Good day Worthy Knights,
In this part 23, 1 of 2 (A N Wilson / Wikipedia)
In the West: From whom are you descended ? Uzziah
Uzziah
(Hebrew: עֻזִּיָּהוּ, meaning Yahweh is my strength; Greek: Οζίας; Latin: Ozias), also known as Azariah (Hebrew: עֲזַרְיָה Greek: Αζαρις; Latin: Azarias), was a king of the ancient Kingdom of Judah, and one of Amaziah‘s sons, whom the people appointed to replace his father (2 Kings 14:21; 2 Chronicles 26:1).
He is one of the kings mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew.
Uzziah was sixteen when he became king of Judah and reigned for fifty-two years.
William F. Albright has dated his reign to 783 – 742 BC and Edwin R. Thiele‘s chronology has Uzziah becoming coregent with his father Amaziah in 792 – 791 BC.
Uzziah took the throne at the age of sixteen and his reign was “the most prosperous except that of Jehoshaphat since the time of Solomon.”
In the earlier part of his reign, under the influence of a prophet named Zechariah, he was faithful to God, and “did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord”
(2 Kings 15:3; 2 Chronicles 26:4-5)
In Jerusalem he made machines designed by skilful men for use on the towers and on the corner defences to shoot arrows and hurl large stones. According to 2 Chronicles 26, Uzziah conquered the Philistines and the Arabians and received tribute from the Ammonites. He refortified the country, reorganized and reequipped the army and personally engaged in agricultural pursuits. He was a vigorous and able ruler, and “his name spread abroad, even to the entrance of Egypt“. (2 Chronicles 26:8-14)
Then his pride led to his downfall. He entered the temple of Jehovah to burn incense on the altar of incense. Azariah the High Priest saw this as an attempt to usurp the prerogatives of the priests and confronted him with a band of eighty priests, saying, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense.” (2 Chronicles 26:18)
In the meantime a great earthquake shook the ground and a rent was made in the temple and the bright rays of the sun shone through it and fell upon the king’s face, insomuch that the leprosy seized upon him immediately. (Josephus Flavius, Antiquities IX 10:4).
Uzziah was suddenly struck with tzaraat before he had offered the incense (2 Chronicles 26:19) and he was driven from the Temple and compelled to reside in “a separate house” until his death (2 Kings 15:5, 27; 2 Chronicles 26:3).
The government was turned over to his son Jotham (2 Kings 15:5), a co-regency that lasted for the last 11 years of Uzziah’s life (751 – 750 to 740 – 739 BC).
In 740 BC Tiglath-Pileser III took Arpad after a siege of three years and razed Hamath. Uzziah had been an ally of the king of Hamath and thus was compelled by Tiglath-Pileser to do him homage and pay yearly tribute.
He was buried in a separate grave “in the field of the burial which belonged to the kings”
(2 Kings 15:7; 2 Chronicles 26:23). “That lonely grave in the royal necropolis would eloquently testify to coming generations that all earthly monarchy must bow before the inviolable order of the divine will and that no interference could be tolerated with that unfolding of the purposes of God… (Dr. Green’s Kingdom of Israel).
The Book of Isaiah uses “the year that king Uzziah died” as a reference point for describing the vision in which Isaiah sees the Lord of Hosts.
Notes:
Tzaraat describes disfigurative conditions of the skin, hair of the beard and head