These commandments therefore exist and have importance right until the time when the rewards are given at the end of time.
By contrast what do we know of the history of the Book of the Law, which outlined the ceremonial system?
When Josiah was king, about 350 years after King Solomon, the House of the Lord, the beautiful temple built by Solomon, was in a state of utter dereliction. Succeeding kings had worshipped idols there and built altars to the host of heaven in the two courts of the House of the Lord. In the process of making repairs, the High Priest found a book, which he gave to Shaphan the scribe who read it. He immediately took the book to King Josiah and read it to him. On hearing the words, the King rent his clothes, as he realised that he and the people had for so long neglected the ordinances of the Lord. He gathered all the elders together and read to them the words of the book that had been found in the House of the Lord. As he stood there before them, he made a covenant before the Lord.
He chose to walk according to the words of the book of the law that they had discovered. The people stood with him in assent to this. The temple was cleaned, and all the vessels used in worshipping the sun, the moon, the planets and the host of heaven were taken out and ground to powder. The idoltrous altars were torn down and destroyed. This purification of worship spread then, from Jerusalem to Samaria.
When it was completed, King Josiah called for the Passover to be kept as they had found written in the book of the law. It is by this that we know that it was not the Ten Commandments that were found. The instructions for the Passover were not contained in the Ten Commandments nor are the instructions for sacrifices. It is recorded that there was no Passover at any time like this one that
Josiah kept with the people according to the Law of Moses. It was a truly memorable occasion. The Book of the Law, the collection of the statutes for the Children of Israel, is mentioned again in Nehemiah. When the Children of Israel returned from captivity in Babylon and had rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem and set up the doors, they determined by the register of genealogies, who among the people were the Levites, and the singers, the porters.