In the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Azariah son of Amaziah, king of Judah, began to reign.
This verse dates a new reign in Judah by the years of Israel's king Jeroboam. Two questions meet the reader at once. Why is this king called Uzziah almost everywhere else? And why does such a short notice cover one of the longest reigns in Judah's history?
The same man appears as Azariah here and as Uzziah in Chronicles and the prophets. Commentators explain the double name in more than one way. One writer also notes who put him on the throne:
He is called Azariah (helped by Jehovah) elsewhere. The two names mean so nearly the same thing that either one could be used for him. He seems to have come to the throne, not by ordinary succession, but by the direct choice of the people. The Syrians had destroyed the princes near the end of his grandfather Joash's reign, which left the people a free hand... Their choice of Azariah was a good one, as what followed proved.
Commentators differ here. Another view keeps the two names distinct in meaning. It links the change of name to what the king did later, when he went into the temple to burn incense:
Two explanations are usually given: a copying error that confused similar letters, or that he bore two names. Neither one satisfies. The two names do not mean quite the same thing either: Azariah is "Jehovah helps," Uzziah is "My strength is Jehovah." May it not be that Azariah was his real name? And that after his daring intrusion into the sanctuary, when he was struck with lifelong leprosy, his name was changed to the related Uzziah — "My strength is Jehovah" — to mark that the "help" he had received depended on his relation to the LORD?
His mother's name carried a hope, and his early years answered it:
His was the longest continuous reign of any of the kings of Judah. His mother's name, Jah will enable, might show that she had believing hopes for her son, through the help of God. And she was not disappointed. Scripture says he "did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done" — that is, during the earlier part of his reign.
The rest of the chapter runs through Israel's kings one after another:
Eight kings are mentioned in this chapter. Of five it is said they did evil in the sight of the Lord. One was a leper; four were murdered; one committed unspeakable cruelties.
That contrast between the two kingdoms carried a message:
Azariah (Uzziah) reigned for more than half a century. In that time he saw five of Israel's kings die, three of them murdered. There was also a gap of anarchy lasting at least eleven years. This marked contrast is probably what the prophet meant when he wrote, "Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit, but Judah still walks with God, and is faithful to the Holy One." This does not mean that all Judah's ways pleased the Lord. It means that, unlike Israel, they still upheld the truth of the LORD as a nation, as given in the law and pictured in the temple's worship and service.
Kings tells us that this king became a leper, but never says why. The silence has a purpose:
Like the idolatry of Amaziah, the sin of Uzziah, reported in 2 Chronicles 26, is passed over in silence. The reason is clear. The point is to bring out the godliness of the kings of Judah. The account does not weaken it by reporting their faults and inconsistencies. It sets that godliness against the idolatry of the kings of Israel, which cried to the Lord for vengeance.
The fuller record in Chronicles supplies the cause:
God blessed Uzziah at the start for his faithfulness. But the enormous success of his career puffed him up. He thought he could take the high priest's place and offer incense on the golden altar himself... His sense of his own dignity and great importance as king led him, the civil ruler, to seize religious authority.
Prophets were at work in Judah through these years, and his success came with a condition:
Isaiah was then prophet in Judah. Hosea, Amos and Zechariah were also prophets during his reign... Then follows the statement, "as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper." And this is still true of all God's people.
- Helped. His name Azariah means "Jehovah helps." The people chose him for the throne, outside the ordinary line of succession.
- Strengthened. His other name, Uzziah, means "My strength is Jehovah." He reigned longer than any other king of Judah, and prospered as long as he sought the LORD.
- Contrasted. He held Jerusalem for over fifty years. In the same years the northern kingdom burned through king after king — five evil, four murdered.
- Puffed up. The help he received made him strong. The strength made him proud. He claimed the priest's place at the altar, and leprosy struck him.
- Covered. Kings records the leprosy but not the sin behind it. The focus stays on Judah's faithfulness against Israel's idolatry.
He was sixteen years old when he began to reign; and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Jecholiah of Jerusalem.
Three facts open this reign: the king's age, how long he ruled, and his mother's name. Behind them stand the longest reign in Judah, a king known by two names, and a story Kings leaves half-told.
This king appears elsewhere under a second name. One writer weighs the usual explanations and offers a better one:
The usual explanations do not satisfy. Some say a copyist confused similar letters. Others say he simply bore two names. And the two names do not mean quite the same thing. Azariah means "Jehovah helps." Uzziah means "My strength is Jehovah." Could it be that Azariah was his real name? Then came his bold intrusion into the sanctuary (2 Chron. 26:16-20), and leprosy struck him for life. At that point his name may have been changed to the related Uzziah — "My strength is Jehovah" — to mark that the "help" he had received had depended on his relation to the LORD. One fact seems to confirm this. Although 2 Chronicles always calls this king Uzziah, the Hebrew word for "help," which forms the first part of the name Azariah, comes back with marked emphasis in the account of the divine help given in his campaigns (2 Chron. 26:7, 13, 15).
He came to the throne as a boy, and the job was heavier than his years. Two things carried him: the fear of God, and God's own help.
Uzziah was one of the descendants of David who reigned in Jerusalem for fifty-two years. He was crowned king when he was only sixteen. The post carried heavy responsibility, and he was very young for it. Yet he filled it well, because the fear of God was before his eyes. The history tells us that "God helped him." God helped him in such a marked way that we read a second time how "he was marvellously helped, till he was strong" (2 Chron. 26:7, 15).
No other king of Judah held the throne this long without a break. His mother's name is worth a second look too:
His was the longest unbroken reign of any king of Judah. Manasseh ruled fifty-five years, but the king of Babylon removed him and carried him off captive, so that reign was broken. His mother's name, "Jah will enable," may show that she had godly hopes for her son, by the help of God. She was not disappointed. Scripture says he "did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah did" — that is, during the earlier part of his reign.
Kings names the mother of each king. Where she came from often matched how her son ruled:
Notice here, in the record of Kings, the part mothers play in how their children turn out. When these mothers come from Judah and Jerusalem, it is rare to see their sons follow the worship of false gods… On the other hand, mothers or wives who served false gods had a harmful influence on the kings… This observation should make Christian mothers realize their responsibility, and should stir them to bring up their children in the fear of the Lord.
Later in this chapter the same king becomes a leper and lives shut away. Kings does not say why. The silence has a reason:
The sin of Uzziah, reported in 2 Chronicles 26, is passed over in silence. We have said above that the reason is clear. The point is to bring out the godliness of the kings of Judah. The account does not weaken it by listing their faults and inconsistencies. It sets that godliness against the idolatry of the kings of Israel, which cried to the Lord for vengeance. Here we read only this: "And Jehovah struck the king, so that he was a leper to the day of his death, and lived in a separate house." Kings never gives the cause of his judgment.
The collapse came at the end of those fifty-two years, not at the start:
Uzziah was sixteen years old when he began to reign. He did what was right in the sight of the Lord. He sought God, and God made him prosper. But in his old age his heart was lifted up, and that ruined him. In his proud presumption he sinned against the Lord God. He died a leper, in his sixty-ninth year.
- Helped — Azariah means "Jehovah helps." Twice the record says God helped him, until he was strong.
- Young — Sixteen is young for a throne. The fear of God, not his own ability, made the start a good one.
- Home — Jecoliah means "Jah will enable." In Kings, mothers from Jerusalem rarely have sons who chase false gods.
- Long — Fifty-two years, the longest unbroken reign in Judah, and all of it rested on help from God.
- Strong — The help ran until he was strong; then pride entered, and the same man died a leper. Strength, not weakness, was the danger.
And he did what was right in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his father Amaziah had done.
Uzziah, called Azariah in this chapter, ruled Judah longer than any other king of that line. God's first word about him is approval. But the approval comes with a measure attached. He is compared not with David, but with his father Amaziah — and that comparison shapes the rest of his story.
The approval is real. But one writer ties it to only part of a very long reign.
His was the longest continuous reign of any of the kings of Judah. Of him it is said that he "did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done" — that is, during the earlier part of his reign. "And he sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God: and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper."
The phrase "according to all that his father Amaziah had done" belongs to a chain running through several reigns. Each king is weighed against the one before him — and the kings singled out for the highest praise are weighed against David instead.
God traces Hezekiah's faithfulness back to the example set by David. That is all the more striking, because it is not said of the kings before him. Jotham "did what was right in the sight of Jehovah: he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done" (2 Kings 15:34); Uzziah, "according to all that his father Amaziah had done" (2 Kings 15:3); Amaziah "according to all that Joash his father had done" (2 Kings 14:3). God's Word says the same of Josiah as of Hezekiah (2 Kings 22:2), confirming that these two kings went back to what was there at the beginning.
The same lesson reaches believers now. Whose life do we copy?
Walking in a father's steps means, we judge, that the walk was good as far as it went, but it was not godliness, or obedience, of the highest kind. Of both Hezekiah and Josiah we read that David their father was their model. David was the man after God's own heart; Uzziah was not, and to remember this is to see the difference. It is the often-repeated truth, that to see what God's mind is, we must go back to the beginning. Even believers now fall into the same mistake when they make their parents' walk, or indeed the walk of some other Christians whom they admire most, their standard, instead of the walk of the only perfect Example (see 1 John 2:6).
Copying Amaziah meant copying a divided heart.
"And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart." "Yet not like David his father; he did according to all that Joash his father did." Just like this is the lack of heart-devotedness in the children of God.
The same flaw reappeared in the son, in a different form.
Uzziah follows him and does what is right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that his father did. That is, he served without a perfect heart in the first part of his reign, and failed openly at the end. The same evil was in Uzziah as in Amaziah; only it showed itself in a different way. Amaziah was lifted up in heart, and then marched straight into defeat and captivity. Uzziah, once he was strong, sinned by going into the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar. How often does prosperity, far more than adversity, test the saints of God!
His success itself became the danger. One writer marks the turn.
"And his name spread far abroad; for he was marvellously helped, till he was strong. But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction." Of all the words ever set side by side, few are more remarkable than these.
One summary of his life holds both halves together, and explains his other name.
Uzziah is a solemn instance of one walking well until he was "strong," and of one not chosen of God attempting to exercise priestly service. His history shows the truth that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." He is called Azariah in 2 Kings 14:21 and 2 Kings 15, and Ozias in Matthew 1:8-9.
- Right — God credits Uzziah with doing what was right. The approval is genuine.
- Measured — but the measure is Amaziah, not David. Only Hezekiah and Josiah are praised for going back to the beginning.
- Inherited — Amaziah's record was right, but not with a perfect heart. The son copied that half-hearted pattern with the good.
- Prospered — while he sought God, God made him prosper. The blessing lasted as long as the seeking.
- Strong — once he was strong, his heart was lifted up. Prosperity tested him harder than trouble ever did.
Only, the high places were not removed the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
Azariah — also called Uzziah — ruled in Jerusalem for fifty-two years and did what was right in the Lord's eyes. But one word of reserve follows the praise, so what was wrong with the hill-top shrines he left standing, and why does that one word matter?
This reservation is not unique to Uzziah. Older translations open the verse with "Only." One writer hears that word as a refrain running through Judah's kings, and links it to the prophet Micah.
"Only," the account adds, "the high places were not removed: the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places" — always the usual refrain for Judah, just as the calves of Jeroboam were for Israel. The prophet Micah refers to these two things to explain God's judgment on His people: "For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. Where does the transgression of Jacob come from? Is it not from Samaria? And where do the high places of Judah come from? Are they not from Jerusalem?" (Micah 1:5).
The shrines did not start as temples to foreign gods. One writer traces what they were at first, and when they turned into disobedience.
They were not necessarily connected with idolatry. In fact, at the beginning they were devoted to the true worship of God. To some extent they were places where He Himself in grace recognised the need and met with His people. But this was not according to the proper order which He Himself had provided. Later on He established His centre, placed His name at Jerusalem, and set the temple of His glory there. After that, the worship of the high places was direct disobedience to His will, and it was bound to become more and more connected with the idolatry to which the people were always prone.
If God blessed these kings, did He overlook the shrines? One writer answers that question. He is speaking about the worship of God in the wrong place, not about idol worship.
Remember, it is not idol worship, but the worship of God in "high places," that I am speaking of. God met these good men, honoured and blessed them, as He does thousands in the systems of today... These godly men had grown up and been educated in the evil. The question of whether it was right had never come up in their consciences. So God blessed and owned their faithfulness up to the light they had... Did He therefore approve, sanction or even overlook the direct breaking of His own word? He has answered this Himself with unmistakable clearness: "Nevertheless the high places were not taken away." Again and again this qualifies the approval He gives to the otherwise faithful acts of His servants. It shows that He never lost sight of the sin, however unaware of it they may have grown up.
Why does one shrine left standing matter so much? One writer answers with a picture from metal, and with a question about where a custom came from.
A straw in a piece of cast iron is enough to make it break when the right occasion comes. This straw was the keeping of the high places... The kings of Judah did not govern themselves by David their father. They were usually content to take their starting point from the reign of Solomon, who had not abolished the high places. But it is always very dangerous to settle into a system that does not look to the mind of God as its source. That stays true even when the system boasts of great antiquity.
Samuel Ridout, quoted earlier, brings the same point forward to worship now.
God Himself has provided a Centre where His people can gather. To ignore that Centre, to turn to human thoughts, and to choose places and ways of worship that the word of God does not provide for, is really to worship in the high places. Many do this in complete sincerity, and God, as we said, meets His people in grace according to the measure of their faith.
- Only. One word of reserve follows a long, honoured reign, and it shows God never lost sight of the sin.
- Origin. The high places began as worship of the true God, not as idol shrines. Once God set up His own centre, going elsewhere became plain disobedience.
- Blessing. God blessed sincere men up to the light they had. He never approved the thing they left standing.
- Pattern. Judah's kings took their starting point from Solomon, who left the high places standing, instead of from David. An old custom is not safe just because it is old.
- Cost. A tolerated flaw is the straw that breaks the iron later. Today it shows up as places and ways of worship the word of God never provided for.
And Jehovah smote the king, so that he was a leper to the day of his death, and dwelt in a separate house. And Jotham the king's son was over the house, judging the people of the land.
God struck a king of Judah, and this verse gives no reason for it: he became a leper, lived apart, and his son took over the kingdom. Why strike a king whose reign was long and mostly good — and why does this account never say what he did?
The account gives the sentence but not the crime. One writer ties the silence to the way this book handles Judah's kings:
The sin of Uzziah, reported in 2 Chronicles 26, is passed over in silence. The reason is clear. The aim is to bring out the godliness of the kings of Judah, without weakening it by telling of their faults and inconsistencies, and to set it against the idolatry of the kings of Israel, which cried to the Lord for vengeance. Here we find only, "And the LORD touched the king, so that he was a leper to the day of his death, and he lived in a separate house," with no mention of the cause of his judgment.
Chronicles supplies what this account leaves out. The king is Uzziah, called Azariah in this chapter, and one writer traces his act back to its cause:
Whatever the immediate motive, we know the main cause of his irreverent act. It was pride — the true "original sin," that hideous parent-sin of every sin that follows, whether among angels or among men. "He was marvelously helped, till he was strong. But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction." His name meant "the strength of the LORD." How happy he would have been if he had seen that no one is strong except in His strength.
His pride took a particular shape: the throne reached for the altar. One writer sees the same sin at work long after:
The thought of his own dignity, of his great importance as king, led him — the civil power — to seize religious authority. This same sin is one of the many features of the Christian world today. The Lord judges Uzziah by striking him with leprosy. He loses the very authority he was so proud of, whose honour he had not given to the Lord, and it passes to his son Jotham years before his death.
Another writer points to what God's kindness should have done in him: "the grace of God towards him should have kept him humble and shown his soul how weak he was" (C Crain).
He reached for access God had not given him, and lost the access he had:
He knew that burning incense was the work of the priests alone — a duty and privilege for the sons of Aaron and no one else. The judgment matches his sin. He dared to take the office of the priest and do what the law forbade him. Now, as a leper, he cannot come into the temple. He loses the privilege of an ordinary Israelite, he is cut off from the congregation, and from now on he must live in a separate house. He cannot do his work as king either; in today's language, someone rules as regent in his place.
The separate house says more than one man's disgrace. It shows where every person stands before God, whatever their rank:
Perhaps this is written, among other things, to remind us that the very best man on earth — the highest ruler of Judah's kingdom, the most honoured man in the world — stands in the widest contrast with THE KING, THE LORD OF HOSTS. King Uzziah was a leper, and he lived outside the camp. This shows us that sinful man, however high his office and dignity, is unfit for the presence of God. It shows that man has no way at all of cleansing the leprosy of sin. Unless God undertakes to meet him with healing mercy, he must remain unclean.
One writer also sees a picture of the whole nation here: "Uzziah was a type of that nation which, leprous like him, must bear being cut off from the Lord's house, and be shut up in a separate one until the judgment is past" (The Bible Treasury).
The verse also marks the start of Jotham's rule. One writer notes where the son stopped short of his father:
Jotham ruled as regent over the kingdom after the judgment of God had fallen on his father… So we read, "And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD according to all that his father Uzziah had done, except he did not enter the temple of the LORD." He avoided the folly of his headstrong father.
- Strength. Uzziah's name meant the strength of the LORD. God helped him until he was strong — then he grew proud, and that destroyed him.
- Pride. Writers trace his sin to pride — the parent-sin of every other sin, among angels and among men.
- Overreach. The king, who held civil power, seized religious authority. He burned incense in the temple — work the law gave to the sons of Aaron alone.
- Exclusion. The judgment matched the sin. He reached for the priest's privilege and lost even an ordinary Israelite's, shut out of the temple and off the throne.
- Separation. The separate house pictures man at his highest, still unfit for God's presence and unable to cleanse himself. Only God's healing mercy can make him clean.