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Journey of a Passage

2 Chronicles 26:16–21 and 2 Kings 15:5

Why was Uzziah struck?

2 Kings 15:5 says only that the LORD struck the king and he was a leper until his death. Chronicles explains: he entered the temple to burn incense and was struck while raging at the priests.

Read 2 Chronicles 26:16–21 and 2 Kings 15:5 in every edition

Disputed addition: some witnesses include it, some do not

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ includes the disputed words · ✕ does not include them · ❝ quotes part of them · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. 2 Kings 15:5 (parallel account, Masoretic Text)Kings
  2. Original ChroniclesComposed c. 4th century BC (debated)
  3. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from Original Chronicles
Greek
  1. Septuagint, 2 Paraleipomena (library text: Giguet's French)Translated c. 2nd century BCTranslated from a Hebrew text of Chronicles
Latin
    English
    1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    Every witness, in order

    1. Kings

      2 Kings 15:5 (parallel account, Masoretic Text)

      ✕ Passage not in this witness (the disputed words)

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex, quoted here in English.

      And the LORD smote the king, so that he was a leper unto the day of his death

      No reason given.

    2. Composed c. 4th century BC (debated)

      Original Chronicles

      – No copy survives

      No original survives.

    3. Translated c. 2nd century BC

      Septuagint, 2 Paraleipomena (library text: Giguet's French)

      ✓ Contains this passage (the disputed words)Translated from a Hebrew text of Chronicles

      How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

      Le roi Ozias resta lépreux jusqu'au jour de sa mort

      One Greek text (Vaticanus type) via Giguet's French; not checked against a critical Greek edition.

    4. AD 1008

      Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

      ✓ Contains this passage (the disputed words)Descends, through lost copies, from Original Chronicles

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

      וַיָּבֹא אֶל־הֵיכַל יְהוָה לְהַקְטִיר עַל־מִזְבַּח הַקְּטֹרֶת (26:16)

      and he entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense

    5. 1611

      King James Bible

      ✓ Contains this passage (the disputed words)Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

      went into the temple of the LORD to burn incense upon the altar of incense

    What changed, and why

    Josephus (Antiquities 9.222–227) adds an earthquake, which some connect with the earthquake "in the days of Uzziah" (Amos 1:1; Zechariah 14:5). Tsara'at is not modern leprosy.

    What the evidence shows

    • Independently documentedOnly Chronicles gives the reason for Uzziah's disease.

    Sources

      Related lessons

      • Uzziah's Prosperity and Skin Disease →Uzziah seeks God in the days of Zechariah, who instructs him, and prospers: he defeats the Philistines, Arabs and Meunim, builds towers and cisterns, loves farming, and equips his army with engines for shooting arrows and stones. Proud, he enters the temple to burn incense. The priest Azariah and eighty priests resist him; skin disease breaks out on his forehead, and he lives isolated until his death.