Uzziah's Strength, Incense, and Leprosy

The people of Judah took a sixteen-year-old boy and made him king in place of his father Amaziah. His name was Uzziah, and he would reign fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother was Jechiliah of Jerusalem. The chronicler records that Uzziah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. But the decisive factor in those early years was that he set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, a man who had understanding in the vision of God. As long as Uzziah sought the Lord, God made him prosper.

That prosperity took concrete shape. Uzziah went to war against the Philistines and broke down the walls of Gath, Jabneh, and Ashdod. He built cities in the territory of Ashdod and among the Philistines. God helped him not only against the Philistines but also against the Arabians who lived in Gur-baal and against the Meunim. The Ammonites gave tribute to Uzziah. His name spread abroad as far as the entrance of Egypt, for he waxed exceedingly strong.

Uzziah fortified Jerusalem itself. He built towers at the Corner Gate, at the Valley Gate, and at the turning of the wall, and fortified them. In the wilderness he built towers and hewed out many cisterns, because he had much cattle. In the lowland and in the plain he had husbandmen and vinedressers in the mountains and in the fruitful fields, for he loved husbandry. The king was not merely a warrior; he was a builder and a farmer on a national scale.

He also organized a standing army. The fighting men went out to war by bands, registered by Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the officer, under the command of Hananiah, one of the king's captains. The heads of fathers' houses, the mighty men of valor, numbered two thousand six hundred. Under their hand was an army of three hundred and seven thousand five hundred men, who made war with mighty power to help the king against the enemy. Uzziah prepared for the entire host shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and stones for slinging.

In Jerusalem he made engines invented by skillful men, to be placed on the towers and on the battlements for shooting arrows and great stones. His name spread far abroad, for he was marvelously helped until he was strong. That last phrase carries the hinge of the entire chapter: he was helped until he was strong.

When he was strong, his heart was lifted up. The same king who had sought the Lord and been prospered now acted corruptly. He trespassed against the Lord his God by going into the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. This was not a small misstep. The right to burn incense belonged exclusively to the priests, the sons of Aaron, who were consecrated for that service. Uzziah, as king, had no standing to enter the sanctuary and take the censer in his own hand.

Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him eighty priests of the Lord, men of valor. They withstood King Uzziah and said plainly: It does not pertain to you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord. That belongs to the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed. This will not bring you honor from the Lord God.

Uzziah was furious. He had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and while he was raging at the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead, right there in the house of the Lord beside the altar of incense. Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and there it was: leprous on his forehead. They thrust him out quickly. Uzziah himself hastened to go out, because the Lord had struck him.

King Uzziah was a leper until the day of his death. He lived in a separate house, cut off from the house of the Lord. His son Jotham was over the king's house, judging the people of the land. The rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, were written by Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. When Uzziah slept with his fathers, they buried him with his fathers in the field of burial that belonged to the kings, but they said, He is a leper. So Jotham his son reigned in his place.