King Uzziah (Judah)

Uzziah (also called Azariah) became king of Judah at 16 after his father Amaziah's murder. He rebuilt Elath (Eilat) on the Red Sea and restored it to Judah (2 Kings 14:22). According to 2 Chronicles 26 he tore down the walls of Philistine Gath, Jabneh and Ashdod, took tribute from the Ammonites, built towers in Jerusalem and in the wilderness, dug many cisterns because he "loved the soil," and mounted machines "invented by skilled men" on his walls to shoot arrows and great stones. It was a long, prosperous age, matched by that of Jeroboam II in the north.

At the height of his power he entered the Temple to burn incense, a rite reserved for priests. When the priest Azariah and 80 priests confronted him, leprosy broke out on his forehead, and he lived in isolation until his death while his son Jotham governed. The great earthquake "in the days of Uzziah" was remembered for centuries (Amos 1:1; Zechariah 14:5), and Isaiah's call came "in the year King Uzziah died." An Aramaic stone plaque from the Second Temple period, now in the Israel Museum, reads: "Here were brought the bones of Uzziah, king of Judah. Do not open."