190 Serge Frolov and, most importantly, literarily productive whole this ideology was gone for good together with the hapless Babylonian king who may have inadvertently created it. Southern Methodist University Serge FROLOV Department of Religious Studies Dallas, TX 75275-0202 USA SUMMARY The article demonstrates that four concluding verses of the Former Prophets (2 Kgs 25,27-30) militate against the recent tendency to view Deuteronomism as a lasting phenomenon, especially against its extension into the late exilic and post- exilic periods. Because Evil-Merodach proved an ephemeral and insignificant ruler, the account of Jehoiachin’s release and exaltation under his auspices could be reasonably expected to shore up the notion of an eternal Davidic dynasty only as long as the Babylonian king remained on the throne (562-560 BCE). Since the dynastic promise to David and associated concepts rank high on Dtr’s agenda, it means that the Former Prophets was not updated along Deuteronomistic lines to reflect the shift in the audience’s perspective on Evil-Merodach caused by his downfall. If so, there was no Deuteronomistic literary activity in the corpus after 560 BCE.