Key Text: Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan (2 Chronicles 34:15).
Hilkiah, a high priest during the reign of King Josiah of Judah, was ordered to gather all the money in the Temple coffers and apportion it among all the workmen, carpenters, builders, and masons who repaired “the house” (2 Kings 22:6). During the reconstruction, as the treasury was being reclaimed for the laborers, Kilkiah found a Book of the Law (Deuteronomy) of the Lord given by Moses which he promptly directed Shaphan to take the book to Josiah. “When the king had heard the words of the law…he rent his clothes (a symbol of mourning) and ordered Hilkiah and others to inquire of the Lord concerning this book (2 Chron. 34;19).
Hilkiah went to the Prophetess Huldiah, who conveyed to the Lord’s wrath that His laws had been broken and that His chosen People had worshipped false gods. There had been prophetesses in Israel before: Miriam, Deborah, the wife of Isaiah, and instances of “your daughters’ prophesying” in full accord with the high position which women held in Israel, of which the framework was shaped by God Himself. For in Christ, there is neither made nor female, and at that time, Judaism approximated much more closely to that ideal than other lands did. Once again, Josiah set about purging the kingdom: “And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest…to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all vessels that were made for Baal” (2 Kings 23:4). Further reforms were instituted throughout the land, and a great Passover was celebrated “like to none kept in Israel from the day of Samuel the prophet.”
Law-breakers have a direct interest in getting rid of law-books. Those who choose not to make God’s law their guide may wish to put it out of sight so that it may not be their accuser. What more sad or certain sign of evil can there be than that we had rather not ‘hear what God will speak’? In Hilkiah’s find, we see a striking instance of the indestructibleness of God’s Word. His law is imperishable even in the scattering of the Jewish people. It does appear as if a divine hand had guarded the venerable book. The nearest parallel is the rediscovery of the Bible in the sixteenth century when Luther finds the Latin Bible among the neglected convent books. The discovery gave impulse and direction to return to the Bible. “Even faded flowers will lift up their heads when plunged in the water” ( author unknown).
Huldah’s message was the confirmation of the threatenings of the Law, the assurances to Josiah of acceptance of his repentance, and gracious promise of escape for the coming storm, equivalent to the double aspect of the Gospel, which completes the Law, endorsing the Scriptures, and pointing the way to escape. AMEN!
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