Part One:
Era of Josiah merged with Era of
Hezekiah
by
Damien F. Mackey
Why did king Josiah, upon the
finding of the Book of the Law, send his chief ministers to consult, not the
male prophets, Jeremiah and Zephaniah, but a mysterious female prophetess named
Huldah (חֻלְדָּה, a Hebrew name supposedly meaning "weasel" or
"mole")? (2 Kings 22:8-20).
The situation becomes even more
extraordinary in the context of my revision which merges the era of king Josiah
with that of king Hezekiah, showing that the king's servant "Asaiah"
of Josiah is to be identified with the great Isaiah himself. Previously I wrote
on this:
"What has king Hezekiah of
Judah to do with Jeremiah? it may well be asked.
That is all explained in my most
recent article:
De-coding Jonah
in which I merge the era of king
Hezekiah with the era of king Josiah, Jeremiah’s era. And so we find:
Hezekiah becomes Josiah;
Hilkiah becomes Hilkiah the high
priest;
Shebna the secretary becomes
Shaphan the secretary;
Joah the recorder becomes Joah
the recorder;
Isaiah becomes Asaiah.
And there will be more names to be added to this
list". [End of quote]
Indeed, I have since added Jeremiah as Eliakim son
of Hilkiah:
Jeremiah was both prophet and high priest
Two things to be noted here.
Firstly, the prophet Isaiah (=
Asaiah), to whom the king was wont to send his officials for consultation
(Isaiah 37:2), is now to be found amongst those of the king's officials
consulting the woman, Huldah. And, secondly, regarding my statement "there
will be more names to be added to this list", we need a female from the
era of king Hezekiah to merge with Huldah of king Josiah's era - a female
pairing to restore some balance for all of those male connections.
Can we find such an incredibly
famous woman at the time of king Hezekiah?
To achieve this, which is the
purpose of this present article (see Part Two), will fully serve to
answer the question in my title above, "Huldah who?"
Part Two: Huldah’s identity
in reign of king Hezekiah
There is
only one woman, and one woman alone, at the time of king Hezekiah of Judah, who
can possibly be identified with the famous prophetess Huldah.
That is
the Simeonite heroine, Judith.
Before I
had realised that the era of Hezekiah had to be merged with the era of Josiah,
Huldah’s era - and having already come to the conclusion that Huldah must be
Judith - I had been forced, chronologically, to regard Huldah as Judith in her old age.
That
interpretation, for me, accounted, perhaps, for how Huldah - traditionally a
mentor of king Josiah - had been able to speak so bluntly about the pious king:
‘Tell the man …’.
2 Kings
22:15-16: “She said to them, ‘This
is what the Lord, the
God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its
people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has
read’.’”
Here was
an aged and famous prophetess, I had thought, bluntly speaking her mind.
{Although
it may have been that Huldah was merely quoting verbatim the words that the
Lord himself had directed her to speak}.
Huldah
appeared to me to have had the same sort of bluntness that Judith had exhibited
when addressing the elders of “Bethulia” (e.g., Judith 8:11-13):
‘… you were wrong to speak to the people as you
did today. You should not have made a solemn promise before God that you would
surrender the town to our enemies if the Lord did not come to our aid within a
few days. What right do you have to
put God to the test as you have done today? Who are you to put yourselves in
God's place in dealing with human affairs? It is
the Lord Almighty that you are putting to the test! Will you never learn?’
And I had
compared Judith, in this regard, with the forthright and outspoken Joan of Arc:
Judith
of Bethulia and Joan of Arc
With
Josiah’s era now to be merged into the era of Hezekiah, though, there must take
place a major chronological reconsideration. Instead of Huldah’s statement
belonging to an historical phase significantly later than the victory of the
young (or young-ish) Judith over the Assyrian commander-in-chief (on this, see
my):
"Nadin" (Nadab) of Tobit is the
"Holofernes" of Judith
the
Huldah incident must now be regarded as pre-dating by some several years
Judith’s victory.
This
would mean that Huldah was quite young when she uttered her words, making it
even more extraordinary that king Josiah had chosen to send his chief
ministers, including the great Isaiah (= Asaiah), all males, to consult the
gifted woman.
In this
way, we might understand Isaiah’s praise of Judith when he, a fellow Simeonite,
said of her, as Uzziah, that Judith’s wisdom was known ever since she was a
child (Judith 8:28-29):
“Then Uzziah answered Judith,
‘Everything you have said makes good sense, and
no one can argue with it. This is not the first time you have shown wisdom. Ever since
you were a child, all of us have recognized the soundness and maturity of your
judgment’.”
Uzziah (=
Isaiah) also calls Judith here ‘a deeply religious woman’ (v. 31).
This, therefore,
must go a long way towards explaining why the woman Huldah (= Judith) was
consulted by king Josiah’s most eminent male officials – even over the great
Isaiah himself.
So,
adding to our former merger:
Hezekiah becomes Josiah;
Hilkiah becomes Hilkiah the high priest;
Shebna the secretary becomes Shaphan the secretary;
Joah the recorder becomes Joah the recorder;
Isaiah becomes Asaiah;
Eliakim son of Hilkiah becomes Jeremiah son of Hilkiah,
Judith becomes Huldah.
This last
identification is not without several difficulties pertaining to genealogy and
geography that will need to be addressed now in Part Three.
Part Three:
The heroine’s husband
Happily, we know something about Judith's
husband, about Huldah’s husband.
But
is the former husband the same person as the latter husband?
Whereas
Judith's husband seems to have been situated in “Bethulia”, identified as
Bethel-Shechem in the north, Huldah, and presumably her husband, appears to
dwell in Jerusalem, in the south.
The
apparent geographical problem, at
least, can easily be accounted for with reference to Isaiah and his father,
Amos, the father-son combination of, respectively, Uzziah and Micah, of the
Book of Judith. Like Judith, these men were Simeonites, and were no doubt
related to her. They spent large portions of their time in the northern Bethel,
but were also often found residing in Jerusalem as advisers to a succession of
kings of Judah.
Jewish
legend even has Amos as the “brother” (no doubt a marriage relationship) of
king Amaziah of Judah.
Judith’s
husband, “Manasseh, who belonged to her tribe and family”, had
died only about three years before the Assyrians invaded Israel (Judith
8:2-5):
Her
husband Manasseh, who belonged to her tribe and family, had died during the
barley harvest. For as he stood overseeing those who were binding sheaves in
the field, he was overcome by the burning heat, and took to his bed and died in
his town Bethulia.
So
they buried him with his ancestors in the field between Dothan and Balamon.
Judith remained as a widow for three years and four months at home where
she set up a tent for herself on the roof of her house. She put sackcloth
around her waist and dressed in widow’s clothing.
He
had left Judith a very wealthy woman (v. 7): “Her husband
Manasseh had left her gold and silver, men and women slaves, livestock, and
fields; and she maintained this estate”.
And
Judith never married again (16:21-24):
After
this they all returned home to their own inheritances. Judith went to Bethulia,
and remained on her estate. For the rest of her life she was honored throughout
the whole country. Many desired to marry her, but she gave herself to no
man all the days of her life after her husband Manasseh died and was gathered
to his people. She became more and more famous, and grew old in her
husband’s house, reaching the age of one hundred five. She set her maid free.
She died in Bethulia, and they buried her in the cave of her husband
Manasseh; and the house of Israel mourned her for seven days. Before she
died she distributed her property to all those who were next of kin to her
husband Manasseh, and to her own nearest kindred.
That
is all that we learn about Manasseh.
We
also need to take into account the fact that names in the Book of Judith have
become confused over time. See e.g. my article:
Book of Judith: confusion of names
Thus
Manasseh, for instance, may be found elsewhere in the Scriptures under a
different name.
Perhaps,
for example, the name “Manasseh” has been derived (in Greek) from a name
like Meshelemiah, Meshillemith, Meshillemoth, Meshullam, Meshullemeth, all being “related
names” to Shallum, the husband of Huldah.
Shallum
was renowned in Jewish legends. We read of Huldah and Shallum in the article, “Huldah”:
https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/philosophy-and-religion/biblical-proper-names-biographies/huldah
HULDAH (Heb. חֻלְדָּה;
"weasel"), wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the "wardrobe
keeper" of the king; one of the five women in the Bible referred to
as nevi'ah, "female prophet") and the only woman prophet
in the book of Kings (ii Kings 22:14–20). She was consulted by *Josiah when he sent to
"inquire of the Lord" concerning the Book of the Law discovered
during the restoration of the Temple. She prophesied God's ultimate judgment
upon the nation. However, this judgment was to be postponed until after
Josiah's peaceful death because of the king's acts of repentance. Inasmuch as
Josiah's death was not peaceful hers may be a genuine predictive prophecy. Most
of her prophecy is molded by the authors of the Book
of Kings in
Deuteronomistic style. It is of interest that women prophets are well-attested
in roughly contemporary Neo-Assyrian sources.
[Tikva S. Frymer /
S. David Sperling (2nd ed.)]
In The Aggadah
She was one of the seven
prophetesses (by rabbinic count) mentioned by name in the Bible. After Josiah
found the copy of the Torah in the Temple, he consulted Huldah rather than
Jeremiah, because he felt that a woman would be more compassionate and more
likely to intercede with God on his behalf (Meg. 14b).
Since Jeremiah was a kinsman
of the prophetess, both being descended from Joshua and Rahab, the king felt no
apprehension that the prophet would resent his preference for Huldah (ibid.).
While Jeremiah admonished and preached repentance to the men she did likewise
to the women (pr 26:129). In addition to being a prophetess, Huldah also
conducted an academy in Jerusalem (Targ., ii Kings 22:14). The "Gate of
Huldah" in the Temple (Mid. 1:3) was formerly the gate leading to Huldah's
schoolhouse (Rashi, ii Kings 22:14). Huldah's husband Shallum, the son of
Tikvah, was a man of noble descent and compassionate. Daily he would go beyond
the city limits carrying a pitcher of water from which he gave every traveler a
drink, and it was as a reward for his good deeds that his wife became a
prophetess. Huldah's unattractive name which means "weasel" is
ascribed to her arrogance when she referred to Josiah as "the man"
(ii Kings 22:15) and not as king.
[Aaron Rothkoff]
Bibliography:
Ginzberg, Legends,
index. add. bibliography: M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, ii
Kings (1988), 295; S. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies (State
Archives of Assyria vol. ix; 1997), xiviii-lii". [End of quotes]
Huldah's husband
must have been very old (article, “Shallum”, Jewish Encyclopedia):
"....
Even at the time of the prophet Elisha, Shallum was one of the most eminent men
("mi-gedole ha-dor") in the country. Yet he did not think it beneath
his dignity to lend personal aid to the poor and the needy. It was one of his
daily habits to go outside the gates of the city in order that he might give
water to thirsty wanderers. God rewarded him by endowing him and his wife
Huldah with the gift of prophecy. Another special reward was given him for his
philanthropy, for it is he who is referred to in II Kings xiii. 21, where one
who was dead awoke to life after being cast into Elisha's sepulcher and
touching the prophet's bones. A son was granted him, who became distinguished
for exceeding piety—Hanameel, Jeremiah's cousin (Jer. xxxii. 7; Pirḳe R. El.
xxxiii.)".
This
brings us to a deeper problem, genealogy.
Whereas
Judith’s husband, Manasseh, would appear to have been a Simeonite, as he “belonged to her tribe and family”, Shallum was clearly a Levite. He
was “son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe” (2 Kings
22:14).
They,
apparently, “lived in Jerusalem, in the New Quarter”.
Shallum's
ancestors, Tikvah and Harhas, were Kohathite Levites (I Chronicles 6:33, 37): “From
the Kohathites .... the son of Tahath [Tikvah], the son of
Assir [Harhas] ...”.
My
tentative explanation
would be that Manasseh was Shallum, a Kohathite Levite, hence related to the
prophet Jeremiah, whose ancestors had set up home in the city of Shechem. “The
hill country of Ephraim gave the Kohathites Shechem, which was a city of refuge
...”. (Giver of Truth Biblical Commentary-Vol. 1: Old Testament, pp.
405-406). There, Shallum had married into the family of Simeon, as the
Ephraimite (?) father of Samuel may have married a Levite. “It is possible that
Elkanah was an Ephraimite who married Hannah, ostensibly a woman from the tribe
of Levi” (Robert D. Bergen, 1, 2 Samuel, p. 64). Shallum, or Manasseh,
may have married a daughter of Judith's ancestor, Merari.
Judith
may have been a wife of Shallum's old age, his second wife.
Shallum,
or Manasseh, “belonged to her tribe and family”, but only, I
suggest, through marriage.
“Before [Judith] died she distributed her
property to all those who were next of kin to her husband Manasseh, and to her
own nearest kindred”.
Shallum
may also have possessed a field in Anathoth (Jeremiah 32:7).
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