20. the Lord had smitten him] So 2 Kings xv. 5.
21–23 (= 2 Kings xv. 5–7).
The End of Uzziah.
²¹And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a several house[¹], being a leper; for he was cut off from the house of the Lord: and Jotham his son was over the king’s house, judging the people of the land.
[¹] Or, lazar house.
21. a several house] i.e. separate, special; compare Numbers xxviii. 13; Matthew xxv. 15. The same Hebrew word is used in Psalms lxxxviii. 5, “free (Revised Version ‘cast off’) among the dead.”
cut off] The same Hebrew word is translated in the same way in Isaiah liii. 8.
²²Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, did Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, write.
22. did Isaiah ... write] This statement is not in Kings. Uzziah is mentioned in Isaiah vi. 1, and this fact may be all that lies behind the present statement. It is utterly improbable that the reference is to some writing of Isaiah which has not been preserved. Possibly some section of the midrashic Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel is meant, presuming that such a work was known to the Chronicler actually or by tradition (see Introduction § 5, pp. [xxxii], xxxvi).
²³So Uzziah slept with his fathers; and they buried him with his fathers in the field of burial which belonged to the kings; for they said, He is a leper: and Jotham his son reigned in his stead.
23. the field of burial] i.e. not actually in the tombs of the kings, lest they should be defiled, but in ground adjoining the royal tombs. Kings has simply “in the city of David.” Compare xxi. 20, xxiv. 25, xxviii. 27.