Shaphan

Four men named Shaphan appear in the UPDV: a scribe in Josiah's reign and three other Shaphans named only as the father of someone else. The scribe stands at the center of the narrative — his sons and grandsons carry the family's involvement forward into the last years of Judah, the prophetic ministry of Jeremiah, and the post-exilic administration at Mizpah.

Shaphan the Scribe

In the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign, the king sent Shaphan, the son of Azaliah the son of Meshullam, the scribe, to the house of Yahweh to oversee the temple repair (2Ki 22:3). He was charged with going up to Hilkiah the high priest, summing the silver gathered by the keepers of the threshold, and delivering it to the workmen — carpenters, builders, masons — for buying timber and cut stone (2Ki 22:4-6). The work was done on trust: "there was no reckoning made with them of the silver that was delivered into their hand; for they dealt faithfully" (2Ki 22:7).

The Chronicler's parallel adds that Shaphan acted alongside Maaseiah the governor of the city and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, sent "to repair the house of Yahweh his God" (2Ch 34:8). The Levites had gathered the silver "of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin, and of the inhabitants of Jerusalem" (2Ch 34:9). Levite overseers — Jahath, Obadiah, Zechariah, Meshullam — set the work forward, and the Levites also served "as scribes, and officers, and porters" (2Ch 34:12-13).

The Book of the Law

While the silver was being brought out, Hilkiah the priest "found the Book of the Law of Yahweh [given] by Moses" (2Ch 34:14). He said to Shaphan, "I have found the Book of the Law in the house of Yahweh," and delivered the book to him (2Ki 22:8; 2Ch 34:15). Shaphan came to the king with a double report: first, that the silver had been emptied out and given to the workmen (2Ki 22:9; 2Ch 34:16-17); then, "Hilkiah the priest has delivered to me a book," and "Shaphan read it before the king" (2Ki 22:10; 2Ch 34:18).

When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, "he rent his clothes" (2Ki 22:11; 2Ch 34:19). He commanded Hilkiah the priest, "and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Micaiah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah the king's slave" (2Ki 22:12; the Chronicler names "Abdon the son of Micah" in place of Achbor, 2Ch 34:20):

"Go⁺, inquire of Yahweh for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that was found; for great is the wrath of Yahweh that is kindled against us, because our fathers haven't listened to the words of this book, to do according to all that which is written concerning us" (2Ki 22:13).

So Hilkiah, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe, "and they communed with her" (2Ki 22:14). The same Shaphan who carried the silver also stood in the delegation that carried the Book to a prophet for divine word.

Shaphan and His Sons in Jeremiah's Day

Shaphan the scribe is named again through his children, who appear in Jeremiah's narrative as protectors and patrons of the prophet.

Ahikam the son of Shaphan. When Jeremiah's life was demanded by the people, "the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, that they should not give him into the hand of the people to put him to death" (Jer 26:24). The same family that had carried the Book to Huldah now extended its hand to a prophet whose word the rulers wanted silenced.

Gemariah the son of Shaphan. Years later, in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan, the scribe — "in the upper court, at the entry of the new gate of Yahweh's house" — Baruch read in the book the words of Jeremiah "in the ears of all the people" (Jer 36:10). Gemariah's son Micaiah heard the reading and went down into the king's house, into the scribe's chamber, where the princes were sitting: "Elishama the scribe, and Delaiah the son of Shemaiah, and Elnathan the son of Achbor, and Gemariah the son of Shaphan, and Zedekiah the son of Hananiah, and all the princes" (Jer 36:11-12). The scribal chamber that hosted Jeremiah's scroll belonged to Shaphan's son.

Elasah the son of Shaphan. When Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar, the letter Jeremiah wrote to the elders of the captivity went "by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah" (Jer 29:3). This Elasah is sometimes listed as the son of a different Shaphan from the scribe; the UPDV text gives only the patronymic, without further identification.

Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan. In Ezekiel's vision of the temple's hidden idolatries, "there stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel; and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, every man with his censer in his hand; and the odor of the cloud of incense went up" (Eze 8:11). This Jaazaniah's father is likewise sometimes treated as a separate Shaphan. The UPDV gives only the patronymic.

Gedaliah the Son of Ahikam, the Son of Shaphan

The line of Shaphan the scribe is traced into the third generation through Gedaliah, his grandson. After Nebuchadnezzar's deportation, "as for the people who were left in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had left, even over them he made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, governor" (2Ki 25:22).

When the Babylonians released Jeremiah from the court of the guard, "they sent, and took Jeremiah out of the court of the guard, and committed him to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, that he should carry him home: so he dwelt among the people" (Jer 39:14). The protection that began with Ahikam (Jer 26:24) continued under Ahikam's son.

Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard told Jeremiah, "Go back then to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell with him among the people" (Jer 40:5). At Mizpah Gedaliah swore to the captains, "Don't be afraid to serve the Chaldeans: dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it will be well with you⁺" (Jer 40:9). Word spread to the dispersion: "when all the Jews who were in Moab, and among the sons of Ammon, and in Edom, and who were in all the countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Judah, and that he had set over them Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan" (Jer 40:11), they began to return.

The grandson's tenure ended in violence: "Then Ishmael the son of Nethaniah arose, and the ten men who were with him, and struck Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the sword, and slew him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land" (Jer 41:2). The remnant — "the [able-bodied] men, and the women, and the children, and the king's daughters, and every soul who Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan; and Jeremiah the prophet, and Baruch the son of Neriah" — was carried down into Egypt (Jer 43:6).

The scribe who once read a found Book before Josiah is remembered, in the closing chapters of Jeremiah, as the great-grandfather of the man with whom the prophet Jeremiah and the scribe Baruch were last entrusted in the land.