XV.
(1-7) THE REIGN OF AZARIAH (Uzziah), KING OF JUDAH. (Comp. 2 Chronicles 26)
(1) In the twenty and seventh year of Jeroboam. — An error of transcription for the fifteenth year (שץ 15, מ, 27). The error is clear from 2 Kings 14:2; 2 Kings 14:17; 2 Kings 14:23. Amaziah reigned twenty-nine years (2 Kings 14:2), fourteen concurrently with Joash, and fifteen with Jeroboam. It was, therefore, in the fifteenth of Jeroboam that Uzziah succeeded his father.
Azariah. — An Azriyâhu (.Az-ri-ya-a-u), king of Judah, is mentioned in two fragmentary inscriptions of Tiglath Pileser II. (B.C. 745-727). The most important statement runs: “19 districts of the city of Hamath (Hammatti) with the cities of their circuit, on the coast of the sea of the setting of the sun (i.e., the Mediterranean), which in their transgression had revolted to Azariah, to the border of Assyria I restored, my prefects my governors over them I appointed.” The Eponym list records a three years’ campaign of Tiglath Pileser against the Syrian state of Arpad in B.C. 742-740. Schrader supposes that Azariah and Hamath were concerned in this campaign. (This conflicts with the ordinary chronology, which fixes 758 B.C. as the year of Azariah’s death.)