They Sent For Her

Context

King Josiah is twenty-six when the high priest pulls a forgotten scroll out of a temple storeroom and realizes it's the Law of Moses. Josiah hears what's in it and tears his clothes, because the whole nation has been living the opposite of every page. He needs a prophet to tell him what it means.

Jeremiah is alive at this moment. Zephaniah is alive. There are male prophets with national reputations in the building.

Story

Josiah doesn't send for them. He sends for Huldah. Five credentialed men, the high priest and the king's officials, walk across Jerusalem in their court robes, past the priest district, past the prophet district, to knock on the door of a woman in the Second Quarter married to a man who works in the royal wardrobe.

She opens the door, and these men who have authority over basically everything stand there waiting to hear what she has to say. She doesn't soften it and she doesn't apologize for being asked.

"Tell the man who sent you — this is what the Lord says. Disaster is coming on this place. Every word in that scroll is going to happen."

Then she reads the king himself. Because his heart was tender and he humbled himself, she says, he won't live to see it. The high priest of Israel carries a woman's word straight to the throne, and Josiah doesn't ask for a second opinion. He gathers the nation and reads the scroll out loud based on what she said.

What We Learn

She wasn't the famous prophet. She wasn't writing the books we still have today. But when the most powerful men in the country needed someone who actually heard from God, they skipped the brand name and went to her.

Wisdom isn't a title. It's the woman they actually go to when the title-holders don't know what to do.

Somewhere in your life, somebody already knows that about you. They just haven't told you yet.