A Tale of Two 'Ziahs: a Humble Pie Update

Admitting a big error in my recent article

Hello, friends. This is an unusual email update that I hope you won’t be receiving from me on a regular basis. A couple of days ago I released an article wherein I unpacked King Azariah’s reign in 2 Kings 15:1–7. In the article, I wrote on how the Lord gave Azariah leprosy, but I highlighted that there is no record of compromise in the narrative. To my knowledge at the time, I thought I was faithfully finding an application from the text, noting how Azariah appears to be living out a “count your trials as joys” kind of faith.

What I failed to realize when I wrote the article is that King Azariah is the same person as King Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26. That chapter provides much more detail on the life of Azariah. It confirms his record as a mostly good king who did what was right in the eyes of the Lord (2 Chron 26:4), but it also reveals that Azariah grew prideful. In fact, Azariah’s leprosy was a clear act of discipline from the Lord in response to Azariah’s pride (2 Chron 26:20).

This obviously changes my reading of 2 Kings 15:1–7. I should have checked the cross-reference knowing that sometimes 1 and 2 Chronicles will fill in information that 1 and 2 Kings do not, and vice versa. Azariah did reign for a historically long time. And he is recorded as a king who did right in the eyes of the Lord (by both 2 Kings 15 and 2 Chronicles 26). But because of 2 Chronicles 26, my application of the text was wrong. Azariah is not an embodiment of James 1:2–3. He ends up, sadly, being an embodiment of James 4:6b - “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Because I love and respect God’s Word, I wanted to get this correction out to as many people who read the article as possible. Hence, this email. I apologize for not being more careful in my application of the Scripture and will strive to be more careful in the future. Tonight’s realization was a meal of humble pie for me. I’ll be removing the article.

“But he gives more grace…” - James 4:6a

In Christ,

Zak