The bones of Uzziah, King of Judah, rest here ... Do not open!" Found in 1963, Mount of Olives.
Isaiah 63:15-19
15 Look down from heaven and see from your lofty throne, holy and glorious. Where are your zeal and your might? Your tenderness and compassion are withheld from us.
16 But you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us or Israel acknowledge us; you, O LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.
17 Why, O LORD, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts so we do not revere you? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes that are your inheritance.
18 For a little while your people possessed your holy place, but now our enemies have trampled down your sanctuary.
19 We are yours from of old; but you have not ruled over them, they have not been called by your name.
Uzziah of Judah (עוזיהו), was the king of the ancient Kingdom of Judah, and one of Amaziah's sons, whom the people appointed to replace his father (2 Kings 14:21; 2 Chronicles 26:1). He is one of the kings mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew.
His long reign of about fifty-two years was "the most prosperous excepting that of Jehoshaphat since the time of Solomon." He was a vigorous and able ruler, and "his name spread abroad, even to the entering in of Egypt" (2 Chr. 26:8, 14). In the earlier part of his reign, under the influence of Zechariah, he was faithful to Yahweh, and "did that which was right in the sight of the Lord" (2 Kings 15:3; 2 Chr. 26:4, 5); but toward the close of his long life "his heart was lifted up to his destruction," and he wantonly invaded the priest's office (2 Chr. 26:16), and entering the sanctuary proceeded to offer incense on the golden altar.
Azariah the High Priest saw the tendency of such a daring act on the part of the king, and with a band of eighty priests he withstood him (2 Chr. 26:17), saying, "It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense." Uzziah was suddenly struck with tzaraas (leprosy) while in the act of offering incense (26:19-21), and he was driven from the Temple and compelled to reside in "a several house" to the day of his death (2 Kings 15:5, 27; 2 Chr. 26:3).
He was buried in a separate grave "in the field of the burial which belonged to the kings" (2 Kings 15:7; 2 Chr. 26:23). "That lonely grave in the royal necropolis would eloquently testify to coming generations that all earthly monarchy must bow before the inviolable order of the divine will, and that no interference could be tolerated with that unfolding of the purposes of God... (Dr. Green's Kingdom of Israel).
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