Difference between revisions of "Uzziah"

<p> ("strength of Jehovah".) UZZAIH or AZARIAH. (See [[Azariah]] .) (&nbsp;2 Kings 14:2; &nbsp;2 Kings 14:22; &nbsp;2 Kings 15:1-7; &nbsp;2 Kings 15:13), "helped by Jehovah". The two names, as nearly equivalent, were used promiscuously; so the [[Kohathite]] [[Uzziah]] and Azariah (&nbsp;1 Chronicles 6:9; &nbsp;1 Chronicles 6:24) king of Judah (2 Chronicles 26). </p> <p> '''1.''' A Kohathite, ancestor of Samuel (&nbsp;1 Chronicles 6:24). </p> <p> '''2.''' Uzziah, king of Judah. After the murder of his father [[Amaziah]] Uzziah succeeded at the age of 16 by the people's choice, 809 B.C. Energetic, wise, and pious for most part of his 52 years' reign. His mother was [[Jecholiah]] of Jerusalem. He did not remove the high places, whereat, besides the one only lawful place, the [[Jerusalem]] temple, the people worshipped Jehovah. He recovered [[Elath]] or [[Eloth]] from Edom, which had revolted from [[Joram]] (&nbsp;2 Kings 8:20), and "built" i.e. enlarged and fortified it, at the head of the gulf of Akaba, a capital mart for his commerce. "(See [[Zechariah]] , who had understanding in the visions of God," influenced Uzziah for good so that in his days Uzziah "sought God"; he must have died before Uzziah's fall, and so cannot be the Zechariah of &nbsp;Isaiah 8:2, a [[Levite]] [[Gershonite]] of Hezekiah's reign (&nbsp;2 Chronicles 29:13). </p> <p> Uzziah was the biting "serpent" (&nbsp;Isaiah 14:28-31) to the Philistines, out of whose "root," after that "the rod of Uzziah which smote them was broken" by their revolt under the feeble [[Ahaz]] (&nbsp;2 Chronicles 28:18), came forth a "cockatrice" and "fiery flying serpent," namely, [[Hezekiah]] (&nbsp;2 Kings 18:8). Uzziah broke down the walls of Gath, Jabneh, and Ashdod; and built cities in the domain of [[Ashdod]] and in other domains of the Philistines; this avenged Judah's invasion by the [[Philistines]] under [[Jehoram]] (&nbsp;2 Kings 21:16-17), when they carried away all the substance found in the king's house and his sons, all except the youngest Jehoahaz. Uzziah also smote the Philistines' allies in that invasion, the [[Arabians]] of Gurbaal, and the [[Mehunim]] of Mann (in [[Arabia]] Petraea S. of the [[Dead]] Sea); [[Ammon]] became tributary (compare &nbsp;Isaiah 16:1-5; &nbsp;2 Kings 3:4), and Uzziah's fame as a conqueror reached to Egypt, to whose borders he carried his conquests. </p> <p> He built towers at the N.W. corner gate, the valley gate (on the W. side, the Jaffa gate, now opening to Hinnom), and the turning of the wall of Jerusalem, E. of Zion, so that the tower at this turning defended both [[Zion]] and the temple from attacks from the S.E. valley; and fortified them at the weakest points of the city's defenses. His army was 307,500, under 2600 chiefs, heads of fathers' houses; and they were furnished with war engines for discharging arrows and great stones. The [[Assyrian]] Tiglath Pileser II relates that in his fifth year (741 B.C.) he defeated a vast army under Azariah (Uzziah) king of Judah. (Rawlinson Anc. Mon., 2:131.) Uzziah also built towers in the desert of Judah, in the steppe lands W. of the Dead Sea, to protect his herds, a main constituent of his wealth, against the predatory bands of [[Edom]] and Arabia. </p> <p> He dug many wells for cattle in the shephelah toward the Mediterranean, (not "the low country," but the low hills between the mountain and the plain) and in the plain (the mishor) E. of the Dead Sea from the [[Arnon]] to [[Heshbon]] and Rubbath Ammon; this Uzziah probably reconquered from Ammon (verse 8) who had taken it from [[Israel]] (Keil). Husbandmen and vinedressers he had in the mountains and in Carmel, for he loved husbandry, Hosea prophesied "in the days of Uzziah" a scarcity of food (&nbsp;Hosea 1:1; &nbsp;Hosea 2:9; &nbsp;Hosea 4:3; &nbsp;Hosea 9:2). So Amos (&nbsp;Amos 1:1-2; &nbsp;Amos 4:6-9; &nbsp;Amos 5:16-17). The precarious state of the supply of food in Israel undesignedly harmonizes with Uzziah's special attention to husbandry; as also the prophecy in the days of Uzziah's descendant, Ahaz, that "on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come there the fear of briers and thorns," etc. (&nbsp;Isaiah 7:25). </p> <p> But "when he was strong his heart was lifted up to his destruction" (compare &nbsp;Isaiah 14:12-15), "pride going before destruction" as in Satan's, Babylon's, Tyre's, and antichrist's cases (&nbsp;Ezekiel 28:2; &nbsp;Ezekiel 28:17-23; &nbsp;Proverbs 16:18; &nbsp;Proverbs 1:32; &nbsp;Proverbs 1:2 Thessalonians 2). Uzziah wished, like Egypt's kings, to make himself high priest, and so combine in himself all civil and religious power. Azariah the high priest, therefore, with 80 valiant priests, withstood his attempt to burn incense (&nbsp;Exodus 30:7-8; &nbsp;Numbers 16:40; &nbsp;Numbers 18:7) on the incense altar. In the very height of his wrath at their resistance a leprosy from God rose up in his forehead, so that they thrust him out, yea he hasted to go out of himself, feeling it vain to resist Jehovah's stroke. So [[Miriam]] was punished for trying to appropriate Moses' prerogative (Numbers 12). </p> <p> Uzziah, being thus severed from Jehovah's house, could no longer live in fellowship with Jehovah's people, but had to dwell in a separate house, counted virtually as dead (&nbsp;Leviticus 13:46; &nbsp;Numbers 12:12) for the year or two before his death, during which [[Jotham]] conducted the government for him; "a several house" (&nbsp;2 Kings 15:5), [[Beth]] ha-kophshi, "a house of manumission," i.e. release from the duties and privileges of social and religious intercourse with the people of God; Winer and Gesenius, from an Arabic cognate root "he was infirm," translated it "infirmary or lazar house," but the [[Hebrew]] has only the sense "free," and the [[Mosaic]] law contemplated not the cure of the patient, which could only be by God's extra. ordinary interposition, but his separation from the Lord's people. Isaiah recorded the rest of his acts first and last in a history not extant; "write" marks it as a history, "vision" is the term for his prophecy (&nbsp;Isaiah 1:1). </p> <p> Isaiah wrote his first five chapters under Uzziah, and had his vision in the year of Uzziah's death (&nbsp;Isaiah 6:1, etc.). "They buried him with his fathers in the field of the burial which belonged to the kings; for they said, He is a leper"; therefore not in the tombs of the kings, but near them in the burial field belonging to them, that his body might not defile the royal tombs, probably in the earth according to our mode. One great sin blots an otherwise spotless character (&nbsp;2 Chronicles 27:2; &nbsp;Ecclesiastes 10:1). A mighty earthquake occurred in Uzziah's reign; [[Josephus]] (Ant. 9:10, section 4) makes it at the time of Uzziah being smitten with leprosy; the objection is, Amos prophesied "in the days of [[Jeroboam]] of Israel, two years before the earthquake" (&nbsp;Amos 1:1), and Jeroboam II died 26 years before Uzziah died; but what is meant may be, Amos' prophesying continued all the [[Israelite]] Jeroboam's days, and so far in the partly contemporary reign of the [[Jewish]] king Uzziah as "two years before the earthquake." (See [[Amos]] .) </p> <p> Amos thus would speak his prophecies two years before the earthquake, but not write them out in order until after it. However, Josephus may be wrong, as but for his statement the likelihood is the earthquake was not later than the 17th year of Uzziah's reign. Zechariah (&nbsp;Zechariah 14:5) alludes to the earthquake, the physical premonitor of convulsions in the social, political, and spiritual world; compare &nbsp;Matthew 24:7. In the century from [[Jehu]] of Israel until late in Uzziah's reign over Judah the Assyrian annals are silent as to [[Scripture]] persons and events. Assyria's weakness just then harmonizes with the Scripture statement of the extension of Israel by Jeroboam II and of Judah by Uzziah. Only in the time of Assyria's weakness could such small states have attempted conquests such as those of [[Menahem]] (&nbsp;2 Kings 15:16). </p> <p> '''3.''' Of the sons of Harim; took a foreign wife (&nbsp;Ezra 10:21). </p> <p> '''4.''' Father of [[Athaiah]] or [[Uthai]] (&nbsp;Nehemiah 11:4). </p> <p> '''5.''' Father of Jehonathan, one of David's overseers (&nbsp;1 Chronicles 27:25). </p>

<p> [[Uzziah]] (''Uz-Zî'Ah'' ), ''Might Of Jehovah.'' 1. The son and successor of Amaziah, king of Judah; called Azariah in &nbsp;2 Kings 14:21 and elsewhere; began to reign at 16, and reigned 52 years, b.c. 808-756. His career was most prosperous. He walked in the ways of his father David, and as a consequence was blessed with victory over his enemies, and great fame and love. But he was puffed up by success so long continued, and presumed to burn incense on the altar like the priests. Azariah, the high priest, and 80 others opposed him; but God most effectually checked him by making him a leper, dwelling in a separate house until death. &nbsp;2 Kings 15:1-7; &nbsp;2 Chronicles 26:1-23. A great earthquake occurred in bis reign. &nbsp;Amos 1:1; &nbsp;Zechariah 14:5. There are five persons of this name mentioned in the Bible. </p>

<li> The father of Jehonathan, one of David's overseers (&nbsp;1 Chronicles 27:25 ). <div> <p> '''Copyright Statement''' These dictionary topics are from M.G. Easton M.A., D.D., Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Third Edition, published by [[Thomas]] Nelson, 1897. Public Domain. </p> <p> '''Bibliography Information''' Easton, Matthew George. Entry for 'Uzziah'. Easton's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ebd/u/uzziah.html. 1897. </p> </div> </li>

<p> (Heb. Uzz'iyah, עֻזַּיָּה '', [[Strength]] Of Jehovah'' but in the prolonged form Uzziya'hu, עֻזַּיָּהוּ, except in &nbsp;2 Kings 15:13; &nbsp;2 Kings 15:30; &nbsp;1 Chronicles 6:24; &nbsp;Ezra 10:21; &nbsp;Nehemiah 11:4; &nbsp;Hosea 1:1; &nbsp;Amos 1:1; &nbsp;Zechariah 14:5]; Sept. usually Ο᾿ζίας, but with many v.r.; Vulg. [[Ozias]] or, Azias), the name of five Hebrews. (See [[Uzzia]]). </p> <p> '''1.''' A Kohathite Levite, son of [[Uriel]] and father of [[Shaul]] among Samuel's ancestors (&nbsp;1 Chronicles 6:24 [Heb. 19]). B.C. cir. 1515. He is apparently the same with JAZARIAH (See Jazariah) (q.v.) the son of Joel and father of Zephaniah in the parallel list (Heb. 19:36). </p> <p> '''2.''' The father of Jehioathan, David's overseer of depositories in kind (&nbsp;1 Chronicles 27:25). B.C. cir. 1053. 3. The tenth king of the separate kingdom of Judah, B.C. 808-756. Like No.1 above, he is sometimes called AZARIAH (See Azariah) (q.v.). By Josephus (Ant. 9:10, 3:sq.), and in the New Test. (&nbsp;Matthew 1:8-9) the name occurs in the same Greek form as in the Sept. (Ο᾿ζίας ). The date of the beginning of Uzziah's reign (&nbsp;2 Kings 15:1) in the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboalim 11 is reconciled by Usher and others with the statement that Uzziah's father, Amaziah, whose whole reign was twenty-nine years only came to the throne in the second year of [[Joash]] (14, 1); and by the supposition that Jeroboam's reign had two commencements, the first not mentioned in Scripture, on his association with his father, Joash, during the [[Syrian]] war, B.C. 835. Keil, after Capellus and Grotius, more violently supposes that the number כז is an error of the Hebrew copyists for יט יו יג, so that instead of twenty-seventh of Jeroboam we ought to read thirteenth, fourteenth, etc. </p> <p> After the murder of Amaziah, his son Uzziah was chosen by the people to occupy the vacant throne, at the age of sixteen; and for the greater part of his reign of fifty-two years he lived in the fear of God, and showed himself a wise, active, and pious ruler. He began his reign by a successful expedition against his father's enemies, the Edomites, who had revolted from Judah in Jehoram's time, eighty years before, 4pd penetrated as far as the head of the Gulf of Akiaba, where he took the important place of, Elatli, fortified it, and probably established it as a mart for foreign commerce, which Jehoshaphat-had failed to do. This success is recorded in 2 Kings (&nbsp;2 Kings 14:22), but from 2 Chronicles (&nbsp;2 Chronicles 26:1, etc.) we learn much more. Uzziah waged other victorious wars in the South, especially against the Mehunim (q.v.), or people of Maali, and the Arabs of Guirbaal. A fortified town named Maan still exists in Arabia, Petrsea, south of the Dead Sea. The situation of [[Gurbaal]] (q.v.) is unknown. (For conjectures more or less probable, see Ewald, Gesch. 1, 321.) . </p> <p> Such enemies would hardly maintain a long resistance after the defeat of so formidable a tribe as the Edomites. Towards the west, Uzziah fought with equal success against the Philistines, leveled to the ground the walls of Gath, Jabneh, and Ashdod, and founded new fortified cities in the Philistine territory. Nor was he less vigorous in defensive than offensive operations. He strengthened the walls of Jerusalem at their weakest- point's, furnished them with formidable engines of war, and equipped an army of 307, 500 men with the best inventions of military art. He was also a great patron of agriculture, dug wells, built towers in, the wilderness for the protection of the flocks, and cultivated rich vineyards and arable land on his own account. He never deserted the worship of the true God, and was much influenced by Zechariah, a prophet who is only mentioned in connection with him (&nbsp;2 Chronicles 26:5); for, as he probably died before Uzziah, he is thought not to have been the same as the Zechariah of &nbsp;Isaiah 8:2. So the southern kingdom was raised to a condition of prosperity which it had not known since the death of Solomon; and as the power of Israel was gradually falling away in the latter period of Jehu's dynasty, that of Judah extended itself over the Ammonites and Moabites, and other tribes beyond Jordan, from whom Uzziah exacted tribute. See &nbsp;2 Chronicles 26:8, and &nbsp;Isaiah 16:1-5, from which it would appear that the annual tribute of sheep (&nbsp;2 Kings 3:4) was revived either during this reign, or soon after. The end of Uzziah was less prosperous than his beginning. Elated with his splendid career, he determined to burn incense on the altar of God, but was opposed by the high-priest Azariah and eighty others. (See &nbsp;Exodus 30:7-8; &nbsp;Numbers 16:40; &nbsp;Numbers 18:7.) </p> <p> The king was enraged at their resistance, and, as he pressed forward with his censer, was suddenly smitten with leprosy, a disease which, according to Gerlach ([[Ad]] loc.), is often brought but by violent excitement. In &nbsp;2 Kings 15:5 we are merely told that "the Lord smote the king, so that he was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in several house; but his invasion of the priestly office is not specified. This catastrophe compelled Uzziah to reside outside the city, so that the kingdom was administered till his death by his son, Jotham as regent. Uzziah was buried "with his fathers," yet apparently not actually in the royal sepulchers (&nbsp;2 Chronicles 26:23). During his reign an earthquake (q.v.) occurred, which, though not mentioned in the historical books, was apparently very serious in its consequences, for it is alluded to as a chronological epoch by Amos (&nbsp;Amos 1:1), and mentioned in &nbsp;Zechariah 14:5 as a convulsion from which the people "fled." Josephus (''Ant.' 9'' :10, 4) connects it with Uzziah's sacrilegious attempt to offer incense, and this is likely, as it agrees with other chronological data. (See Amos). </p> <p> The first six chapters of Isaiah's prophecies belong to this reign, and we are told (&nbsp;2 Chronicles 26:22) that a full account of it was written by that prophet. Some notices of the state of Judah at this time may also be obtained from the contemporary prophets Hosea and Amos, though both of these labored more particularly in Israel. We gather from their writings (&nbsp;Hosea 4:15; &nbsp;Hosea 6:11; &nbsp;Amos 6:1), as well as from the early chapters of Isaiah, that though the condition of the southern kingdom was far superior, morally and religiously, to that of the northern, yet that it was by no means free from the vices which are apt to accompany wealth and prosperity. At the same time, Hosea conceives bright hopes of the blessings which were to arise from it; and though doubtless these hopes pointed to something far higher than the brilliancy of Uzziah's administration, and though the return of the [[Israelites]] to "David their king" can only be adequately explained of Christ's kingdom, yet the prophet, in contemplating the condition of Judah, at this time, was plainly cheered by the thought that there God was really honored, aid his worship visibly maintained, and that therefore with it was bound up every hope that his promises to his people would at last be fulfilled (&nbsp;Hosea 1:7; &nbsp;Hosea 3:3). It is to be observed, with reference to the general character of Uzziah's reign, that the writer of the second book of Chronicles distinctly states that his lawless attempt to burn incense was the only exception to the excellence of his administration (&nbsp;2 Chronicles 27:2). (See [[Kingdom Of Judah]]). </p> <p> '''4.''' Son of Zechariah and father of Athaiah, the last afdescendant of [[Perez]] the son of Judah resident in Jerusalem after the [[Exile]] (&nbsp;Nehemiah 11:4). B.C. ante 536. </p> <p> '''5.''' A priest of the "sons" of [[Harim]] who renounced his [[Gentile]] wife married after the return from [[Babylon]] (&nbsp;Ezra 10:21). B.C. 458. </p>