to men of practical piety to devise plans of reform, and that the
only real remedy lay in striking the evil at its roots, i.e. in
abolishing the local shrines. The first important blow appears to
have been struck by Hezekiah, who, possibly under the influence of
Isaiah, is said to have removed the high places (2 Kings xviii. 4),
and the movement must have been greatly helped by the immunity which
the temple of Jerusalem enjoyed during the invasion of Judah by
Sennacherib in 701 B.C. But the singular thing is that no appeal was
made in this reformation to a book, as was made in 621, and as it is
natural to suppose would have been made, had such a book been in
existence. Somewhere then between Hezekiah and Josiah we may suppose
the book to have been composed.
[Footnote 1: See below]

The most probable supposition is that the reformation of Hezekiah
gave the first impulse to the legislation which afterwards appeared
as Deuteronomy. But in the terrible reign of his son Manasseh, the
efforts of the reformers met with violent and bloody opposition.
Judah was under the iron heel of Assyria, and, to the average mind,
this would prove the superiority of the Assyrian gods. Judah and her
king, Manasseh, would seek in their desperation to win the favour of
the Oriental pantheon, and this no doubt explains the idolatry and
worship of the host of heaven which flourished during his reign even
within the temple itself. It was just such a crisis as this that
would call out the fierce condemnation of the idolatrous high places
which characterizes Deuteronomy (cf. xii.) and create the imperative
demand for such a control of the worship as was only possible by
centralizing it at Jerusalem. During this period, too, such a book
may very well have been hidden away in the temple by some sorrowing
heart that hoped for better days. It is improbable in itself (cf.