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Context No. 3822 of 4322 · 2 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

2 Chronicles 26:16-23: in context

16But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up, so that he did corruptly and he trespassed against the LORD his God, for he went into the LORD’s temple to burn incense on the altar of incense. 17Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him eighty priests of the LORD, who were valiant men. 18They resisted Uzziah the king, and said to him, “It isn’t for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but for the priests the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed. It will not be for your honor from the LORD God.” 19Then Uzziah was angry. He had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and while he was angry with the priests, the leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests in the LORD’s house, beside the altar of incense. 20Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he was leprous in his forehead; and they thrust him out quickly from there. Indeed, he himself also hurried to go out, because the LORD had struck him. 21Uzziah the king was a leper to the day of his death, and lived in a separate house, being a leper; for he was cut off from the LORD’s house. Jotham his son was over the king’s house, judging the people of the land. 22Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, wrote. 23So Uzziah slept with his fathers; and they buried him with his fathers in the field of burial which belonged to the kings, for they said, “He is a leper.” Jotham his son reigned in his place.

King Uzziah had a long and successful reign, but the turning point of his life is captured in one sobering sentence: when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. Emboldened by his success, he presumed to enter the temple to burn incense, a role reserved for the priests alone, and when they confronted him, he reacted in anger, and leprosy broke out on his forehead.

The very success that should have made him grateful made him proud, and pride led him to overstep the boundaries God had set. There is a hard warning here for our own seasons of strength and achievement. It is often in success rather than in weakness that we are tempted, when things go well and we begin to think the ordinary limits do not apply to us. Uzziah's strength became the occasion of his fall, because he let it swell into pride and presumption. When God gives us strength and success, the danger is that our heart will be lifted up; the safeguard is a humility that keeps to the place God has given us and does not overstep.

In my seasons of strength and success, do I guard against the pride that lifted up Uzziah's heart to his ruin, keeping humbly to the place and boundaries God has given me?

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