2021-7-18, The Counsel of Ancient Kings, Uzziah Teaches About Humility, 2 Chronicles 26:5, 16
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This morning we pick up our study of the monarchy a couple generations after Jehu and Ahaziah. In that time, Judah had a horrible wicked queen named Athaliah and seven-year-old child king named Joash after her. Then we had Amaziah who was an amazing king, but was assassinated by worthless fellows. Today we are going to look at his son, King Uzziah.
Unfortunately, we are running out of good kings to study! Further, the monarchies themselves are running out of time. Sadly, the northern kingdom, which has been truly awful in obeying the Lord, is about to be annihilated by the Assyrians. The southern kingdom will have some bright spots, but it will meet its demise over a century later.
I had someone explain to me that the history of God’s people in the OT is generally a downward spiral, with some few silver linings, but not enough good things to offset the course.
Uzziah is a bright sport in Judah’s monarchy. Yes, he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. In the monarchy, this is everything.
And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done.
Further,
He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper.
Uzziah had a personal tutor in the ways of the Lord, the high priest Zechariah. We learned that this served Uzziah very well. There was a correlation between Uzziah’s searching after the Lord and his prosperity.
This would not be too different from our promise in Mt. 6:33
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Just a quick question- who is your Zechariah? Who is your tutor in the ways of the Lord. Whom do you trust to point you to the Lord so that as long as you seek the Lord, you prosper?
So Uzziah followed after the Lord, and he prospered in the most interesting ways.
Uzziah went on to be perhaps the most interesting man in the world.
He had victory against the Philistines and other peoples who pestered the Jews (Arabs, Ammonites, 26:8)
He like military technology. He built towers into the wall at Jerusalem. (26:9)
He was a rancher with cattle. He built walls, towers, and wells (26:10)
He was a lover of soil. Farmers and vinedressers in the fertile lands (26:10)
He restructured his troops and sent them out on sorties (11)
Uzziah gave his soldiers equipment- shields, spears, helmets, and armor, bows, and sling stones (14)
He hired engineers to advance military technology.
In Jerusalem he made machines, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and the corners, to shoot arrows and great stones. And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong.
The Hebrew uses three related words to make a punny phrase that cannot easily be rendered into English. The things built on the towers are called hishbonot mahashebet hosheb. All three nouns come from the same consonantal root. A loose translation would be something like “little inventions of inventions of inventors” (scroll to the bottom for a more technical discussion). It’s a literary device, and being used to describe something new that the writer didn’t have good vocabulary to describe.
The second half of the description mentions that these devices were installed in the migdalim (towers) and pinnot (“corners,” probably towers at the corners of the wall) and somehow enabled the shooting of stones and arrows.
- https://gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/what-were-uzziahs-machines/
Things were going pretty well for Uzziah, but they were about to turn south.
But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.
He grew proud.
Sometimes, when we are out of weakness, we forget that the Lord is the source of our strength.- Refugees whom we don’t help will ask, “Where were you?”
Humble and kind Tim McGraw
He became unfaithful to the Lord.
He took it upon himself to burn incense on the altar of incense. This was out of his lane of responsibility.
But Azariah the priest went in after him, with eighty priests of the Lord who were men of valor, and they withstood King Uzziah and said to him, “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. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have done wrong, and it will bring you no honor from the Lord God.”
According to the Mosaic Law, burning incense was the exclusive privilege of the priests of Israel (see Exod. 30:1–10; Num. 16:40; 18:1–7). Uzziah’s pride led him to feel no constraint to follow the restrictions of Mosaic Law. Having been favored by God in many ways (26:6–15), he apparently thought himself above such restrictions.
4. Uzziah became angry.
Then Uzziah was angry. Now he had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and when he became angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead in the presence of the priests in the house of the Lord, by the altar of incense. And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he was leprous in his forehead! And they rushed him out quickly, and he himself hurried to go out, because the Lord had struck him.
And King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and being a leper lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the Lord. And Jotham his son was over the king’s household, governing the people of the land.
Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, from first to last, Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz wrote. And Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the burial field that belonged to the kings, for they said, “He is a leper.” And Jotham his son reigned in his place.