The Christian Appeal (January 2000)
Issue Theme: Women & Faith

Hulda: She Spoke God's Word
by John Comer (January 2000)

The land of Judah was a very troubled place. No living person could remember its having been otherwise. The glory days of David and Solomon were long past, and the kingdom they had known had split into two kingdoms. The Assyrians had destroyed one of those. Only Judah remained, occupying the southern portion of what once had been a proud land. And even Judah would be conquered by pagans within a few short decades.

But the military disasters that came upon the people paled beside the spiritual devastation brought on by some of their own evil kings who desecrated God’s temple and set up heathen altars across the land. Intervals of national godliness gave some respite, but most of the kings of Judah encouraged the worship of horrible deities and the practice of witchcraft and sorcery.

As we pick up the story of Huldah, we should note that Josiah, who had become king at the tender age of eight, had just passed his sixteenth birthday. At that point he began to seek the God of his ancestor David. By age twenty Josiah was actively cleansing Judah and Jerusalem of all the trappings of heathen worship. Before long he began “to repair the temple of the Lord his God,” which “the kings of Judah had allowed to fall into ruin.”

During the temple’s restoration, “Hilkiah the [high] priest found the book of the law of the Lord given by Moses.” Selections from it were read to the king. He immediately recognized the enormity of the discovery and its implications. He commanded the high priest, “Go and inquire of the Lord for me . . . about what is written in this book that has been found.”

Where could they go? Who could speak with authority from God? Through whom would the God of Israel speak to his king and high priest?

“Hilkiah . . . went to speak to the prophetess Hulda . . . . She said to them, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel says . . . .’” She told them, and “they took her answer back to the king.” It’s all in 2 Chronicles 34.

God chose Hulda to be his spokesperson, and both king and priest respected her position as prophetess. It’s an interesting situation. We are told that she lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District, and we are left to wonder who else might have sought her out at this address, or to whom God might have sent her, as she spoke God’s word.