The fact that the provinces had been ravaged from end to end in the days of Sennacherib, while Jerusalem had been spared, was attributed to the circumstance that Hezekiah had destroyed the provincial sanctuaries, leaving the temple on Mount Sion alone standing. Wherever Jahveh possessed altars, He kept guard over His people, but His protection was not extended to those places where sacrifices were no longer offered to Him. The reaction was not allowed to take place without opposition on the part of the prophets and their followers. We are told that Manasseh "shed innocent blood very much till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another;" there is even a Kabbinic tradition to the effect that, weary of the admonitions of the aged Isaiah, he put him to death by shutting him up in the hollow trunk of a tree, and causing him to be sawn in two.* * 2 Kings xxi. 16. The tradition in regard to the fate of Isaiah took its foundation in this text, and it is perhaps indirectly referred to in Heb. xi. 37. For a long time after this no instance can be found of a prophet administering public affairs or directing the actions of the king himself; the priests and reformers, finding no outlet for their energy in this direction, fell back on private preaching and literary propaganda. And, above all, they applied themselves to the task of rewriting the history of Israel, which, as told by the chroniclers of the previous century, presented the national Deity in too material a light, and one which failed to harmonise with the ideals then obtaining. So long as there were two separate Hebrew kingdoms, the existence of the two parallel versions of the Elohist and Jahvist gave rise to but little difficulty: each version had its own supporters and readers, whose consciences were readily satisfied by the interpolation of a few new facts into the text as occasion arose. But now that Samaria had fallen, and the whole political and religious life of the Hebrew race was centred in Judah alone, the necessity for a double and often contradictory narrative had ceased to exist, and the idea occurred of combining the two in a single work. This task, which was begun in the reign of Hezekiah and continued under Manasseh, resulted in the production of a literature of which fragments have been incorporated into the historical books of our Bible.* The reign of Amon witnessed no alteration in the policy initiated by his predecessor Manasseh; but when, after less than two years' rule, he was suddenly struck down by the knife of an assassin, the party of reform carried the day, and the views of Hezekiah and Isaiah regained their ascendency. Josiah had been king, in name at any rate, for twelve years,** and was learning to act on his own responsibility, when the Scythian danger appeared on the horizon.