testament were collected, some one hundred and eighty-five years after the date above noted.
What became of the sacred records of the Jews at the time Jerusalem was laid waste by Nebuchadnezzar, about 588 B. C.,[M] is difficult to learn. But the document granting permission to Ezra and the priests to go and rebuild the temple at Jerusalem is addressed to him thus: "Artaxerxes, king of kings, unto Ezra, the priest, a scribe of the law of the God of heaven, perfect peace." Then follows permission for all the people of Israel in his realm to go to Jerusalem with Ezra. He then continues: "Forasmuch as thou art sent of the king * * * to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem, _according to the law of thy God which is in thy hand_."[N] From this it appears that during the captivity the priests were permitted to retain possession of the sacred records. At any rate Ezra had them when he departed from Babylon for Jerusalem, so that they had been preserved, and that, doubtless, by the priests. This brings us to the period when the books of the Bible were collected as we have them today. And from that time, more than two thousand years ago, until the present, the Old Testament has been what it is now; the multiplication of copies and of translations, as well as the subsequent controversies between Jews and Christians, combined to secure the sacred writings against alterations.
[Footnote M: This is the Hebrew Chronology, according to Usher.]