Talk:Huldah

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Huldah the Exilic Leader

Though Scripture mentions Huldah’s name only twice, coded writing, anagrams, and informed surmise show that she was Jehoiachin’s Queen Mother, and that she was at various times a prophet, priestess, author, elder, and merchant in Judah, Babylon, and Egypt, and finally in Judah again.

No less than 144 of 929 chapters of Scripture significantly code her name, and she helped write many of those. Coded writing gives us sixteen psalms by Huldah, including the last words which Jesus spoke upon the cross. She helped to write the magnificent penitential Psalm 51, the most heavily encoded Hebrew chapter of all. Also, her hand fashioned the huge Psalm 119. Even so, most of her writing was outside the psalter. The lovely Song of Deborah was Huldah’s, and anagrams show that she inserted the names of queen mothers in Second Kings. Possibly her most important words were in Genesis 5. There she wrote that the Lord had made both women and men equal in likeliness to God.

Huldah was born about 640 BCE. She was a contemporary of Jeremiah, and probably edited his prophecies. This leads one to think so. The opening six verses of Jeremiah’s first chapter include the Lord’s call: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” But encoded beneath that text are sixteen coded spellings of “Huldah-the-prophetess” and one of “Huldah-the-Queen-Mother.” These compose three separate groups, each of which has less than one chance in a thousand of being coincidental. Either Huldah was Jeremiah’s editor or the extraordinary call was her own. Perhaps both are true. Huldah was a Moabite who rose to prominence by marrying a prince of Judah. Later, when Queen Mother, she served as a priestess of Asherah worship in both Judah and Egypt. In exile, Huldah and her son Jehoiachin grew rich through trading—wealth they donated to recapturing Jerusalem. About 573 the Jerusalem venture ended disastrously, but she escaped. Huldah spent her last years in hiding, though while still writing and editing scripture.

Well before the Jerusalem catastrophe, Huldah was at odds with Ezekiel and Jeremiah. She was of foreign birth, an Asherah priestess, had had several husbands, and financed an assault upon Jerusalem certain to endanger fellow Jews in Babylon. With her stood Daniel, Second Isaiah, Baruch, Jehoiachin, Ezra, and during the Jerusalem campaign, Cyrus. Against her were the prophets Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and the Dtr group, all of whom used Scripture to oppose her.

Huldah in Proverbs-Woman of Worth

Proverbs contains rich characterizations of Huldah. She probably is the long-sought-after Woman of Wisdom of Proverbs 1 and 8. But elsewhere her detractors sketched her as Foreign Woman, a play upon her Moabite origin. However, chapter 31 ends Proverbs with a landslide of Huldah athbash encodings. The author eloquently described the Woman of Worth, using coded writing to name Huldah as his subject. The author did this with over sixty statistically significant encodings of “Huldah-wife-of-Jehoiakim,” “Huldah-the-prophetess,” and the like. Despite extreme verbal abuse, Huldah helped to shape Israel’s history. She was Queen Mother, elder, war leader, and author. Indeed, Huldah may prove to be one of antiquity’s greatest women.

Opponents and allies of Huldah used the “wisdom” genre of Proverbs to argue the case for and against her and the causes she championed. Huldah’s life span was about 640 to 564 BCE. She lived and worked variously in Judah, Babylon, Judah again, Egypt, Jerusalem, and Bethel. She edited and wrote Scripture, led in exile as an elder, and prospered in trade. Most importantly, with young Cyrus she headed the disastrous 574 expedition to retake Jerusalem. Overall, Proverbs has a higher percentage of significant coding writing than all but two of Hebrew Scripture’s thirty-nine books. Conversely, anagrams within Proverbs are scanty. Scanty, yes, but nevertheless informative.

Proverbs 2 uses anagrams to indict both Cyrus and Huldah. It warns against those “whose paths [Cyrus anagram] are crooked, and who are devious [Huldah anagram] in their ways. You will be saved from the loose woman, from the adulterous ...” (2:15–16). Also 9:15–17: “straight on their way [Cyrus anagram] ... Stolen [Huldah anagram] water is sweet ...” These and several other Huldah-Cyrus anagram pairings allow us to date the chapters. Huldah and Cyrus were together only during the middle 570’s. The two never met again after 573 when the Babylonians retook Jerusalem. 574 BCE is very close to the year when Proverbs 2 was written.

Proverbs is awash in Huldah coding, though all chapters are not so endowed. Chapters 10, 17, 18, and 31 have the highest significant Huldah coding. Proverbs was an exilic battlefield which centered upon Huldah characterizations. She was both Woman Wisdom and Foreign Woman—the latter being (an obvious hostile reference to her Moabite origin).

Huldah in Proverbs 31-Capable Wife

Above all, Huldah was the Capable Wife (Prov 31:10-31), which is perhaps the most famous female portrayal in the Hebrew Scriptures. Coded names in chapter 31 are Huldah, Huldah-the-prophetess, Huldah-wife-of-Shallum, Huldah-wife-of-Jehoiakim, Huldah-mother-of-Jehoiachin, and Huldah-the-Queen-Mother. In total, the verses conceal forty-three statistically significant spellings, which has a probability of coincidence that yields fourteen zeroes to the right of its decimal.

Much of the language in Proverbs 31 describes Huldah well. “A capable wife who can find?”: “capable” can also mean valorous, and she had led Israel in battle and siege. “Like the ships of a merchant, she brings her food from far away”: in Egypt, she and Jehoiachin became wealthy through trade, and supplied and financed the Jerusalem venture. And “She girds herself in strength, and makes her arms strong”: the militant Huldah again (31:10, 14, 17). Lastly, “She puts her hand to the distaff . . . She opens her hand to the poor”: Huldah was industrious, wealthy, and generous (31:19–20).

But more importantly, the Hebrew word “to the distaff” contains coded anagrams for both Huldah and Cyrus. (Learn about anagrams in Wikipedia’s Atbash article.) These anagrams enable us to date the Proverbs 31 and perhaps Proverbs itself. Huldah and Cyrus were together only during the middle 570’s. The two never met again after the 573 BCE disaster when the Babylonians retook Jerusalem. Proverbs 31 is a defense of Huldah, very likely rendered after Cyrus had been recruited (about 576) but before the defeat of 573. Therefore, a defender of Huldah probably wrote Proverbs 31 within a year or so of 575.

[Editor: From here to References leave present text entirely alone. Your next headings are Huldah in Rabbinic Literature, The Book that Huldah Authenticated, and Burial site. On References add my footnotes to the present ones.]

5. #5P. Kavanagh, Huldah. Pickwick, 2012, 153–163.

6. #6 “ 112.

7. #7 “ 10–11.

8. #8 “ 27.

9. #9 “ 61–72.

10.#10 “ 127–142.

11.#11 “ 136.

12.#12 “ 127–134.

13.#13 “ 136–139.

14.#14 “ 13–15.

References

This content treats Huldah like a real person, but her historicity is very unclear. This should be rewritten to take that into account, as the rest of biblical figures do. There is also a great deal of [[WP:OR] and WP:EDITORIALING here, and the citation style cannot be parsed. Jytdog (talk) 20:35, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Huldah: author of Deuteronomy?

Should the article include a mention of Huldah the female Prophet? It has been suggested that she was the original Deuteronomist, the author of the original Deuteronomic code. 64.180.23.108 (talk) 05:00, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Citations for Main Article

Aside from Biblical text and things like the Talmud and Targums, what else need be cited to narrate a complete picture of this person? It seems strange to write that "coded writing, anagrams, and informed surmise" can be used for a Wikipedia article when the main article makes additions based on Targums without citing those original texts. Why not get the known and agreed upon literature organized first before we start looking into coded writing? We only have a couple of prophetesses and we should do them justice. Kaylahackman (talk) 17:53, 3 December 2021 (UTC)