When Huldah Went to College BY WARREN C. TRENCHARD


Recently I was reminded of this King James Version (KJV) translation of 2 Kings 22:14 (cf. 2 Chron. 34:22): “So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asahiah, went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college;) and they communed with her.” So, Huldah the prophetess lived in a college in Jerusalem? Was


this a four-year institution or a community college? Was she a member of the faculty/staff or a female student? What was her discipline? Did she live in the dorm or in married student housing? One group, which seemed especially mesmerized by this


shadowy Israelite coed, invoked her memory for many decades— even to the present. In Seventh-day Adventism, Huldah became a very big deal for a long time.


Exegetical background Te New Revised Standard Version of 2 Kings 22:14 states that Huldah “resided in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter.” Te setting for this is the introduction of King Josiah, who began to rule Judah as an 8-year-old boy. He is said to have followed Yahweh as did his ancestor David (verse 2). In his eighteenth year, Josiah launched the repair of the deteriorated temple, during which someone found a Torah scroll, “the book of the law.” Te high priest, Hilkiah, told the king’s assistant about the discovery and gave him the document, which he read. Aſter reporting to the king on the repair project, the king’s


assistant, named Shaphan, told Josiah about the scroll and read it to him. Te young king, who was horrified at the divine wrath he perceived as imminently coming upon him and his people for their evil ways, ripped his clothes in guilt and shame. Josiah wanted to know what Yahweh was going to do, so he


sent Shaphan with a delegation, including the high priest, to the prophetess Huldah, who lived in the city. She told them to assure Josiah that Yahweh would indeed bring judgment upon the nation, but because of his piety, not until aſter his death. Te Hebrew expression translated by the KJV as “in the


(mishneh). Tis word, הֶנְׁשִמ from the word הֶ֑נְׁשִּמַּב college” is widely used in the Masoretic Text, means “second, double” (see the Brown–Driver–Briggs and Koehler-Baumgartner


lexicons of the Old Testament). In Zephaniah 1:10, it is used to describe a location in Jerusalem: “the Second Quarter” of the city. Accordingly, most modern translations of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles translate it as the second or new district. Te Septuagint uses the expression καὶ αὐτὴ κατῴκει ἐν


Ιερουσαλημ ἐν τῇ μασενα—“and she was living in Jerusalem in the masena”—a transliteration of the Greek word. Te few current Bible versions that follow the KJV’s “in the


college” include the 21st Century King James Version and the BRG Bible (Blue Red Gold edition). However, the Jubilee Bible 2000 exceeds this by locating Huldah in “the house of doctrine”— another academic institution! How did the KJV arrive at the translation “in the college” in


this text and its parallel in 2 Chronicles 34:22? Maybe the word “college” had some non-academic, general spatial meaning in the 17th century. Note, however, that the KJV properly translated all in the Masoretic Text, including its use in הֶנְׁשִמ other instances of Zephaniah 1:10 that identifies a location in Jerusalem.


College Te meaning of “college” in the history of English usage does not explain the strange KJV translation. Although the Oxford English Dictionary noted this peculiar use in 1611 as a “transferred sense,” it mentions no relationship to any other historical usage, the vast majority of which pertains to education or religion. Most Bible commentators before the 20th century understood


to mean in a part of the city of Jerusalem. For example, הֶ֑נְׁשִּמַּב Matthew Henry (1708) quoted the KJV’s “in the college” but considered it a place in Jerusalem called “Mishneh,” which he speculated to be “the second rank of buildings from the royal palace.” Also, Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown (1866) included the as “in the second הֶ֑נְׁשִּמַּב KJV text “in the college” but translated part, i.e., the suburb, of the city (cf. Neh. xi.9; Zeph. i.10). … It was not a school or college, but a particular suburb of Jerusalem.” By the last quarter of the 19th century, the mystery of the


strange KJV translation in 2 Kings 22:14 placing Huldah “in the college” in Jerusalem began to unravel. In 1875, Milton Terry offered the following explanation: “In the college – Tis rendering seems to have been taken


from the Targum of Jonathan, which reads, house of instruction, and probably originated in the supposition that Huldah had in ,הנׁשמב charge of a school of the prophets. Te Hebrew is the Mishna, and is thus translated as a proper name in the Septuagint; but it means literally, in the second, and is so rendered


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