The Uzziahs of History and the Lord
J. H. Jowett, M. A. Isaiah 6:1-13 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.… History tells us the stories of nations who have looked no further than King Uzziah, and who have been accustomed to use the temporal and earthly forces which Uzziah represents. And how has it fared with them? Ancient Phoenicia looked no further than King Uzziah. She built her national temple upon the foundation of commerce, and the only binding force among her people was the relationships of trade. Ancient Greece looked no further than King Uzziah. She raised a palatial national structure upon the foundation of literature and art, and the structure was exceeding beautiful, the wonder and admiration of all time. Ancient Rome looked no further than King Uzziah. She raised an apparently solid masonry, compact and massive, upon a political foundation, and all the stones in the building were clamped together by a tie of patriotism, such as the world has elsewhere never known. Now what has become of them — Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome! How has it fared with the nations so constituted, the houses so built? This is the record. They stood for a time, proud, august, radiant with imperial splendour, fair with the smile of fortune, and reflecting the sunny light of the prosperous day. But "the rains descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon" those nations, and they fell, and great was the fall of them! Surely that is a lesson for today, that national foundations must not be laid by Uzziah but by the Lord. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. WEB: In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple.