Rightly to apprehend Uzziah's sin we must remember through what barriers he had to break before he could resolve to do this thing. He had to disregard the direct command of Jehovah that the priests alone should burn incense on His altar; he had to despise the history of his people, to defy the holy name by which he himself was called. Therefore it was because his rebellion was so great, his defiance of his convictions and of his God so flagrant, that the Lord smote him; and he bore till death the mark of the curse that fell on him for his impiety.
I. We see here prosperity and pride. Mere worldly prosperity is often the prelude to daring impiety. Uzziah was a good king, but he was a bad priest; he was not the priest whom God had chosen. Statecraft and policy have no claim to spiritual direction. The spirit of the Gospel is not that of the successful worldling, but that of the little child of the kingdom.
II. We see here pride and punishment. It is part of God's order of nature that bodily pains should often reveal and rebuke the workings of an ungodly soul. The solemn truth that pride and passion are destroyers of man, the remembrance of those who have been destroyed by them, are admonitions to us. "Verily He is a God that judgeth in the earth."
III. Punishment and shame. Hope concerning Uzziah is given in the record of his hasting to go out of the Temple. His proud heart was broken; he was smitten with shame. A man is not altogether lost while he can feel shame. God quickens the "sorrow of the world, which worketh death," into "godly sorrow, working repentance to salvation, not to be repented of."
A. Mackennal, Christ's Healing Touch,p. 16.