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he heard. He knew that to spare the nation any more trouble, a great education program had to be
instituted. The Word of God had to be taught to every man, woman and child in the nation.
Notice what Clarke’s Commentary has to say about Josiah: “And if the king and the high priest, who
were both men of eminent piety, were without this part of the Holy Scripture, it can scarcely be thought
that anyone else then had it. But so religious a prince as King Josiah could not leave this long
unremedied. By his orders copies were written out from this original; and search being made for all the
other parts of Holy Scripture … and thenceforth copies of the whole became multiplied among the
people; all those who were desirous of knowing the laws of their God, either writing them out
themselves, or procuring others to do it for them; … [the sacred writings] were got into private hands,
who carried them with them into captivity. That Daniel had a copy with him in Babylon is certain, for he
quotes the law, and also makes mention of the prophecies of the Prophet Jeremiah, which he could not
do had he never seen them.”

The Babylonian captivity had not only destroyed the nation of Judah and the city of Jerusalem with the
holy temple, it also wiped out the central depository of God’s revelation. By the decree of the Persian
King Cyrus, Zerubbabel and a contingent of Jews returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple (2
Chronicles 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-2). Yet, after Zerubbabel’s death, the Jews began degenerating in their zeal
for God’s way of life. Even the temple began to fall into disrepair. Ezra was well trained in God’s law. He
desired to revive God’s way of life in Jerusalem. God directed Ezra to do just that. In fact, we have Ezra
most to thank for the preservation of our Old Testament. “This Ezra went up from Babylon; and he was a
ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given and the king granted him all his
request, according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him. … For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek
the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments” (Ezra 7:6, 10). Ezra
returned to Jerusalem, beautified the temple and established the proper order of worship. Nehemiah,
as governor, fully supported his reforms. Because Josiah had made sure that multiple copies of the
Scripture scrolls existed, Ezra collected all the scattered rolls that could be found and, inspired by the
Holy Spirit, worked with the Great Assembly in putting the books into a proper order.

Ezra took on a very important responsibility to make sure we had the properly inspired canon of the
Scriptures. He got “together as many copies of the sacred writings as he could, and out of them all to set
forth a correct edition … he took care of the following particulars: First, he corrected all the errors that
had crept into these copies …. Secondly, he … disposed them in their proper order; and settled the
canon of Scripture for his time” (Clarke’s Commentary). Ezra the priest placed the authorized scrolls in
the temple. The priests were again put in charge of the scrolls.

These standard copies remained intact until the buildings were destroyed by Titus in A.D. 70. All the
synagogues in the first century maintained the same canon of Scripture. All scrolls agreed with the
divine canon deposited in the temple archives.

It is now the responsibility of the true Church of God to protect the Scriptures as handed down to us,
just as it was of the Old Testament “church in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38).

A Complete Bible
The Old Testament canon, with its various books and divisions, was the model used for the canonization
of the New Testament. God always used men to canonize various books.

When the Jews in the New Testament refused the message of Christ, God raised up the apostles to go
into the Greek world to have His New Testament Scriptures preserved for us. Realize that the Old

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