Hilkiah
High priest in the reign of Josiah. He found the book of the law during repairs to the temple and led the delegation that consulted the prophetess Huldah.
Hilkiah was high priest when Josiah ordered the temple repaired. He told the king’s secretary Shaphan that he had found the book of the law in the house of the Lord, and handed it to him (2 Kings 22:4–8). He led the delegation that the king sent to the prophetess Huldah (2 Kings 22:12–14), and he was ordered to clear the temple of the vessels made for Baal and Asherah (2 Kings 23:4). The genealogies make him an ancestor of Jehozadak, who went into exile, and of Ezra (1 Chronicles 6:13–15) (Ezra 7:1–2).
The father of Jeremiah was also a priest named Hilkiah, from Anathoth (Jeremiah 1:1). The texts do not connect the two. See Josiah’s Reform and the Book of the Law.
In the timeline
- 622 BC, estimated dateJosiah’s Reform and the Book of the Law
During repairs to the temple in Josiah’s eighteenth year the high priest Hilkiah finds a book of the law. The king consults the prophetess Huldah, renews the covenant, destroys the shrines of other gods throughout the land and keeps a great Passover.