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Isaiah’s vision of God happened in the year that King Uzziah died (Isaiah 6:1). Now, this important because of what Uzziah did for the people and what his death meant for the people. Uzziah’s name means “the LORD is my strength.” He began to reign when he was 16 around the year 792 BC. The kingdom experienced great financial growth and many great cities were built. He fortified Jerusalem with walls for protection. Even though he was described as having done “what was right in the eyes of the LORD,” he also sinned. He tried to offer worship he was not authorized to make and was stricken with leprosy.

Like Solomon and David before him, Uzziah was a flawed man who reigned during a time of God’s blessing. The people would have loved Uzziah for the prosperity during these days. So when he died, it would have left the people wondering what would happen next.

We can look at this brief detail of Uzziah’s death and make a note in our Bibles that this was an anxious time. All the successes of the past were up in the air. Would the good times continue? Or would they begin a downward spiral?

This anxiety they experienced is common among us all when we place our confidence in people, prosperity and ourselves. Psalm 52:7 tells us to “See the man who would not make God his refuge but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction!” If we trust in ourselves or in our power, we will fall. God warned against the urge to succumb to idolatry. He said, “They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land. And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you” (Deut. 28:52). We should be those who “Commit your way to the LORD; trust him and he will act” (Psalm 37:5).

Hezekiah is a great example of a king who lived by faith in God and not himself. The Bible says:

He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. ⁶ For he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him but kept the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses. ⁷ And the Lord was with him; wherever he went out, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him. ⁸ He struck down the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.^[1]

The key to his success was to trust in God’s glorious might and not his own frailty.

Do you trust in God? Are you leaning on the everlasting arms or depending on your own?

^[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 2 Ki 18:5–8.