2 Chronicles 26:1-23

Uzziah’s Reign

26:1 All the people of Judah took Uzziah, ¹  who was sixteen years old, and made him king in his father Amaziah’s place. 26:2 Uzziah ²  built up Elat and restored it to Judah after King Amaziah ³  had passed away. ⁴ 

26:3 Uzziah was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for fifty-two years in Jerusalem. ⁵  His mother’s name was Jecholiah, who was from Jerusalem. 26:4 He did what the Lord approved, just as his father Amaziah had done. ⁶  26:5 He followed ⁷  God during the lifetime of ⁸  Zechariah, who taught him how to honor God. As long as he followed ⁹  the Lord, God caused him to succeed. ¹⁰ 

26:6 Uzziah attacked ¹¹  the Philistines and broke down the walls of Gath, Jabneh, and Ashdod. He built cities in the region of Ashdod and throughout Philistine territory. ¹²  26:7 God helped him in his campaigns ¹³  against the Philistines, the Arabs living in Gur Baal, and the Meunites. 26:8 The Ammonites paid tribute to Uzziah and his fame reached ¹⁴  the border of Egypt, for he grew in power.

26:9 Uzziah built and fortified towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate, Valley Gate, and at the Angle. ¹⁵  26:10 He built towers in the desert and dug many cisterns, for he owned many herds in the lowlands ¹⁶  and on the plain. He had workers in the fields and vineyards in the hills and in Carmel, ¹⁷  for he loved agriculture. ¹⁸ 

26:11 Uzziah had an army of skilled warriors trained for battle. They were organized by divisions according to the muster rolls made by Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the officer under the authority of Hananiah, a royal official. 26:12 The total number of family leaders who led warriors was 2,600. 26:13 They commanded an army of 307,500 skilled and able warriors who were ready to defend ¹⁹  the king against his enemies. 26:14 Uzziah supplied shields, spears, helmets, breastplates, bows, and slingstones for the entire army. 26:15 In Jerusalem he made war machines carefully designed to shoot arrows and large stones from the towers and corners of the walls. He became very famous, for he received tremendous support and became powerful. ²⁰ 

26:16 But once he became powerful, his pride destroyed him. ²¹  He disobeyed ²²  the Lord his God. He entered the Lord’s temple to offer incense on the incense altar. 26:17 Azariah the priest and eighty other brave priests of the Lord followed him in. 26:18 They confronted ²³  King Uzziah and said to him, “It is not proper for you, Uzziah, to offer incense to the Lord. That is the responsibility of the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who are consecrated to offer incense. Leave the sanctuary, for you have disobeyed ²⁴  and the Lord God will not honor you!” 26:19 Uzziah, who had an incense censer in his hand, became angry. While he was ranting and raving ²⁵  at the priests, a skin disease ²⁶  appeared on his forehead right there in front of the priests in the Lord’s temple near the incense altar. 26:20 When Azariah the high priest and the other priests looked at ²⁷  him, there was a skin disease on his forehead. They hurried him out of there; even the king ²⁸  himself wanted to leave quickly because the Lord had afflicted him. 26:21 King Uzziah suffered from a skin disease until the day he died. He lived in separate quarters, ²⁹  afflicted by a skin disease and banned from the Lord’s temple. His son Jotham was in charge of the palace and ruled over the people of the land.

26:22 The rest of the events of Uzziah’s reign, from start to finish, were recorded by the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. ³⁰  26:23 Uzziah passed away ³¹  and was buried near his ancestors ³²  in a cemetery ³³  belonging to the kings. (This was because he had a skin disease.) ³⁴  His son Jotham replaced him as king.

Hosea 1:1

Superscription

1:1 ³⁵ This is the word of the Lord which was revealed to Hosea ³⁶  son of Beeri during the time when ³⁷  Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah ruled Judah, ³⁸  and during the time when Jeroboam son of Joash ³⁹  ruled Israel. ⁴⁰ 

Matthew 1:8-9

1:8 Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, Joram the father of Uzziah, 1:9 Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,

[26:1]  ¹ tn The parallel account in 2 Kgs 15:1-8 has the variant spelling “Azariah.”

[26:2]  ² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Uzziah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[26:2]  ³ tn Heb “after the king”; the referent (Amaziah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[26:2]  ⁴ tn “slept with his fathers.”

[26:3]  ⁵ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[26:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “he did what was proper in the eyes of the Lord, according to all which Amaziah his father had done.”

[26:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “sought.”

[26:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “in the days of.”

[26:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “in the days of his seeking.”

[26:5]  ¹⁰ tn Or “prosper.”

[26:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “went out and fought.”

[26:6]  ¹² tn Heb “in Ashdod and among the Philistines.”

[26:7]  ¹³ tn The words “in his campaigns” are supplied in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons

[26:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and his name went to.”

[26:9]  ¹⁵ tn On the meaning of the Hebrew word מִקְצוֹעַ (miqtsoa’), see HALOT 628 s.v. עַ(וֹ)מִקְצֹ. The term probably refers to an “angle” or “corner” somewhere on the eastern wall of Jerusalem.

[26:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Shephelah.”

[26:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “workers and vinedressers in the hills and in Carmel.” The words “he had” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[26:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “for a lover of the ground he [was].”

[26:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “help.”

[26:15]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and his name went out to a distant place, for he did extraordinarily to be helped until he was strong.”

[26:16]  ²¹ tn Heb “his heart was high [i.e., proud] to destroy.”

[26:16]  ²² tn Or “was unfaithful to.”

[26:18]  ²³ tn Heb “stood against.”

[26:18]  ²⁴ tn Or “been unfaithful.”

[26:19]  ²⁵ tn Heb “angry.”

[26:19]  ²⁶ tn Traditionally “leprosy,” but this was probably a skin disorder of some type, not leprosy (technically known today as Hansen’s disease). See 2 Kgs 5:1.

[26:20]  ²⁷ tn Heb “turned toward.”

[26:20]  ²⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[26:21]  ²⁹ tn The precise meaning of בֵּית הַחָפְשִׁית (bet hakhafshiyt, “house of [?]”) is uncertain. NASB, NIV, NRSV all have “in a separate house”; NEB has “in his own house…relieved of all duties.” For a discussion of various proposals, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 166-67.

[26:22]  ³⁰ tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Uzziah, the former and the latter, Isaiah son of Amoz, the prophet, recorded.”

[26:23]  ³¹ tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”

[26:23]  ³² tn Heb “fathers.”

[26:23]  ³³ tn Heb “a field of burial.”

[26:23]  ³⁴ tn Heb “for they said, ‘He had a skin disease.’”

[1:1]  ³⁵ tc The textual problems in Hosea are virtually unparalleled in the OT. The Masoretic Text (MT), represented by the Leningrad Codex (c. a.d. 1008), which served as the basis for both BHK and BHS, and the Aleppo Codex (c. a.d. 952), are textually corrupt by all accounts and have a multitude of scribal errors. Many medieval Masoretic mss preserve textual variants that differ from the Leningrad and Aleppo Codices. The Qumran materials (4QXII^c,d,g) contain numerous textual variants that differ from the MT; unfortunately, these texts are quite fragmentary (frequently in the very place that an important textual problem appears). The textual tradition and translation quality of the LXX and the early Greek recensions (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) is mixed; in some places they are inferior to the MT but in other places they preserve a better reading. The textual apparatus of BHK and BHS contains many proposed emendations based on the ancient versions (Greek, Syriac, Latin, Aramaic) that often appear to be superior readings than what is preserved in the MT. In numerous cases, the MT readings are so difficult morphologically, syntactically, and contextually that conservative conjectural emendations are necessary to make sense of the text. Most major English versions (e.g., KJV, ASV, RSV, NEB, NAB, NASB, NIV, TEV, NKJV, NJPS, NJB, NRSV, REB, NCV, CEV, NLT) adopt (either occasionally or frequently) textual variants reflected in the versions and occasionally adopt conservative conjectural emendations proposed in BHK and/or BHS. However, many of the textual problems in Hosea are so difficult that the English versions frequently are split among themselves. With this in mind, the present translation of Hosea must necessarily be viewed as only preliminary. Further work on the text and translation of Hosea is needed, not only in terms of the NET Bible but in Hosea studies in general. The text of Hosea should be better clarified when the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project completes work on the book of Hosea. For further study of textual problems in Hosea, see D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 5:228-71.

[1:1]  ³⁶ tn Heb “The word of the Lord which was to Hosea.” The words “This is” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[1:1]  ³⁷ tn Heb “in the days of” (again later in this verse). Cf. NASB “during the days of”; NIV “during the reigns of”; NLT “during the years when.”

[1:1]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah.”

[1:1]  ³⁹ sn Joash is a variation of the name Jehoash. Some English versions use “Jehoash” here (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, NLT).

[1:1]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “Jeroboam son of Joash, king of Israel.”