Hilkiah ( Ḥīlqīyyā, "my portion is Yah") was a Hebrew priest ("Kohen") at the time of King Josiah (reigned c. 641-609 BCE). His name is mentioned in II Kings. He was the High Priest and is known for finding a lost copy of the Book of the Law at the Temple in Jerusalem at the time that King Josiah commanded that Solomon's Temple be refurbished (). His preaching may have helped spur Josiah to return Judah to the worship of Yahweh, God of Israel. Hilkiah may have been the same Hilkiah who was the father of Jeremiah of Libnah. As such he would have lived in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, and was the father of an influential family in the Kingdom of Judah. Hilkiah is attested in extra-biblical sources by the clay bulla naming a Hilkiah as the father of an Azariah, and by the seal reading "Hanan son of Hilkiah the priest". The Book of the Law According to an account in 2 Kings (chapter 22) and 2 Chronicles (chapter 34), Hilkiah was a kohen gadol (High Priest) of the Temple of Jerusalem during the reign of King Josiah of Judah (639–609 BC) and the discoverer of "the Book of the Law" in the Temple, in the 18th year of Josiah's reign (622 BC). Scholars almost universally agree that the book Hilkiah found was the Biblical Book of Deuteronomy. Scrolls and books of later antiquity, particularly those of the Greco-Roman rule in Judea, were summarily discounted by Hebrew biblical redactors. Conversely this book, whose discovery is touted in 2 Kings, was therefore believed to have been of an early enough authorship to validate, not only its inclusion, but the book's ultimate placement as the 5th of the "Five Books of Moses". Extra-biblical sources Hilkiah's name is mentioned on a seal ring and on a bulla. The first object where his name is mentioned is a seal ring found in 1980. On the seal is a three-line inscription, in reverse letters, as is usual, so that the letters will read properly when impressed in a lump of clay. The script incised in the seal is what scholars call paleo-Hebrew, used by the Israelites before the Babylonian captivity, prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. The inscription reads: "(Belonging) to Hanan, son (of) Hilkiah the priest". It begins with the Hebrew letter lamed, meaning “belonging to”, indicating