Bible Commentaries

CONTENTS

This chapter contains the history of the reign of Uzziah. He invadeth the office of the priesthood, and is smitten with leprosy. He dieth, and is succeeded by Jotham.

We must interpret what is here said of Uzziah, in doing that which was right in the sight of the Lord, in the same sense as we did of Amaziah: that is, he kept up a form of religion in the land in opposition to idols. Not that he was a regenerate man, or had any vital godliness. The sequel of his life proves the reverse. His searching after God means his study of the things of God. Thousands in all ages have done this, whose knowledge hath been of the head and not of the heart. Of such God speaks in Zechariah, Zechariah 7:5-6.

During the time that Uzziah favored the service of the temple the Lord made his way prosperous in temporal things. This is the sense of what is meant by the Lord's helping him.

We that live in gospel times can better conceive the cause of this awful visitation on Uzziah in invading the priests office. As the offering incense typified the Lord Jesus, because none but Jesus can approach Jehovah to make intercession, and to offer sacrifice, for the sins of the people; so the daring act of any going in themselves, with their own offering, implies a despising the way of salvation the Lord hath appointed. And who, in the present hour, is in this awful state, but the man who presumptuously draws nigh in his own righteousness, and makes light of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ? Such are under this dreadful leprosy of the soul, and live in a separate house, without God, and without Christ in the world. Lord! preserve men from this dangerous delusion!

REFLECTIONS

HERE would I meditate over the wretched, ruined, and undone state of Uzziah. A leper to his grave. Cast out and forsaken both of God and man. Loathsome in the sight of both; and living and dying universally unpitied, unhelped, and unreclaimed. And are there any Uzziah's of the present hour? Do any count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and do despite to the Spirit of grace! how desperately lost to a real sense of their own state by nature? How totally unconscious of the infinitely precious value of the blood of Jesus; how wretchedly mistaken as to their own filth, corruption, lusts, and universal depravity. What strangers to themselves, to Jesus, to the necessity of the work of God upon the soul, and the absolute expediency of being washed from the leprosy of sin in the blood of Christ! blessed, thrice blessed God, who in mercy led me to see the preciousness of salvation, and as graciously led me to seek it in the way the Lord himself appointed. Never, blessed Jesus, may my soul invade thy office, but rejoice to come under the censer of thy righteousness. Oh! give me to see that I am indeed sheltered from the wrath to come, from the leprosy of this life, and the miseries of another , being found in thee and under thy precious all-atoning sacrifice, whereby thou hast forever done away the sin and uncleanness of thy people.