onnel.
Uzziah’s father and grandfather set the example: “They did what was pleasing to the Lord, BUT…” Between 2 Chronicles 27 and 2 Kings 15, we observe this about Uzziah: powerful warrior whose fame spread; built fortified cities; dug water cisterns; managed a vast cattle herd; was a farmer; had 307,500 elite troops; produced new weapns that flung arrows and stones from towers.
2 Chronicles 26:15b tells us, "His fame spread far and wide, for the Lord gave him marvelous help, and he became very powerful." Verse 16 and on describes the results.
16 But when he had become powerful, he also became proud, which led to his downfall. He sinned against the Lord his God by entering the sanctuary of the Lord’s Temple and personally burning incense on the incense altar. 17 Azariah the high priest went in after him with eighty other priests of the Lord, all brave men. 18 They confronted King Uzziah and said, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord. That is the work of the priests alone, the descendants of Aaron who are set apart for this work. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have sinned. The Lord God will not honor you for this!”
19 Uzziah, who was holding an incense burner, became furious. But as he was standing there raging at the priests before the incense altar in the Lord’s Temple, leprosy suddenly broke out on his forehead. 20 When Azariah the high priest and all the other priests saw the leprosy, they rushed him out. And the king himself was eager to get out because the Lord had struck him. 21 So King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died. He lived in isolation in a separate house, for he was excluded from the Temple of the Lord. His son Jotham was put in charge of the royal palace, and he governed the people of the land.
Power led to Pride, which led to disobedience, when confronted led to fury and subsequent punishment by God.
We'll follow Uzziah's footsteps in our next post. Have a great weekend.
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