Hilkiah was the high priest in Jerusalem during King Josiah's reign. He is best known for finding the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord during temple renovations, a discovery that led to Josiah's great religious reform and renewal of the covenant with God.
During the renovation of the temple, Hilkiah found the Book of the Law (likely Deuteronomy) and gave it to the scribe Shaphan. This discovery became a turning point in Judah's religious history.
8Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, "I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the LORD." Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.
9Shaphan the secretary went to the king and reported to him: "Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house and handed it over to the workmen appointed to oversee the house of the LORD."
13"Go and inquire of the LORD for me, for the people, and for all Judah about the words of this book that has been found. Great is the wrath of the LORD that burns against us, because our fathers did not obey the words of this book by doing all that is written concerning us."
King Josiah sent Hilkiah along with other leaders to the prophetess Huldah to ask the Lord about the words of the Book of the Law and the judgment that had been warned over the people.
14So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District, and they spoke with her.
16This is what the LORD says: I am about to bring disaster on this place and on its inhabitants—everything written in the book that the king of Judah has read—
17because they have abandoned me and burned incense to other gods, provoking me to anger with all the work of their hands. My wrath burns against this place, and it will not be quenched.
2The king went up to the house of the LORD, and with him every man of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets, and all the people, from the least to the greatest. And he read in their hearing every word of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the LORD.
3The king stood by the pillar and made the covenant before the LORD: to follow the LORD and keep his commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, carrying out the words of this covenant written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant.
Josiah commanded Hilkiah and the other priests to remove all idolatrous objects from the house of the Lord, including vessels made for Baal and Asherah.
4Then the king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the threshold to remove from the temple of the LORD all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.
5He deposed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense at the high places in the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem, along with those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.
6He brought the Asherah pole out of the house of the LORD to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, burned it there, ground it to dust, and threw its dust on the graves of the common people.