The closing years of the Judaean kingdom and the final destruction of the temple (586 B.C.) shattered the Messianic ideals cherished in the evening of Isaiah's lifetime and again in the opening years of the reign of Josiah.
The book of Deuteronomy, in conjunction with the reformation of Josiah's reign (which synchronizes with the rapid decline of Assyria and the reviving prestige of Yahweh), appeared to mark the triumph of the great prophetic movement.
Nevertheless, these places of cult remained some 300 years until almost the close of the monarchy, when their destruction is attributed to Josiah (§ 16).
Manasseh's son Amon fell in a court intrigue and " the people of the land," after avenging the murder, set up in his place the infant Josiah (637).
The assumption that the decay of Assyria awoke the national feeling of independence is perhaps justified by those events which made the greatest impression upon the compiler, and an account is given of Josiah's religious reforms, based upon a source apparently identical with that which described the work of Jehoash.
