The historian of the Kings agrees with the Chronicler, and the son of Sirach, in pronouncing upon him a high eulogy, and making him equal even to David in faithfulness. There is, however, much difference in the method of their descriptions of his doings. The historian devotes but one verse to his reformation--which probably began early in his reign, though it occupied many years. The Chronicler, on the other hand, in his three chapters manages to overlook, if not to suppress, the one incident of the reformation which is of the deepest interest. It is exactly one of those suppressions which help to create the deep misgiving as to the historic exactness of this biassed and late historian. It must be regarded as doubtful whether many of the Levitic details in which he revels are or are not intended to be literally historic. Imaginative additions to literal history became common among the Jews after the Exile, and leaders of that day instinctively drew the line between moral homiletics and literal history. It may be perfectly historical that, as the Chronicler says, Hezekiah opened and repaired the Temple; gathered the priests and the Levites together, and made them cleanse themselves; offered a solemn sacrifice; reappointed the musical services; and--though this can hardly have been till after the Fall of Samaria in 722--invited all the Israelites to a solemn, but in some respects irregular, passover of fourteen days. It may be true also that he broke up the idolatrous altars in Jerusalem, and tossed their _débris_ into the Kidron; and (again after the deportation of Israel) destroyed some of the _bamoth_ in Israel as well as in Judah. If he reinstituted the courses of the priests, the collection of tithes, and all else that he is said to have done,[481] he accomplished quite as much as was effected in the reign of his great-grandson Josiah. But while the Chronicler dwells on all this at such length, what induces him to omit the most significant fact of all--the destruction of the brazen serpent?