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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJames Hastings Dictionary of the Bible: Hilkiah
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HILKIAH (‘Jah [is] my portion,’ or ‘portion of Jah’).—A favourite priestly name. 1. Father of Eliakim, Hezekiah’s chief of the household (2Ki_18:18 etc.=Isa_36:3 etc., Isa_22:20-25). 2. A priest of Anathoth, probably of the line of Eli (see 1Ki_2:26-27), father of Jeremiah (Jer_1:1); he is not to be identified with the next. 3. The high priest in b.c. 621, who ‘found’ during the repairs of the Temple and brought to Josiah’s notice, through Shaphan, ‘the book of the law’ (2Ki_22:3-11=2Ch_34:8-19), which occasioned the reformation of religion thereafter effected (2Ki_23:1-24=2Ch_34:29 to 2Ch_35:19). Hilkiah headed the deputation sent to consult Huldah on this discovery (2Ki_22:12-20=2Ch_34:20-28); and presided over the subsequent purification of the Temple (2Ki_23:4 ff.). He was a chief actor in the whole movement. There is no reason to doubt that his find was the genuine discovery of a lost law-book; this book was unmistakably the code of Deuteronomy (wh. see). 4. Father of the Gemariah of Jer 29:3. 5, 6. Levites of the clan of Merari (1Ch_6:45; 1Ch_26:11). 7. A ‘chief of the priests’ returning from the Exile in b.c. 536 (Neh_12:7; Neh_12:21). 8. A companion of Ezra at the public reading of the Law (Neh_8:4); he appears as Ezekias in 1Es_9:43.
G. G. Findlay.