Hilkiah (High Priest)

Hilkiah son of Shallum was High Priest in Jerusalem under King Josiah. In −622, the eighteenth year of the reign, Josiah sent the scribe Shaphan to him to pay the workmen repairing the Temple. Hilkiah told Shaphan, "I have found the book of the Torah in the House of the Lord." Shaphan read it to the king, who tore his clothes and sent Hilkiah with Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan and Asaiah to consult the prophetess Huldah; she confirmed the coming disaster but promised Josiah he would not live to see it (2 Kings 22). Hilkiah then removed from the Temple the vessels made for Baal, Asherah and the host of heaven, and they were burned in the Kidron valley (2 Kings 23:4).

Many scholars identify the book he found with Deuteronomy or its core. His son Azariah and grandson Seraiah followed him; Seraiah was the last High Priest of the First Temple, and Ezra the scribe descended from them (1 Chronicles 5:39–40; Ezra 7:1). A bulla reading "Azaryahu son of Hilkiyahu," found by Yigal Shiloh in the City of David, may have belonged to his son.