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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