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2 Kings 15 · a question people ask

Why did the LORD strike Azariah with leprosy?

In the text

2 Kings doesn't say. It says that he "did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes" (15:3), that "the high places were not taken away" (15:4), and then, "The LORD struck the king, so that he was a leper to the day of his death" (15:5). It doesn't join the leprosy to the high places or to anything else. 2 Chronicles tells more, in its own account, where the king is called Uzziah. It says, "But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up, so that he did corruptly and he trespassed against the LORD his God, for he went into the LORD’s temple to burn incense on the altar of incense" (2 Chronicles 26:16). The priests told him, "It isn’t for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but for the priests the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense" (2 Chronicles 26:18). "Then Uzziah was angry" (2 Chronicles 26:19), and "the leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests in the LORD’s house" (2 Chronicles 26:19), "because the LORD had struck him" (2 Chronicles 26:20). Kings doesn't tell these things; the two accounts are set side by side here, and nothing more is added.

The verses

“He did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. However, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burned incense in the high places. The LORD struck the king, so that he was a leper to the day of his death, and lived in a separate house. Jotham, the king’s son, was over the household, judging the people of the land.”
2 Kings 15:3-5 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 2 Kings 15

2 Kings 15: So it came to pass

2 Kings 15 calls one king of Judah both Azariah and Uzziah, and Matthew's genealogy of Jesus uses Uzziah: "Uzziah became the father of Jotham" (Matthew 1:9). Of the five kings of Israel whose reigns it tells, four are killed by the man who reigns after them, the LORD's word to Jehu is kept, "So it came to pass" (15:12), and the king of Assyria first comes into Kings.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions