2 Chronicles 26:17

2Ch 26:17 And Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him fourscore priests of the LORD, [that were] valiant men:

Ver. 17. That were valiant men.] Men of great strength and good mettle. Levites did great exploits when put upon it, as Exo 32:26, &c. "They out of Zebulun, that handled the pen of the writer" - scribes and scholars - also bore arms in some cases. {Jdg 5:14}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Ch_26:17-18

It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense unto the Lord.

We must abide within our limitation

The great temptation of some natures is to try to do the very things for which they are least qualified. There is a marvellous irony in human genius in this matter. It would seem to be an inscrutable mystery that men will persist in attempting to do the thing which they cannot do, and which they were obviously never meant to do. Whenever a man is out of place he is guilty of wasting strength. A man can only work well within his own limit. No man should strain himself at his labour, be he poet, or musician, or divine, be he prophet or merchantman; he should keep easily within the circle he was appointed to occupy, for all stretching is weakening, all effort that is above the line of nature tends to destruction, both to the worker and of the influence which he ought to exert. Know your own place, and keep it. (J. Parker, D. D.)

The folly of self-will

God has sacred places, God has allotted specific duties to men; every man will be wise in proportion as he sees his own calling, and makes his calling and election sure. Reward lies along that line. Leave your native heath, take your life into your own hands, say you will create a sphere for yourself and do as you please, and you shall be stung with disappointments as with a cloud of insects. Say you will insist upon having your own way in the world, and every rock you strike will but injure the hand that smites it. But live and move and have your being in God. Say, Lord, not my will, but Thine be done; make me door-keeper, or lamp-lighter, or hewer of wood or drawer of water, or a Zechariah having learning in Thy visions and power of reading all the apocalypse of Thy providence: what Thou wilt, as Thou wilt, as long as Thou wilt: Thy will is heaven. It is towards this end that all Christian education must tend. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Uzziahs pride punished

I. His reign as king. This was pre-eminently successful. The Arab hordes on his south-east borders were subdued, and the Ammonites were reduced to tribute. He was no less vigorous in defensive than offensive operations. He paid as great attention to the arts of peace as of war. He was the special patron of agriculture; he dug wells, built towers in the wilderness for the protection of the flocks, and cultivated rich vineyards.

II. Uzziahs sin. Uzziah was ambitious; he was not willing that any in his realm should enjoy prerogatives denied to him.

III. Uzziahs punishment. Henceforth the most menial subject would not exchange places with the leprous king. As lessons taught by this narrative we learn--

1. Prosperity is dangerous. The record of Uzziah does not stand alone. Prosperity seldom draws men to God. Gratitude does not increase in proportion as Gods favours multiply. A mans piety is not usually increased by his becoming rich. It is seldom men are more religious in health than in sickness. Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept Thy Word.

2. God is to be approached reverently. Uzziah seems to have thought that by being a king, successful and famous, he had earned the right to enter the holy place and offer sacred incense. It is often expected that God will accept worship if the display of wealth mingle with it largely. Does not the ability to offer such choice incense gain for one the right to lift the sacred veil and stand where God hath said His Priests only should enter, and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death? Uzziah thought that God would not exclude a favoured king from that sacred presence. Men often think that it is possible to find some incense wafted from a worldly censer which shall ascend as fragrance to the unseen holy. But what had Uzziahs kingdom to do toward fitting him to perform a priestly act? Mans approach to God is through Christ. In the Old Testament dispensation, not even a symbol of His person or work could be accepted or admitted into the holy place, other than that which God had appointed.

3. Sin, though in high places, must be rebuked. It seemed a bold act for the priests to say to Judahs king, Go out of the sanctuary, for thou hast trespassed. They were the humble ministers of religion, and he the proud and pampered king of a victorious people. He had transcended his limit, and must be rebuked, though he be a king. Such invasions of religion are not rare. The world is always ready to take religious duties into her own hands, to tell how God is to be worshipped, what doctrines are to be preached, what duties prescribed, what faults are to be rebuked, and what allowed. She enters with a regal tread, and speaks with imperious voice. What shall be done? Does and will the Church stand firm in her antagonism to wrong and sin, though they stand in kingly pride to offer polluted incense on her sacred altars?

4. Men may be blinded to sin, till they see its consequences. It is not probable that Uzziah realised his guilt till the leprosy rose up in his forehead. Then he hasted to go out of the sanctuary. Perhaps he feared other and severer judgments would follow. Had God stayed His retributive hand, and the king been suffered, with no leprous spots, to leave the altar as proud and ambitious as he entered, his guilt would have been as great. The smitten forehead, like a detective, laid the offender under arrest, and thus exposed him; but it did not create or increase his sin. Many, guilty of the most grievous wrongs, think themselves respectable, and claim the confidence of others, till some providence uncovers their evil deeds. It is a mistake to suppose that all the criminals are in prison. A bad men is as bad on one side of iron bars as on the other. (Monday Club Sermons.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(17) Azariah the priest—i.e., the high priest, whose duty it would be to resist such an encroachment on sacerdotal functions. His name does not occur in the list (1Ch_4:27-41).

Valiant men.—Sons of valour (1Ch_5:18), so called because they had the moral courage to oppose the king.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

17. Azariah the priest] i.e. the high-priest (2Ch_26:20). He cannot be identified certainly with any priest in the list given 1Ch_6:4-15 (5:30–41, Heb.).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Azarias. The prophet, who had hitherto kept the king (H.) within bounds, was now no more, v. 5. T.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Azariah the priest. Ver. 20 states what was otherwise to be supposed, that he was the chief priest (varh;). We fail to identify his name with any in the typical list of 1Ch_6:4-15, where the Azariah of ver. 11 is too early, and the Azariah of ver. 13 too late, for our present Azariah. With him four score priests. This passage suggests to us an idea of how many deeply interesting details are wanting, which would fill in the interstices of Old Testament history. Probably the intention of the king, ambitious to simulate the self-assumed religious ways of neighbouring Gentile kings, was no secret; and possibly the king may have given time for the chief priest to collect his auxiliaries, through some ostentatious display on his own part, in the very performance of his desecration. The number and the character of these helping priests (lyjAyneB) give the idea that they had their work to do, and purposed doing it promptly, or that they would over-awe, and obviate the use of actual force, by their imposing number.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.