God’s Word for You

2 Chronicles 26:21-23 Uzziah slept with his fathers

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, May 10, 2025

21 King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died. Because he was leprous he lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the LORD. His son Jotham was in charge of the palace of the king, and acted as judge over the people of the land. 22 And the rest of the deeds of Uzziah, from first to last, were recorded by the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 23 Uzziah slept with his fathers. They buried him near his fathers in the burial field that belonged to the kings, for they said, “He is a leper.” His son Jotham became king after him.

The Lord had spoken to Moses about lepers: “The person with the impure skin disease must wear torn clothes and he must let his hair hang loose. He must wrap the lower part of his face, and shall cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ As long as he has the infection he will be unclean and he will remain unclean. He must live alone. He must live outside the camp” (Leviticus 13:45-46). For King Uzziah, a special place was chosen to be his isolated house. It was probably a house near the palace but outside the courts of the temple. The exact geography of the city, apart from a few buildings and the locations of the gates along the walls, is not well known today, just as the old layout of most modern cities is unknown to the people who live there (not half of the members of the church I serve know where the original church stood, nor the original school). But I think it’s likely that Jotham bought a house for his father that was perhaps just outside the city walls to the west of the palace. Then the king would have lived in a house under the shade of the tower he had built near the Valley Gate on the west wall of the City of David (2 Chronicles 26:9; see also Nehemiah 2:13-15), and Jotham would have been able to consult with Uzziah, who would have been close to the King’s palace.

Jotham has three roles in this passage. First, he became the one in charge of (“over”) the king’s palace. This was the task of a high official (1 Kings 4:8), and when Joseph had been in Egypt it was the role of a very trusted official, one that the king trusted with his wife and family. It was the first promotion Joseph had while he was in Egypt in the service of the Pharaoh (Genesis 41:40).

Second, Jotham took on the role of a Judge. This is the same title and probably the same role as the Judges before the time of the kings. David had appoints judges, thousands of them, to help him govern (1 Chronicles 23:4), but this role for Jotham was more than training. He was actually judging with the authority of his father’s crown.

Finally, Jotham became king. He was effectively a co-regent with his father for the whole time of Uzziah’s leprosy (which happened in about Uzziah’s 41st year) with eleven years to go until the king’s death. After that, Jotham was sole king for just five years until (as we will see), his son Ahaz began to rule with him.

The account of Uzziah was recorded by Isaiah the prophet. But since Isaiah was not called to be a prophet until the year of Uzziah’s death (Isaiah 6:1), it is possible that the young Isaiah was a scribe in the service of the king. Then, when the king was dying, the Lord called him to be prophet. Whatever was the case, this is the first mention of Isaiah historically, attested to by the prophet’s own account in his book.

Uzziah was not buried with the kings of Israel. Instead, because he had suffered from leprosy, he was given a royal burial outside the city in a special field owned by the royal family, “the burial field that belonged to the kings.”

Not part of our text, but something that we have learned from archaeology (or looting), is that the tomb of Uzziah was moved during the time of the Herods, perhaps around 50 AD. In 1931, E. L. Sukenik of Hebrew University in Jerusalem was visiting the small museum of a Russian Orthodox Convent on the Mount of Olives. He found a marble plaque that was inscribed in the same Aramaic dialect of Ezra and Daniel, “To this place were brought the bones of Uzziah, the king of Judah—Not to be opened!” The nuns of the convent did not know exactly where the plaque had been found, but it’s unlikely that they would have moved it or that someone bringing it to them would have moved it very far. It had been there at the convent for several decades. Therefore, we can say with some confidence that while the city was expanding in New Testament times, the tomb of Uzziah was excavated and his ossuary (the stone box containing his bones) was moved to the Mount of Olives and re-interred there, with the new marble marker. The marker was brought to the nuns in the late 19th century, but being unable to read Aramaic, they did not know that it was essentially the headstone of King Uzziah of Judah. Since Jerusalem was involved in a battle in December 1917 during the First World War, many documents were lost and burned at that time, including the records of the Convent and its little museum. It’s unlikely that we will ever find out more than this.

Paul preaches: “God wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Luther explains: “This is spoken in a general way and applies not only to the saints [that is, believers], but also to everyone… Thus these words are not to be understood as concerning only that life or eternal life but also as going further and including all kinds of help, both temporal and eternal. He is the only Savior, through whom all are helped, both the righteous and the evil, both people and animals. He wants all of them to be rescued, wherever they need help” (LW 56:123-124). We remember these things because we want to praise God for the good things he, our Lord, accomplished through Uzziah, even though the king made a mistake and was struck with leprosy by the Lord. We all make errors and commit sins that deserve the same, or worse, yet the Lord works through all of us and through our deeds to accomplish good things for his world and for all people. God accomplishes only good things, nothing but good, and therefore we are left in awe when he does something fine and wonderful in the world through us. Parents especially must remember this, and humbly thank the Lord for it. Children (for we are all children) must also praise God that we were brought into the world, even though many sins may have been involved. But God would have us come to a knowledge of the truth, to put our faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins, and firmly believe and trust in the resurrection of all flesh on the last day. We have a place in heaven on account of Jesus, and his love is the finest thing we can share with the people we love.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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