2 Chronicles 26:17
Ver. 17. And Azariah the priest went in after him,.... To hinder him from doing it, and to persuade him to go out. This was the high priest, as appears from 2Ch 26:20 and is thought to be the same that is spoken of in 1Ch 6:10and with him eighty priests of the Lord, that were valiant men; not only able bodied men, but men of spirit and courage, and zealous for the honour of God. 2 Chronicles 26:18Ver. 18. And they withstood Uzziah the king,.... They not only stood against him, but stood about him, surrounded him, so as to hinder him from approaching the altar of incense:and said unto him, it appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense unto the Lord; it did not belong to his office as a king, it was no part of itbut to the priests the sons of Aaron, that are consecrated to burn incense; and to them only; for even the Levites might not do it, only those of the tribe of Levi, that descended from Aaron, see Nu 16:35,go out of the sanctuary, for thou hast trespassed; by going into that:neither shall it be for thine honour from the Lord God; but to his hurt, and be a brand of infamy upon him; for more is designed than is expressed, and as the event showed. 2 Chronicles 26:19Ver. 19. Then Uzziah was wroth,.... With the priests, and, as Josephus {b} says, threatened to kill them:and had a censer in his hand to burn incense; ready to do it, and resolved upon it:and while he was wroth with the priests; and expressing his indignation, and do what he would do to them, if they continued to oppose him:the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord, from beside the incense altar; which seems not only to describe the position of the priests, being beside the altar of incense, to keep the king from it, when the leprosy was seen by them in his forehead, but the quarter from whence the stroke invisibly came. Josephus {c} says, there was earthquake at the same time, and a mountain was rent.{b} Antiqu. l. 9. c. 10. sect. 4. {c} lbid. 2 Chronicles 26:20Ver. 20. And Azariah the chief priest, and all the priests, looked upon him, and, behold, he was leprous in his forehead,.... He was leprous all over his body, no doubt, but it appeared in his forehead very remarkably, and was seen by them all, who, without doubt, informed him of his case, and of which he soon became sensible:and they thrust him out from thence; the holy place, he being now unfit to be in a common dwelling house, or his own palace, and much less to be in the house of God:yea, himself also hasted to go out, because the Lord had smitten him; fearing, should he continue there, that something worse would befall him; the Targum is, the Word of the Lord. The leprosy was a disease sent immediately from God, as the case of Miriam, and this of Uzziah, show; and so the Persians {d} had a notion, that those had it who sinned against the sun, and for that reason, and which they accounted and worshipped as God.{d} Herodot. Clio, sive, l. 1. c. 138. 2 Chronicles 26:21Ver. 21. And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a several house, being a leper,....See Gill on "2Ki 15:5",for he was cut off from the house of the Lord; not, suffered to enter into that, because of his uncleanness:and Jotham his son was over the king's house, judging the people of the land; see 2Ki 15:5. 2 Chronicles 26:22Ver. 22. Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last,.... What were done by him, both in the beginning and latter end of his reign:did Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, write: not in his own prophecy, but in the history of his own times, which was usual for every prophet to write, though now lost, see 2Ki 15:6. 2 Chronicles 26:23Ver. 23. So Uzziah slept with his fathers,.... Died as they did, the same year, according to Dr. Lightfoot {e}, in which he was smitten with the leprosy; and in the year of his death it was Isaiah had the vision related in Isa 6:1, &c.and they buried him with his fathers; See Gill on "2Ki 15:7".{e} Works, vol. 1. p. 99.
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.