The verdict on the found scroll came from a prophet named Huldah

In 622 BCE, during renovations, the high priest Hilkiah announced he had found "the book of the law" in the temple. When it was read to King Josiah, he tore his robes and ordered an inquiry: is this scroll real, and are its threats? The delegation he assembled could not have ranked higher: the high priest himself, the royal secretary, the king's personal servant, and two more court officials. They walked to a house in Jerusalem's Second Quarter and put the question to Huldah.

The text introduces her in passing, a prophet, married to the keeper of the wardrobe, and treats the choice as needing no explanation at all. By the dates their own books give, Jeremiah and Zephaniah were both active in exactly these years, yet the scroll went to Huldah, and no one in the story finds it worth remarking. Prophecy in Judah was evidently a role a woman could simply hold; the Bible names Miriam, Deborah, and Noadiah in the same office.

She declared the scroll's words to be the words of Yahweh, judgment and all, deferring the disaster past the lifetime of the penitent king. Scholars have long connected this found book with the core of Deuteronomy, and Josiah's sweeping reform followed directly from her verdict. The first person on record to certify a written text as scripture was Huldah.