Study Desk

They carried him back on horses and buried him with his fathers in the city of Judah.

All the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.

After Amaziah the king rested with his fathers, Uzziah rebuilt Eloth and restored it to Judah.

Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecoliah; she was from Jerusalem.

He did what was right in the Lord’s sight just as his father Amaziah had done.

The Ammonites paid tribute to Uzziah, and his fame spread as far as the entrance of Egypt, for God made him very powerful.

He made skillfully designed devices in Jerusalem to shoot arrows and catapult large stones for use on the towers and on the corners. So his fame spread even to distant places, for he was wondrously helped until he became strong.

But when he became strong, he grew arrogant, and it led to his own destruction. He acted unfaithfully against the Lord his God by going into the Lord’s sanctuary to burn incense on the incense altar.

Uzziah, with a firepan in his hand to offer incense, was enraged. But when he became enraged with the priests, in the presence of the priests in the Lord’s temple beside the altar of incense, a skin disease broke out on his forehead.

Then Azariah the chief priest and all the priests turned to him and saw that he was diseased on his forehead. They rushed him out of there. He himself also hurried to get out because the Lord had afflicted him.

So King Uzziah was diseased to the time of his death. He lived in quarantine with a serious skin disease and was excluded from access to the Lord’s temple, while his son Jotham was over the king’s household governing the people of the land.

Uzziah rested with his fathers, and he was buried with his fathers in the burial ground of the kings’ cemetery, for they said, “He has a skin disease.” His son Jotham became king in his place.

Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jerushah daughter of Zadok.

He did what was right in the Lord’s sight just as his father Uzziah had done. In addition, he didn’t enter the Lord’s sanctuary, but the people still behaved corruptly.

So Jotham strengthened his position because he did not waver in obeying the Lord his God.

As for the rest of the events of Jotham’s reign, along with all his wars and his ways, note that they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.

Jotham rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David. His son Ahaz became king in his place.

Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the Lord’s sight like his ancestor David,

He burned incense in Ben Hinnom Valley and burned his children in the fire, imitating the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites.

So the Lord his God handed Ahaz over to the king of Aram. He attacked him and took many captives to Damascus.