we can approximately restore the chronology of the whole period.  If we assume the thirteenth year of Josiah to have been 627-626 B.C., we are compelled to place all the early Medic wars in the reign of Assur- bani-pal, as I have done.

This barbarian invasion, which burst upon the peace of Assyria like a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky, restored to the faithful that confidence in the omnipotence of their God which had seemed about to fail them; when they beheld the downfall of states, the sack of provinces innumerable, whole provinces in flames and whole peoples irresistibly swept away to death or slavery, they began to ask themselves whether these were not signs of the divine wrath, indicating that the day of Jahveh was at hand.  Prophets arose to announce the approaching judgment, among the rest a certain Zephaniah, a great-grandson of Hezekiah:* “I will utterly consume all things from off the face of the ground, saith Jahveh.  I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling-blocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from the face of the earth, saith Jahveh.  And I will stretch out My hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarim with the priests; and them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and them that worship, which swear to Jahveh and swear by Malcham; and them that are turned back from following Jahveh; and those that have not sought Jahveh nor inquired after Him.  Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord Jahveh; for the day of Jahveh is at hand; for Jahveh hath prepared a sacrifice, He hath sanctified His guests.”

* Zephaniah gives his own genealogy at the beginning of his prophecy (i. 1), though, it is true, he does not add the title “King of Judah” after the name of his ancestor Hezekiah.

“That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm, against the fenced cities, and against the high battlements.  And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against Jahveh:  and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as dung.  Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of Jahveh’s wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of His jealousy; for He shall make an end, yea, a terrible end, of all them that dwell in the land.”  During this same period of stress and terror, there came forward another prophet, one of the greatest among the prophets of Israel—­Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah.  He was born in the village of Anathoth, near Jerusalem, being descended from one of those priestly families in which the faith had been handed down from generation to generation in all its original purity.*