Summary
Uzziah: A Cautionary Tale of Pride
During the divided monarchy, forty kings reigned over Israel and Judah—twenty in the north, twenty in the south. Of those forty, Scripture declares only eight to have done "what was right in the eyes of the Lord," and every one of them ruled in the south. Uzziah was one of those eight. His name, fittingly, means "the Lord is strong."
2 Chronicles 26 records a striking list of his accomplishments. Internationally, he rebuilt the seaport of Eloth and restored it to Judah, opening trade with the East. He defeated surrounding enemies, received tribute from the Ammonites, and his fame spread to the border of Egypt. Domestically, he built fortified towers, dug cisterns to hold water, and supported farmers and vinedressers in the fertile countryside. He even strengthened the army by personally outfitting every soldier with shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and slingstones, and he stationed cleverly engineered machines on the towers of Jerusalem for shooting arrows and hurling large stones. Verse 4 sums up his early reign: "He did what was right in the sight of the Lord," seeking God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God.
Then things fell apart. Uzziah entered the temple to burn incense on the altar—an act God had reserved for the priests descended from Aaron. The chief priest Azariah, with eighty other priests, confronted him: "It is not for you, Uzziah, to make offering to the Lord… Go out of the sanctuary, for you have done wrong." The king grew furious, and while he raged with the censer in his hand, leprosy broke out on his forehead. He was hurried out, and he himself rushed to leave because the Lord had struck him. He lived in a separate house, leprous, until the day of his death.
Scripture diagnoses the cause in a single sentence: "When he had become strong, he grew proud, to his destruction" 2 Chronicles 26:16. The man whose very name confessed that the Lord is strong forgot the One who had made him strong. Martin Luther called pride the cause of every sin and every ruin—and Scripture bears this out from the very beginning. Adam and Eve, told they could eat freely of every tree but one, decided they knew better than God Genesis 2. The Pharisee in Luke 18 prayed as though God owed him. In Hosea 13, God said of Israel, "When I fed them, they were satisfied… and their heart was proud; therefore they forgot me." Deuteronomy 8 warned that prosperity tempts the heart to say, "My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth." Proverbs 16 puts it plainly: "Pride goes before destruction."
The pride Scripture condemns is not the warm satisfaction of saying, "I'm proud of you." It is confidence in self instead of confidence in God—self-absorption, thinking of oneself more highly than one ought, placing oneself on the pedestal, wanting one's own will rather than seeking God's. Pride likes the mirror; humility likes the window.
The opposite of pride is humility, and its perfect picture is Christ Himself. Philippians 2 calls believers to "do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves," and points to the Lord Jesus, "who, though he was in the form of God… emptied himself, taking the form of a servant… and humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." On that cross, Christ bore every sin—including the root sin of pride. The empty tomb declares the sacrifice accepted, and God speaks the word every proud heart needs to hear: forgiven. Through His Word, He keeps reshaping His people into the likeness of the most perfect example of humility—Jesus Christ Himself.
Video citations
- "Uzziah" — What you open your Bibles, please, with me, to the book of second chronicles in the Old Testament, second chronicles the 26th chapter for our study this morning. 20 and 20. In the period of time,…