The kings of Israel and Judah

King Uzziah

The kingdom of Judah (the south) · Reigned fifty-two years (2 Kings 15:2) · Also called Azariah · Right before God · 2 Kings 15:1 to 7; 2 Chronicles 26

Uzziah, also called Azariah, reigned fifty-two years, one of the longest and most prosperous reigns in Judah's history. He sought God in the days of the prophet Zechariah, and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper. He strengthened the army, built towers and engines of war, and his fame spread far. But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up, and he entered the temple to burn incense, a task reserved for the priests, and God struck him with leprosy for the rest of his life.

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.2 Chronicles 26:5 (KJV)

A long and prosperous reign

Uzziah became king at sixteen and did that which was right in the sight of the LORD. 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. He warred successfully against the Philistines and others, built up Jerusalem's defenses, dug wells, loved farming, and organized a great army. He made engines of war to shoot arrows and great stones, and his name spread far abroad, for he was marvellously helped, till he was strong.

Under Uzziah Judah reached a height of strength and wealth it had not seen since Solomon. It was the age when the prophet Isaiah was called, in the year that king Uzziah died.

Pride, and the sin in the temple

The turning point is captured in a single sentence: But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction. Uzziah went into the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense, a duty God had given only to the priests, the sons of Aaron. Azariah the priest and eighty brave priests followed him in and withstood him, telling him it was not for him to burn incense, but for the priests, and that he should leave, for he had trespassed.

Uzziah was furious, censer in hand, and while he raged at the priests, leprosy rose up on his forehead there in the house of the LORD beside the altar. The priests thrust him out, and he himself hasted to go, because the LORD had smitten him.

The biblical verdict

Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and dwelt in a separate house, cut off from the house of the LORD, while his son Jotham governed the land. He was buried in the field belonging to the kings, apart, because he was a leper. The verdict of Scripture honors his long faithfulness and does not hide his fall: a good king whose great strength became the occasion of a pride that reached even into the worship of God.

Kings notes simply that the LORD smote the king so that he was a leper, without the fuller story; Chronicles supplies the reason. Together they give an honest portrait of a mostly faithful reign ruined at its height by presumption.

Where it points

Uzziah is the classic warning that strength and success are spiritually dangerous, and that pride can grow in the very place of blessing. He would not stay within the bounds God set, and reached for a priestly honor that was not his, and it destroyed him. Kingship and priesthood were kept separate in Israel for good reason, and no man could rightly hold both.

That separation itself points forward. Only one figure in all of Scripture is rightly both King and Priest, the one after the order of Melchizedek, who offers the true incense of intercession before God. Uzziah's leprous ruin at the altar makes the wonder of Christ shine clearer: the King who alone may enter the holy place, not in presumption but by right, to bring his people near.

A note on the record: everything here is drawn from the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. Kings and Chronicles sometimes tell a reign differently, Chronicles often adding a king's repentance or building works, and where they differ this is said plainly rather than smoothed over. The exact lengths and overlaps of the reigns are genuinely complex, because kings often shared the throne with a son for a time, so the totals in Scripture do not always add up in a simple line. The verdict good or evil is the Bible's own assessment, whether a king did right or evil in the sight of the LORD.

Related: Amaziah · Jotham · All the kings of Israel and Judah