Huldah, "Thus Saith the Lord"

       Though many of the Hebrews were given to idolatry and were ignorant of God, still the lamp of divine truth was kept burning in the heart of a woman. That woman was Huldah.
       To a high degree, Huldah possessed two great qualities, righteousness and prophetic insight, and because she possessed the former she was able to use the latter wisely. This prophetic power, never trusted to the undeserving, was given to her because she loved God with all her heart.
       Evidently Huldah was known in the kingdom of Judah far and wide or she would never have been sought out by King Josiah, who sent five of his own personal messengers to her with the Book of the Law, which had been recently discovered during repairs in the Temple at Jerusalem. He had faith in Huldah's spiritual powers and he wanted her to tell him whether the book was genuine or not. Here is a clue to Huldah's intellectual and spiritual perception.
       The Scriptures give us no graphic description of this early Hebrew prophetess, except to say that she was the wife of Shallum, whose family had been singled out as keepers of the wardrobe, meaning either the priest's or the king's wardrobe, probably the latter. At least this would place her close to life inside the palace and Temple.
       The King James Version says that Huldah "dwelt in Jerusalem in the college - but the Revised Standard Version says "she dwelt in the Second Quarter'' (II Kings 22:14), indicating the area of Jerusalem in which she lived. On some maps the Second Quarter is shown to be the section in front of the Temple. Jewish tradition has it that Huldah taught publicly in a school. Other tradition has it that she taught and preached to women.
       We can justly infer that she was a woman of distinction. Among the messengers that King Josiah sent to her were his high priest, Hilkiah, who had found hidden away this amazing roll of manuscript, the lost Book of the Law, the brilliant work of a group of prophets and priests who had recorded the Yahwistic spiritual ideals. Another messenger was Shaphan, the scribe in the temple, to whom Hilkiah had first taken the lost book. Parts of this book are still found in Deuteronomy. It is now thought to be the first book of the Bible that was canonized.
       Only a deeply devout woman, one of real intellectual attainments, would have been sought out by a king and a priest to give her opinion as to whether or not this scroll was indeed the word of the Lord. It turned out to be one of the most important scrolls in the history of Israel.
       Huldah not only confirmed its authenticity but also prophesied concerning the future, saying that the Lord would bring evil upon Judah, because the people had forsaken Him and had turned instead to images. As a reward for Josiah's humility and tender heart, Huldah prophesied that he would be gathered unto his fathers before this terrible doom came upon Israel.
       Commentators have questioned why King Josiah sent his personal messengers to consult a woman. Why were they not sent to a man? Josiah, who had come to rule at age eight, doubtless had learned to rely a great deal on his mother Jedidah as queen-mother.
       We know little about her, but we do know that Josiah's father Amon was murdered in his own palace by his servants because of his idolatry. But King Josiah centralized religion at Jerusalem, exalted the Levites, threw out the shrines of the false gods, and led his people to new spiritual heights. We naturally assume that the godly Josiah had a godly mother. Because of her, he would have a sympathetic appreciation of a woman as righteous and as spiritually discerning as Huldah?
       Noteworthy it is that in the short account of Huldah's prophecy the scribe repeated four times her phrase, "Thus saith the Lord'' making us know that Huldah did not think of herself as an oracle, but only as a channel through which God's word came.
       Huldah's prophecy gave King Josiah greater courage to put into action the laws written in the Book of the Law, which had been sent to her for verification. After this, Josiah had the scroll read in the house of the Lord and made a covenant to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments. And because of it, he fought evil in Judah more zealously.
       High regard he had for Huldah's prophecy when he acted so promptly, and when he also sought to make himself more worthy of the promised forbearance of God, though he knew the threatened evil to his country and his people could not be averted.
       Only a woman who studied immutable spiritual laws and who prayed unceasingly could have been given insight into the mystery of the future. But Huldah was a woman who could throw back the veil of Israel's future because she had lived so close to God.