In the sequel 2Kings xxii. 11-xxiii.3 is indeed repeated verbatim in 2Chronicles xxxiv. 19-32, but the incomparably more important section connected with it (xxiii. 4-10), giving a detailed account of Josiah's vigorous reformation, is omitted, and its place taken by the meagre remark that the king removed all abominations out of Israel (xxxiv. 33); in compensation his passover feast is described all the more fully (chap. xxxv.). In recording also the finding and publication of the Law, Chronicles fails to realise that this document begins now for the first time to be historically operative, and acquires its great importance quite suddenly. On the contrary, it had been from the days of Moses the basis on which the community rested, and had been in force and validity at all normal times; only temporarily could this life-principle of the theocracy be repressed by wicked kings, forthwith to become vigorous and active again as soon as the pressure was removed. As soon as Ahaz has closed his eyes, Hezekiah, in the first month of his first year, again restores the Mosaic cultus; and as soon as Josiah reaches years of discretion he makes good the sins of his fathers. Being at his accession still too young, the eighth year of his reign is, as a tribute to propriety, selected instead of the eighth year of his life, and the great reformation assigned to that period which in point of fact he undertook at a much later date (xxxiv. 3-7 = 2Kings xxiii. 4-20> Thus the movement happily becomes separated from its historical occasion, and in character the innovation appears rather as a simple recovery of the spring after the pressure on it has been removed. The mist disappears before the sun of the Law, which appears in its old strength; its light passes through no phases, but shines from the beginning with uniform brightness. What Josiah did had also been done before him already by Asa, then by Jehoshaphat, then by Hezekiah; the reforms are not steps in a progressive development, but have all the same unchanging contents. Such is the influence upon historical vision of that transcendental Mosaism raised far above all growth and process of becoming, which can be traced even in the Book of Kings, but is so much more palpable in the Book of Chronicles.