Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Destructors" to "Diameter"

book consisted of a central mass of religious, civil and social laws,

preceded by a hortatory introduction and followed by an effective peroration. The book read to Josiah must therefore have comprised most of what is found in Deut. v.-xxvi., xxvii. 9, 10 and xxviii. But something like two centuries elapsed before the book reached its present form, for in the closing chapter, as wel...