“…And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you.  And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.”  Shaphan the Secretary paused in his reading and looked at the king.  Josiah was sitting on the stairs of the royal dais on which his ornate throne stood.  His knees were bent up in front of him and his arms wrapped around them.  His forehead rested on his knees.  The purple robe he wore was worthy of a king, but as silence fell, Josiah lifted his head and with both hands grasped the neckline of the robe.  Tears rolled down his cheek as he tore the expensive robe down to his waist.  He continued to sit dejectedly in front of his throne, shaking his head.

“This is disastrous,” he said, still shaking his head.  “Catastrophic.  We have all disobeyed God, and these curses will be coming on us as a nation,” he said and his tears showed genuine remorse.

“But, my lord, you have always tried to serve Yahweh our God.  How can you say that you have sinned?”

“There have been many things that have pricked my conscience as you have read, Shaphan, but there was one above all others that everyone in the entire nation has failed with.  You read that we must attend three feasts each year in Jerusalem.  We have not done that.  They are meant to be feasts for joyfully celebrating God’s blessings, yet we have ignored them all.  Three feasts each year and I have never attended even one!  That is sin, and God says that anyone who does not attend those feasts should be cut off from the nation.  I have failed and there is nothing that can fix my failure.”  The young king lowered his head once more, obviously very upset and deep in thought.

“Shall I stop reading, my lord?” asked Shaphan, sympathetically.  “It doesn’t seem to get any better.”

The king looked up again.  “Are we absolutely sure that this book is genuine?”  he asked.  “Is it really the Book of the Law of Yahweh?”

“It appears genuine, my lord.  The lettering is consistently genuinely ancient, the ink is faded in a way that seems to match, and the leather feels old too.  Every aspect of this scroll that I can think of that could confirm its veracity fits.  As a scribe I have had experience with many ancient scrolls over the years.  I am convinced that this scroll is ancient.  Hilkiah the High Priest is also convinced that it is genuine.”

“Then I must hear it all, however unpleasant its message is.”

“Very well, sire.”  Shaphan held up the scroll again.

“How much is there still to read?” asked the king.

“About a sixth.”

“Let’s keep going then.”

“And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.  And among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the Lord will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul.  Your life shall hang in doubt before you.  Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life.  In the morning you shall say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and at evening you shall say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and the sights that your eyes shall see.”

Josiah lowered his eyes again, shaking his head once more.  Many of the details in the book had challenged his ideas of what God wanted, but the list of curses Shaphan was now reading was heaping horror upon horror.  It felt completely unreal.  How could things ever be bad enough for God to do such things to the nation he had chosen?

He, Josiah, was king.  No-one but himself could take responsibility for his nation or feel more heavily the burden of the nation’s failures.  Yet now was not the time to ponder the meaning of all he had heard.  First he must hear the remainder of the book so that all of the information was available for review.  He must concentrate.

Shaphan continued reading and the terrible list of curses finally concluded.  Yet the litany of terror was not finished.  Some time later, as the Secretary neared the end of the scroll, he paused for a moment and looked at his king in sympathy, then read: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.  Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

Shaphan lowered the scroll and rolled it up.

“That’s it, my lord,” he said.  “There was certainly a sting in the tail there.”  He shook his greying head.

“How can we choose life?” asked Josiah.  “Through our actions, we have already chosen death.  What can we do now?”

“Sire, the kingdom has already lasted for many, many years.  Why should anything change now?  If God has not destroyed us before now, why should he do so now?”

“But the punishment threatened in this book matches the punishment that prophets like Jeremiah have been telling us is coming.”

“Ah yes, Jeremiah.  He is busy in some other country somewhere, isn’t he?”

“Yes, I believe he is.  After all, he is a prophet for other nations too, not just Judah.  Now, both Hilkiah and you agree that this book is genuine.  This book threatens the kingdom with destruction.  Is there anything that we can do to avert God’s anger?

“You would have to ask a prophet that, sire… or maybe a prophetess.”

“Yes, you’re right.  Maybe a prophetess.  I have confidence in Huldah.  She is a genuine messenger of Yahweh, and she won’t be afraid to tell me the truth.  Call Hilkiah, Achbor, Asaiah and your son Ahikam.  I want to speak to you all.”

“Yes, sire.”

 

 

It wasn’t long before the men Josiah had named were standing before him in the throne room.  Shaphan had already briefed them on the situation, and they had all noticed the king’s torn robe and dishevelled appearance.

“I want you all to go to see Huldah, the prophetess,” said Josiah.

“Will you be coming with us, sire?” asked Achbor.

“No.  I am too ashamed to present myself before God’s prophetess.  I am king, and am therefore responsible for my kingdom, which has not followed God’s laws.  I want you all to go and ask her about the Book of the Law.”

 

 

Later that afternoon, the group went to see Huldah, the prophetess of Yahweh.  Her husband was the keeper of Josiah’s wardrobe and they lived in what was called the second quarter – a part of the city that lay to the west of the old city of David, enclosed by new walls that had been built by Hezekiah and strengthened by Manasseh his son.

As Shaphan and his fellows walked along the street, doors opened and the inhabitants watched with interest as the cream of the kingdom’s leaders trooped past.  By the time the lords stopped outside the door of Huldah’s house, they had accumulated quite a following of small children who rarely saw such elegant clothing.

The house in front of which they stopped was not large, and a critical observer could have guessed that the money that must have been spent on the visitors’ clothing could have bought a much larger dwelling in a much nicer part of town.  The visitors looked uncomfortable, to say the least, but they were a determined group of men, and the king’s commands must be obeyed.

The door opened, and a middle-aged woman looked at the assembled lords.  She did not seem surprised to see them.

“Welcome,” she said.

“Is this the house of Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Tikvah?” asked Hilkiah, formally, in a deep, pleasant voice.  This was essentially a religious matter, so who else but the High Priest should take charge?

“Yes it is, and I am Huldah.  Welcome to my home.  King Josiah sent you with an important request.”

Hilkiah looked surprised, and stumbled a little in his explanations.  “Ah, yes.  The king sent us to you.  It is a great honour that he pays you.  He believes that you are a prophetess who can give him answers from God.”

“He sent you to ask about the words he has read in the Book of the Law.”   She turned to Shaphan.  “You did well to read the book to the king, my lord.  It was just the right thing to do.”

“Once I had started, the king insisted that I keep reading, right to the very end,” said Shaphan with a wry smile.  “It was a long job… and it upset the king greatly.”

“Which is why we have come,” said Hilkiah, taking back the baton of conversation.  “The king is concerned that Yahweh’s anger is like a great fire against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of the book.”  Hilkiah was reporting King Josiah’s message accurately, but his delivery of the words suggested that he did not have the same strength of conviction as his king.

Huldah’s eyes were the most striking part of her appearance.  She looked back at Hilkiah, and her eyes showed none of the servility that one might have expected from the wife of a fairly minor servant of the king when speaking to five of the most important men in the kingdom.

“Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel,” she began.  “ ‘Tell the man who sent you to me, Thus says the Lord, behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read.  Because they have forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore my wrath will be kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched.’ ”

Huldah paused and looked around at her audience.  Her expression was firm and, like her words, brooked no argument.  What the five lords thought in detail we cannot say, but the High Priest, Hilkiah, looked shocked.  A look of anger filled Asaiah’s face, while Shaphan seemed unsurprised, but not necessarily worried.  Possibly he was not convinced.

After a few moments, the prophetess continued: “But to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus shall you say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Regarding the words that you have heard, because your heart was penitent, and you humbled yourself before the Lord, when you heard how I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the Lord.  Therefore, behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place.’ ”

Asaiah’s look of anger melted away.  As long as his beloved king was not to suffer or be criticised, he did not concern himself with much else.

The others likewise appeared to have been placated by these words that seemed to herald decades of ongoing peace for the nation.

“Is that all you have to tell us?” asked Hilkiah.

“Yes,” replied Huldah.

“Did you know that we were coming?” asked Ahikam, seeming intrigued by the idea.

“Yes,” replied Huldah again.  “Yahweh told me who would visit and why, and gave me the words I have spoken to you for the king.”

They left the house and the group of children scattered again as the lords made their way back along the street.  It was a jovial group that left their unfamiliar surroundings and made their way back to the splendour of King Josiah’s palace.  The threatening first half of Huldah’s message seemed to have been forgotten in the comfort of the second half.

Shaphan the Secretary strode along the streets calmly, satisfied that the young king would be able to put his fears behind him.  Huldah’s message had shown that Josiah had nothing to worry about and no need to drag the nation into some paroxysm of repentance.  Seeing his king humbling himself and tearing his clothes in such an excess of guilt had been almost embarrassing.

Life could return to normal, with the extra confidence of guaranteed peace.

But a hint of doubt crept into his mind as he thought of the last words of Huldah’s message: “your eyes will not see all the disaster that I will bring on this place.”  He knew the king well enough to wonder whether he would feel that he had a responsibility to do his best to delay or even avoid that promised disaster.  It was possible that Josiah would still take these threats a little too seriously.

He sighed: Josiah might still give the nation a big shakeup.  Sometimes he seemed a little more religious than Shaphan could fully understand.