fifteenth year of Amaziah (2Ki 14:23), and Amaziah died in the fifteenth year of Jeroboam; Azariah (Uzziah) must have become king in the fifteenth year of Jeroboam, since, according to 2Ki 14:21, the people made him king after the murder of his father, which precludes the supposition of an interregnum. Consequently the datum “in the twenty-seventh year” can only have crept into the text through the confounding of the numerals טו (15) with כז (27), and we must therefore read “in the fifteenth year.”
Verses 2-6
Beside the general characteristics of Uzziah’s fifty-two years’ reign, which are given in the standing formula, not a single special act is mentioned, although, according to 2 Chron 26, he raised his kingdom to great earthly power and prosperity; probably for no other reason than because his enterprises had exerted no permanent influence upon the development of the kingdom of Judah, but all the useful fruits of his reign were destroyed again by the ungodly Ahaz. Uzziah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Amaziah had done. For as the latter was unfaithful to the Lord in the closing years of his reign, so did Uzziah seek God only so long as Zechariah, who was experienced in divine visions, remained alive, and God gave success to his enterprises, so that during this time he carried on successful wars against the Philistines and Arabians, fortified the walls of Jerusalem with strong towers, built watch-towers in the desert, and constructed cisterns for the protection and supply of his numerous flocks, promoted agriculture and vine-growing, and organized a numerous and well-furnished army (2Ch 26:5-15). But the great power to which he thereby attained produced such haughtiness, that he wanted to make himself high priest in his kingdom after the manner of the heathen kings, and usurping the sacred functions, which belonged according to the law to the Levitical priests alone, to offer incense in the temple, for which he was punished with leprosy upon the spot (2Ki 15:5 compared with 2Ch 26:16.). The king’s leprosy is described in our account also as a punishment from God. יי ויננּע: Jehovah smote him, and he became leprous. This presupposes an act of guilt, and confirms the fuller account of this guilt given in the Chronicles, which Thenius, following the example of De Wette and Winer, could only call in question on the erroneous assumption “that the powerful king wanted to restore the regal high-priesthood exercised by David and Solomon” Oehler (Herzog’s Cycl.)
