Bible Commentaries

2 Chronicles 26:15

I. Uzziah's marvellous prosperity. He was a clever, enterprising, busy, practical man, just the sort of man to advance the arts of civilisation, to develop a country's resources, and further its prosperity. And indeed this is what he did. God made him to prosper. "He was marvellously helped till he was strong."

II. His marvellous presumption. "When he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction." Not satisfied with being king, he must be high-priest also. Horror-struck with his profanity, Azariah, the real priest, with a band of faithful coadjutors, entreated him to go out of the sanctuary. But he persevered in his impious attempt, when suddenly an awful judgment from Heaven arrested him. He was smitten with a loathsome leprosy, and in terror and dismay rushed forth from the courts he had desecrated.

III. The note of warning. A man may be "lifted up to his destruction" (1) by the pride of money; (2) by the pride of intellect; (3) by the pride of wit. Our place of security is at the foot of the Cross.

J. Thain Davidson, Forewarned—Forearmed, p. 107.

References: 2 Chronicles 26:15.—G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 190. 2 Chronicles 26:15, 2 Chronicles 26:16.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. x., p. 266.

2 Chronicles 26:16-20

Notice some of the ways in which the guilt of presumption in the worship of God is often incurred in modern times.

I. It ought not to provoke a smile when the first is named as that of sleeping in God's house. That man coolly insults God who needlessly composes himself to slumber when professing to be a suppliant for mercy at His feet.

II. Similar is the presumption of neglecting to participate in Divine worship when present in God's house. Negative sins are sometimes most intensely sinful; heedless sins are sometimes most fearfully fatal.

III. Presumption in worship may take the form of frequenting the house of God as a place of entertainment merely.

IV. We are guilty of presumptuous sin in worship if we endeavour to conceal from ourselves hidden sin under cover of scrupulous devotion.

V. We are guilty of presumptuous worship when we offer to God services in which any essential truth of God's being is denied or ignored. The place of worship where Christ is denied is no place for us. Prayer offered otherwise than in His name cannot be prayer for us. Our fellowship is with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ.

A. Phelps, The Old Testament a Living Book, p. 79.

2 Chronicles 26:16-21

Rightly to apprehend Uzziah's sin we must remember through what barriers he had to break before he could resolve to do this thing. He had to disregard the direct command of Jehovah that the priests alone should burn incense on His altar; he had to despise the history of his people, to defy the holy name by which he himself was called. Therefore it was because his rebellion was so great, his defiance of his convictions and of his God so flagrant, that the Lord smote him; and he bore till death the mark of the curse that fell on him for his impiety.

I. We see here prosperity and pride. Mere worldly prosperity is often the prelude to daring impiety. Uzziah was a good king, but he was a bad priest; he was not the priest whom God had chosen. Statecraft and policy have no claim to spiritual direction. The spirit of the Gospel is not that of the successful worldling, but that of the little child of the kingdom.

II. We see here pride and punishment. It is part of God's order of nature that bodily pains should often reveal and rebuke the workings of an ungodly soul. The solemn truth that pride and passion are destroyers of man, the remembrance of those who have been destroyed by them, are admonitions to us. "Verily He is a God that judgeth in the earth."

III. Punishment and shame. Hope concerning Uzziah is given in the record of his hasting to go out of the Temple. His proud heart was broken; he was smitten with shame. A man is not altogether lost while he can feel shame. God quickens the "sorrow of the world, which worketh death," into "godly sorrow, working repentance to salvation, not to be repented of."

A. Mackennal, Christ's Healing Touch, p. 16.