2 Kings 15:1-7
"15 In the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Azariah the son of Amaziah, king of Judah, began to reign. 2 He was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jecoliah of Jerusalem. 3 And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. 4 Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places. 5 And the Lord touched the king, so that he was a leper to the day of his death, and he lived in a separate house. And Jotham the king's son was over the household, governing the people of the land. 6 Now the rest of the acts of Azariah, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? 7 And Azariah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David, and Jotham his son reigned in his place."
Seven brief verses cover the fifty-two long years of Azariah's reign (better known as Uzziah). He was another of the good kings of Judah, although his good is passed over in this record of judgment and doom. We need to turn to 2 Chronicles 26 both to gather some idea of how much he did for the well-being of his kingdom and also for the reason why God smote him with leprosy. In 2 Chronicles 26:16 we read the fateful words, 'But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction.' Ah, was not this the downfall of his father Amaziah, (1 Kings 14:10, 11). Like father, like son. But the son went further than the father, for he trespassed into the priestly office, committing blasphemous sin, and when he showed anger at the remonstrance’s of the priests, he was stricken even in the moment of his arrogance by the hand of the Lord. It is almost terrifying to see how, after years of faithfulness in the things of God, a man can be so disastrously seduced into such blasphemous arrogance as this. And notice, Chronicles states that it was 'when he was strong' that the tragedy took place - when he was at the height of his powers, when he had made a name for himself. Ah, this is not the sin of weaklings or failures, but of those who have got on spiritually, and there is much of the specifically demonic in it that we do well to discern. Well might the apostle warn us, 'let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall!