5. Jewish tradition ascribes to Ezra the work of settling the canon of the Old Testament, and setting forth a corrected edition of the same. Though some things included in this tradition are fabulous, the part of it now under consideration is corroborated by all the scriptural statements concerning him, nor is there any reasonable ground for doubting its correctness. Be this as it may, it is admitted that from Ezra's day onward the Pentateuch existed in its present form. We are sure, therefore, that "the book of the law of Moses," out of which he read to the people, was the book as we now have it--the whole Pentateuch, written, according to uniform Jewish usage, on a single roll. Ezra belonged to the priestly order that had in charge the keeping of the sacred books, Deut. 31:25, 26, compared with 2 Kings 22:8, and was moreover "a ready scribe in the law of Moses." His zeal for the reestablishment of the Mosaic law in its purity shines forth in his whole history. In his competency and fidelity we have satisfactory evidence that the law of Moses which he set forth was the very law which had been handed down from ancient times, and of which we have frequent notices in the books of Kings and Chronicles. It is generally supposed that Ezra himself wrote the books of Chronicles. They were certainly composed about his time. To admit, as all do, that in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah the law of Moses means the Pentateuch as a whole, and to deny that it has the same meaning in the books of Chronicles, is very inconsistent. Certainly the book which Ezra set forth was the book which he found ready at hand, and therefore the book referred to in the Chronicles, and the Kings also. Any explanatory additions which he may have made did not affect its substance. It remains for the objector to show why it was not, in all essential respects, the book which Hilkiah found in the temple, 2 Chron. 34:14, and to which David referred in his dying charge to Solomon, 1 Kings 2:3.