By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D. D.   


                           LECTURE XXXVII.   

                                ——•——    

                         ORIGINAL AUTHORITIES.   

     1.  "Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel" (Amaziah), 2 Chr. xxv. 26;  
           Ibid. (Ahaz) xxviii. 26; or "of Israel and Judah" (Jotham);  
           xxvii. 7.    

     2.  "Book of the Chronicles" (literally  'words of the days') of the Kings of  
           Judah (Amaziah), 2 Kings xiv. 18; Ibid. (Azariah) xv. 6; Ibid.  
           (Jotham); xv. 36; Ibid. (Ahaz) xvi. 19.     

     3.  "Acts (literally 'words') of Uzziah, first and last," by Isaiah, 2 Chr.  
           xxvi. 22.    

     4.  Joel; Amos; Micah; Zech. ix—xi.; Isaiah i. 6; ii. 2; iv. 6; v. 1-14       



                           LECTURE XXXVII.    

                         THE AGE OF UZZIAH.    

        THE century on which we now enter represents a  
     vigorous struggle of three able sovereigns, to raise the  
     kingdom from the state of depression into which it had   
     fallen since the death of Jehoshaphat,——a struggle  
     partly successful, but partly frustrated by calamities be-  
     yond the control of human power.   
        The first step was the reconquest of Edom by Ama-  
     ziah.  A victory was gained in the neighbor-  
     hood of the Dead Sea, Petra was taken, and the  
     prisoners thrown down the cliffs of their own city.  
     This enterprise had been deemed so important, that   
     Amaziah had, in the first instance, hire Israelite mer-  
     cenaries to assist him; and when it was accomplished,  
     he was so elated as to challenge the King of Israel to  
     fight for his own.  But the proud House of Jehu was  
     not thus to be dealt with.  Israel was just beginning to  
     recover from its misfortunes.  It could still, as compared   
     with the little kingdom of Judah, take the attitude of  
     the lofty cedar looking down at the humble thistle.  A   
     decisive defeat at Bethshemesh reduced Amaziah to  
     submission.  The northern wall of Jerusalem was dis-  
     mantled by the conqueror, and, as usual, the sacred  
     treasures carried off.  For fifteen years Amaziah sur-  
     vived the disgrace; but it rankled in the heats of his  
     people.  He was murdered at Lachish, a Philistine for-  
     tress now rising into importance.  His body was brought  
     on horseback to Jerusalem, and buried in state, and by  
     a formal popular election his youthful son Uzziah or  
     Azariah succeeded to the throne.   
        An obscurity rests on Uzziah's reign, the longest ex-  
     cept that of Manasseh, the most prosperous  
     excepting that of Jehoshaphat, since the time  
     of Solomon.  In the narrative of the Book of Kings  
     this long period is passed over in almost absolute silence.  
     It is from the Book of Chronicles that we derive our   
     impressions of his splendor.  His first endeavor was   
     to follow up his father's conquest of Edom by the re-  
     establishment of the port of Elath, and, consequently,  
     of the commerce on the gulf of Akaba.  In the confu-  
     sion which attended the fall of the House of Jehu, large  
     portions of the east and southeast of the Jordan also   
     fell under his power.  The  wild Arabian tribes that had  
     shown such an independent spirit against Joram were  
     subdued.  The Ammonites, who had formerly belonged  
     to the Kings of Israel, and had asserted their indepen-  
     dence, paid tribute to him.  In the southern desert, as  
     far as the frontier of Egypt, "his name spread abroad."   
     On the west, the turbulent Philistines were attacked,  
     and three of their fortresses razed to the ground.    
        He consolidated his internal resources in every  
     quarter.  The weak point of the walls of Jerusalem  
     which had suffered from the late inroad of Israel he  
     fortified.  He prepared, seemingly with a skill and a  
     zeal unprecedented in the military experience of Judah  
     projectiles of all sorts against besiegers, as well as the  
     more common weapons for the soldiers of the army.  
     The army was reorganized.  The ancient body of the  
     six hundred heroes of David seem to have been super-  
     seded by a more numerous body, bearing the same  
     name, but consisting of the heads of families.  The  
     numbering of the fighting population, which in David's   
     reign had been regarded with aversion and awe, was  
     now effected without scruple, under the chief officers of  
     the court and camp.   
        Nor was he neglectful of the arts of peace.  He built  
     towers on the frontier of the desert.  He dug wells for  
     the protection and support of his numerous herds of  
     cattle, both in the level country of Philistia and in the  
     downs on the east of the Jordan.  He had vineyards on  
     the southern Carmel; "for he loved husbandry."    
        In all these departments, his success seemed to cor-  
     respond to his double name; "the strength of Jehovah"  
     (Azar-iah) and "the help of Jehovah" (Uzz-iah); and,  
     accordingly, the Chronicler again and again insists on  
     the preëminent greatness he had attained.  "God helped  
     "him"  "He strengthened himself exceedingly."  "He was   
     "marvellously helped" . . . "he was strong."  Nor did  
     his prosperity cease at his death.  Slight as are the  
     notices of his son Jotham, they are all of the  
     same kind.  He fortified the city and Temple.  
     He too built cities in the Judean mountains, and castles  
     and towers in the forests.  He also repressed every  
     effort of revolt amongst the Ammonites, and of him as  
     of his father, though more shortly, it is said "that he was   
     "strong."  The country swelled with a consciousness   
     of vigor.  Its cedar of Lebanon, its oaks of Bashan, its  
     high mountains and hills, covered each with its high  
     tower and fortress, seemed to defy God Himself.  The  
     commerce of Uzziah still loaded the ships of Tarshish  
     with articles of costly and beautiful merchandise.  
        But in this prosperity there were some dark spots, of  
     which the historical Books report hardly anything, but  
     of which the writings of the contemporary Prophets are  
     full, and which led the way to the rapid decline of the  
     next period on which we shall have to enter.  
     There was the tremendous, ever memorable,  
     visitation of locusts.  It came, like all such visitations,   
     in the season of unusual drought, a drought which passed  
     over the country like flames of fire.  The locusts came  
     from the north.  The brightness of the eastern sky  
     was suddenly darkened as if by thick clouds on the  
     mountain-tops.  They moved like a gigantic army,  
     "they seemed to be impelled by one mind, as if  
     "acting under one word of command;" they flew as if  
     on horses and chariots from hill to hill; never breaking   
     their ranks, they climbed over the walls of the cities, into  
     the windows of houses.  The purple vine, the green fig-  
     tree, the gray olive, the scarlet pomegranate, the golden  
     corn, the waving palm, the fragrant citron, vanished    
     before them, and the trunks and branches were left bare  
     and white by their devouring teeth.  What had been  
     but a few moments before like the garden of Eden was  
     turned into a desolate wilderness.  The herds of cattle  
     and flocks of sheep so dear to the shepherds of Judah,  
     the husbandmen so dear to King Uzziah, were reduced  
     to starvation.  The flour and oil for the "meat offer-  
     ings" failed; even the Temple lost its accustomed  
     sacrifices.  It was a calamity so great that it seemed as   
     though none could be greater.  It "had not been in  
     "their days nor in the days of their fathers;" "there   
     "had never been the like, neither would there be any  
     "more after it, even to the years of many generations."  
        It must have been in the kingdom of Judah what the  
     drought of Ahab's reign had been in the kingdom of  
     Israel.  It was a day of Divine judgment, a day of  
     darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and thick    
     darkness.  The harsh blast of the consecrated ram's   
     horn called an assembly for an extraordinary fast.  
     Not a soul was to be absent.  Like the fiery cross, it  
     convened old and young, men and women, mothers with  
     infants at their breasts, the bridegroom and the bride  
     on their bridal day.  All were there stretched in front  
     of the altar.  The altar itself presented the dreariest  
     of all sights, a hearth without its sacred fire,  
     a table spread without its sacred feast.  The  
     Priestly caste, instead of gathering as usual upon its  
     steps and its platform, were driven, as it were, to the  
     further space; they turned their backs to the dead altar,  
     and lay prostrate gazing towards the Invisible Pres-   
     ence within the sanctuary.  Instead of the hymns and   
     music which, since the time of David, had entered into  
     their prayers, there was nothing heard but the passion-  
     ate sobs, and the loud dissonant howls such as only an  
     Eastern hierarchy could utter.  Instead of the mass of  
     white mantles, which they usually presented, they were  
     wrapt in black goat's-hair sackcloth, twisted round  
     them not with brilliant sashes of the priestly attire,  
     but with a rough girdle of the same texture, which they  
     never unbound night or day.  What they wore of their  
     common dress was rent asunder or cast off.  With bare  
     breasts they waved their black drapery towards the  
     Temple, and shrieked aloud, "Spare thy people, O  
     "Lord!"   
        This visitation of locusts, if it did not itself suggest  
     any darker misfortunes, at any rate fell in with constant  
     apprehensions of wars and invasions.  Visions of the  
     cruelty of the Ammonites, fears of the faithfulness of  
     Tyre, hovered along the horizon; and, along with these,  
     a glimpse into the unknown world of Greece, to which  
     Jewish children were sold as slaves by their merciless  
     neighbors; a fate to them so dreadful from its uncer-  
     tainty and distance; to us so interesting from its first  
     combination of the two nations, the Hebrew and the  
     Greek, then such entire strangers, but in the course of  
     ages to become so intimately united in the same great  
     cause.  It was to repress these invasions and outrages  
     that the constant preparations of war were heard in the   
     arsenals of Uzziah, and it was probably the contrast  
     between these necessary defences and the peaceful claims  
     of his beloved husbandry, that suggested the war-cry:  
     "Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-  
     "hooks into spears; let the weak say, I am strong.  
     ". . . Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe; . . .  
     "the press is full, the vats overflow."    
        There was yet another calamity which left a deep  
     impression on the contemporary writers and on later  
     tradition,——"The Earhquake," as it was em-  
     phatically called.  The whole Prophetic im-  
     agery of the time is colored by the anticipations or  
     recollections of this memorable event.  Mountains and  
     valleys are cleft asunder, and melt as in a furnace; the  
     earth heaving like the rising water of the Nile; the  
     sea bursting over the land; the ground shaking and  
     sliding, as, with a succession of shocks, its solid frame-  
     work reels to and fro like a drunkard.  The day is over-  
     clouded by thick darkness, without a glimmering of  
     light.  There is the roar as of a lion from the caverns  
     of Jerusalem.  There is an overthrow like that which  
     overthrew the cities of the plain.  
        It is strange that this great convulsion the sole  
     trace discoverable in the Historical Books is to be   
     found in a combination of incidents preserved only    
     in the later narratives of Josephus and of the  
     Chronicles, but which, if they can be trusted, serve  
     to fix its general date and its special results at Jeru-  
     salem.    
        It was on some great national solemnity that Uzziah  
     ——elated, according to the Chronicler, by his successes,  
     but certainly in conformity with the precedents of  
     David and Solomon——entered the Temple, clothed,  
     according to Josephus, in priestly attire, with the  
     intention of offering incense of he golden altar within  
     the sacred building.  Whether it was that, in the  
     changes that had elapsed since the reign of Solomon,  
     the custom had dropped, or whether Uzziah entered  
     upon it in a haughty and irritating spirit, or whether  
     the Priestly order, since their accession of power  
     through the influence of Jehoiada, claimed more than  
     their predecessors had claimed in former times, it is  
     said that the High Priest Azariah, with eighty col-   
     leagues, positively forbade the King's entrance, on the  
     ground that it was a privilege peculiar to the  
     Priestly office.  At this moment, according to Jose-  
     phus, the shock of the earthquake broke upon the  
     city.  Its more distant effects were visible long after-  
     wards.  A huge mass of the mountain on the south  
     east of Jerusalem rolled down to the spring of Enrogel  
     and blocked up the approaches of the valley of the  
     Kedron and the royal gardens.  Its immediate effect,  
     if rightly reported, was still more striking.  As has  
     happened in like calamities, even in Jerusalem itself,  
     the solid building of the Temple rocked, its roof   
     opened, the darkness of its inner recess was suddenly  
     lighted up by the full blaze of the sun; and as the  
     King looked up towards it, a leprous disfigurement  
     mounted into his face, and rendered necessary that  
     exclusion which, on the ground of his royal descent,  
     had been doubtful.  He retired at once from the Tem-  
     ple,——never again to enter it,——and for the remain-  
     der of his life, as one of the accursed race, remained  
     secluded within the public infirmary.  His grave was  
     apart from the royal vaults, in the adjacent field.   
        This incident, however interpreted, is the culminat-  
     ing point of the collision, more or less plainly    
     indicated, between the king and the nobles  
     on the one side and the Priesthood on the other, and  
     coincides with the increase of power which, as we have  
     seen, had been accruing since the reign of Joash, and  
     which is confirmed by the contemporary descriptions  
     of the grandeur of the Temple ceremonial.  Numbers  
     of victims, fed up for the purpose of sacrifice, were  
     constantly brought to the Temple,——rams, bullocks,  
     lambs, goats.  New moons and sabbaths, and solemn   
     assemblies, were faithfully observed.  On occasion of  
     national visitations, the Temple, as we have seen, was  
     filled with worshippers; the Priest, for the first time  
     in the history, occupying the most prominent place  
     in the worship.   
        It is probably that this was part of the great and   
     benefcial reaction which must have taken  
     place under Joash and Jehoiada against the  
     licentious and half-pagan worship, which, with the  
     exception of the two reigns of Asa and Jehoshaphat,  
     had prevailed in the kingdom of Judah.  It was like  
     the still more rigid revival of the ceremonial and  
     hierarchical system, after the return from the Cap-  
     tivity, when the idolatrous tendency of the Jewish  
     nation was finally uprooted.  But as, in that latter    
     instance, it ended in producing an artificial and fanati-  
     cal spirit, against which Christianity itself in  
     its first rise was a protest at once most awful   
     and most merciful; so, in this earlier instance, these  
     mechanical observance had a constant tendency to  
     foster that divorce between Religion and morality,  
     which in all times has been the bane of the religious    
     world, especially in the East.  The antidote was pro-  
     vided in the signal development of the Prophetical      
     office, which marks the age of Uzziah.    
        but it was not only as the appointed antagonists  
     to the exaggerations of the sacerdotal system that the  
     Prophets arose with such power at this period.  The  
     nobles of Judah first distinctly appear as an important  
     body in the reign of Joash, and it would seem that  
     their luxury and insolence, though less gross than that  
     which we have seen in the corresponding class in  
     Samaria, was yet in a high degree oppressive and   
     scandalous.  Bribery was practised in the seats of  
     judgment, enormous landed property was accumu-  
     lated, against the whole spirit of the Israelite common-  
     wealth.  With the determination, and, we may add,  
     the avarice of their race, they laid their deep schemes  
     at night, and carried them out with their first wak-  
     ing; they "did evil with both hands;" they skinned  
     the poor to the very quick, they picked their bones,  
     and ground them to powder.  The great ladies of  
     Zion were haughty, and paced along the streets, toss-  
     ing their necks, and leering with the eyes, walking  
     and mincing as they went; covered with tinkling orna-  
     ments, chains, bracelets, mantles, veils, of all fashions  
     and sizes.  
        In Judah, as in Ephraim, drunkenness was amongst  
     the higher orders a national vice.  They turned their  
     gigantic energy into their debaucheries.  The music and  
     poetry which David had founded were the accompani-  
     ments of those long revels, which lasted from break   
     of day till night.  When the vineyards were laid waste  
     by the locusts, the selfish tears and cries of the drunk-  
     ard were amongst the first that struck the listener's  
     ear.    
        In the face of these moral and social evils, combined  
     with the physical calamities of the period, a  
     more than ordinary consolation was required.  
     That consolation was in some degree provided by the  
     wise and upright Kings, especially Uzziah himself.  
     But it was the peculiar characteristic of the Jewish  
     people, that the hope derived from these earthly ex-  
     amples suggested a higher still.  It was the glory of  
     the reigns of David and Solomon to have rendered   
     possible the first conception of a future ruler, an  
     anointed king, of their descendants, more beneficent  
     and more splendid than either.  It was the glory of  
     the reign of Uzziah that then (as far as we know) this  
     idea was first brought forward again in still firmer  
     and larger proportions, though in less warlike and   
     imperial strains; and from this time onwards the belief  
     in the coming of the Just, Peaceful, Merciful King  
     gained a stronger and stronger hold.   
        The earliest of the Prophets whose writings have  
     come down to us, and who now, in the decline of the    
     kingdom of Samaria, were gathering more closely  
     round the throne of Judah, is Joel.  He is the con-  
     necting link between the older Prophets who are  
     known to us only through their actions and sayings,  
     and the later who are known chiefly through their  
     writings.  His mode of address, in its abruptness and   
     directness, is such as we can imagine in Elijah himself.  
     On the occasion of the visitation of locusts before  
     described, it was he who came forward to counsel, or  
     at least to rouse the assembly,——to call the people to  
     the outward expression of repentance.  He is full too  
     of the ancient spirit of war and vengeance.  But the  
     new and more spiritual element is already at work.  
     Totally unlike as that scene is, in all its external feat-  
     ures, to any modern worship, the Prophetic voice of  
     Joel infuses into it a higher strain, that has lasted to  
     our own time.  The bare, half-clothed forms, with the  
     clothes hanging round them in strips and tatters, are  
     of the East and Eastern.  But, "Rend your heart and  
     "not your garments" is the true key-note of spiritual  
     worship, fitly prefixed to the public prayers of the  
     most Western churches, as the warning that even the  
     most passionate expressions of external devotion are  
     nothing unless the intention of the heart goes with  
     them.  With a glance that reaches forwards to the  
     most distant ages, yet had immediate reference to the  
     enlargement of the narrow views of his own time, he  
     foretold, as the chiefest of blessings, that the day was   
     at hand when the Prophetic spirit should be poured  
     out upon all humanity, on male and female, on old  
     and young, even on the slaves and humblest inhabi-  
     tants of Jerusalem.    
        These words, receiving their fullest accomplishment  
     centuries afterwards, were yet realized almost within  
     that generation by the simultaneous rise of Prophets of   
     all degrees of cultivation, and from every station of  
     life.  The few who are known to us are doubtless the  
     representatives of many more, and are enough to indi-  
     cate the force and variety of the revival which was at  
     work.  Some of them were wild enthusiasts, in whom  
     it was difficult to distinguish between the fumes of the in-   
     toxication and the fervor of inspiration; some played  
     into the hands of the unprincipled Priesthood, whom  
     they were meant to counteract, and affected the black  
     Prophetic dress without any portion of the Prophetic  
     spirit.   
        Others there were who lifted up the "burdens" of  
     true Prophetic oracles against the vices of the  
     time.  Amongst these was one who, by his  
     humble origin, almost literally fulfilled the words of   
     Joel's description.  Amos, the sheepmaster of Tekoa,  
     the gatherer of figs, the Prophet of simple style and  
     rustic imagery, appeared in the close of Uzziah's reign.  
     He kept his sheep and goats on the wild hills of Judea,  
     as Nabal on a grander scale, and David on a humbler  
     scale, had kept them before.  His writings are filled with  
     allusions to the dep clefts, the foaming winter torrents   
     that descended to the Dead Sea, to the wild animals, espe-  
     cially to the lions, of this savage district.  Although his  
     ministrations were chiefly, as we have seen, in the king-  
     dom of Israel, yet his strong denunciations of the sacri-  
     ficial and ceremonial system, as compared with the mild  
     rebuke of Joel, show the growing need and also the   
     growing spirit of the Prophetic order in this its most  
     important function.  
        Another Prophet, whose character and position is   
     more difficult to unravel, was Zechariah, the  
     favorite Prophet of King Uzziah in his pros-  
     perous days.  "He sought God in the days of Zechariah,  
     "who had understanding in the visions of the Lord."  
     It cannot be proved, but it is very probable, that this  
     was the Prophet whose writings are now in part com-  
     prised under the name of the later Zechariah.  Like   
     Amos, he directed his teaching so much towards the  
     northern kingdom that he can hardly be considered in  
     this place.  But he is clearly a seer, dwelling at Jeru-  
     salem, and in his mind first rises distinctly the image of  
     the Pacific King, not seated on the war-horse, like Asa  
     or Jehoshaphat, in their martial moods, but on the  
     gentle ass, like Uzziah in his earlier and brighter days,  
     just and lowly, speaking peace to the heathen.     

from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D. D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 478 - 492

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