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CHAPTER 6 - AZARIAH, OR UZZIAH, (TENTH) KING OF JUDAH
State of Judah at the Accession of Uzziah - Account of his Reign in the Book of Kings -
Re-occupation of Elath - Religious Condition of Judah - Expedition against the
Philistines and neighboring Tribes - Occupation of Trans-Jordanic Territory -Restoration
and Extension of the Fortifications of Jerusalem-Re-organization - Prosperity of the
Country - Growing Pride and Corruption - The Sacrilege of Uzziah - His Leprosy and
Death -Jewish Legends. (2 KINGS 15:1-7; 2 CHRONICLES 26)
WHATEVER motives had determined the selection of Uzziah by all the people of Judah
as successor to his murdered father (2 Kings 14:21), the choice proved singularly happy.
To adapt the language of the prophet Amos (9:11), which, as mostly all prophetic
announcements of the Messianic future, takes for its starting and connecting point
reference to the present, easily understood, and hence full of meaning to contemporaries -
Uzziah found, on his accession, "the tabernacle of David," if not "fallen" and in "ruins,"
yet with threatening "breaches" in it. Never had the power of Judah sunk lower than
when, after the disastrous war with Israel, the heir of David was tributary to Jehoash, and
the broken walls of Jerusalem laid the city open and defenseless at the feet of the
conqueror. This state of things was absolutely reversed during the reign of Uzziah; and at
its close Judah not only held the same place as Israel under the former reign, but
surpassed it in might and glory.
There can be little doubt that Jeroboam II. retained the hold over Judah which his father
Jehoash had gained; and this, not only during the fifteen years after his accession, in
which Amaziah of Judah still occupied the throne, but even in the beginning of the reign
of Uzziah. For "breaches" such as those that had been made are not speedily repaired, and
Uzziah was, at his accession, a youth of only sixteen years (2 Kings 15:2). We therefore
incline to the view that the otherwise unintelligible notice (2 Kings 15:1), that Uzziah
acceded "in the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam" bears reference to the time when he
had shaken off the suzerainty of Jeroboam, and "began to reign" in the real sense of the
term.
This would make the period of Judah's liberation the twenty-seventh after Jeroboam's
accession, and the twelfth after the elevation of Uzziah to the throne, when that monarch
was twenty-eight years of age.*
- This is the view of Kleinert in Riehm's Hand-Worterb ii. p. 1704a. Others have
regarded the numeral 27 ( zk ) as a clerical error for 15 ( wf ). In any case Uzziah could
not have acceded in the 27th year of Jeroboam, as appears from a comparison with 2
Kings 14:2, 17, 23.
(^)