[684] _Expositor_, 2nd series, iv. 263; Cheyne, _Jeremiah_, 31. Hitzig and Ewald (erroneously?) refer Psalms lv., lix., to these events, and it seems also to be an error to suppose that the later name of Bethshan--Scythopolis--has anything to do with this incursion. Like the names of Pella, Philadelphia, etc., it is later than the age of Alexander the Great. See 2 Macc. xii. 30; Jos., _B. J._, II. xviii., _Vit._ vi. Perhaps Scythopolis is a corruption of Sikytopolis, the city of Sikkuth; or Scythian may merely stand for "Barbarian," as in 3 Macc. vii. 5; Col. iii. 11 (Cheyne, _l.c._). [685] Nah. i. 10, ii. 5, iii. 12; Diod. Sic., ii. 26. [686] Nah. iii. 8-11. [687] Strabo, xvi. 1, 3: ἠφανίσθη παοαχρῆμα. [688] Xen., _Anab._, III. iv. 7. [689] Chaldees, Kardim, Kasdim, Kurds. [690] Nabu-pal-ussur, "Nebo protect the son" B.C. 625-7. Jos., _Antt._ X. xi. 1: comp. _Ap._, i. 19. [691] Newman, _Hebrew Monarchy_, p. 315. CHAPTER XXXI _JOSIAH'S REFORMATION_ 2 KINGS xxii. 8-20, xxiii. 1-25 "And the works of Josias were upright before his Lord with a heart full of godliness."--1 ESDRAS i. 23. "From Zion shall go forth the Law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem."--ISA. ii. 3. It is from the Prophets--Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Ezekiel--that we catch almost our sole glimpses of the vast world-movements of the nations which must have loomed large on the minds of the King of Judah and of all earnest politicians in that day. As they did not directly affect the destiny of Judah till the end of the reign, they do not interest the historian of the Kings or the later Chronicler. The things which rendered the reign memorable in their eyes were chiefly two--the finding of "the Book of the Law" in the House of the Lord, and the consequent religious reformation. It is with the first of these two events that we must deal in the present chapter. Josiah began to reign as a child of eight, and it may be that the emphatic and honourable mention of his mother--Jedidah ("Beloved"), daughter of Adaiah of Boscath--may be due to the fact that he owed to her training that early proclivity to faithfulness which earns for him the unique testimony, that he not only "walked in the way of David his father," but that "he turned not aside to the right hand or to the left."