How do Christian scholars explain this Hilkiah episode? Let us quote from the _Encyclopedia Biblica_, one of the best known commentaries on the Bible:--"What led Hilkiah to say that he had found the Book of the Law is not recorded." Perhaps it was not convenient to do so: "He may merely have meant," adds the commentator, feeling fearfully the strain of his orthodoxy, "Here is the best and fullest law-book, about which thou hast been asking." Is not this ingenious? "I have found the Book of the Law," may only have meant, according to this clergyman's interpretation, "Here is the best and fullest law-book about which thou hast been asking." But why should Hilkiah have meant one thing and said another? And what about the fact that Solomon failed to find the Book of the Law in the Ark, and that for three hundred and fifty years there is silence about this same book? And why did they go to medium Huldah, if everybody knew what the book was? But the explanations of the orthodox scholars which I have quoted prove what I said about the believer being compelled to twist and cramp his conscience even worse than the reputed authors of the Scriptures have done, in order to smooth over the offenses against truth and honor in the Bible. The authors of the _Encyclopedia Biblica_ are among the most scholarly and progressive of the Christian clergy, and their answer to questions about the High Priest Hilkiah is as good as can be expected, under the circumstances. But we know of a safer answer than that--_silence_. There is a concluding chapter in the history of the Bible. It appears that when Jerusalem fell into the hands of the Persians, the city was pillaged, the temple destroyed, and the Book of the Law which Hilkiah had discovered, was burned. Once more, Israel is without a book. Driven into captivity, the Jews lived among the heathen without a temple and without a bible. Then Cyrus, the King of Persia, is represented in the book of Ezra, as issuing a proclamation to the Jews to return to their country and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. At this time, Cyrus, graciously delivered to the Jews "the vessels of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the house of his gods." Among the articles restored to the Temple, no mention is made of the Book of the Law. But Ezra, who is called "a scribe of the words of the commandment of the Lord," appears to have not only rebuilt the temple, but also to have restored the burned Book of the Law. In forty days, by the help of forty associates, everything that was ever reported to have been done of the Lord was put to writing and read aloud to the congregation which kept standing as Ezra read to them. Such is the story in the Book of _Esdras_.