Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
2 Chronicles 26:16 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 16. 16But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for he transgressed against the LORD his God, and went into the temple of the LORD to burn incense upon the altar of incense.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Turns marvelous help and strength into pride, trespass, and incense intrusion.
Read It With
- 2 Chronicles 26:16–26:21
Turns marvelous help and strength into pride, trespass, and incense intrusion. Read 2 Chronicles 26:16 within 26:16–26:21. The complete unit records: When strong, Uzziah becomes proud, enters the temple to burn incense, resists eighty priests led by Azariah, develops tsara'at on his forehead, and lives separately while Jotham governs.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The Chronicler draws a firm institutional boundary between royal power and priestly service, then narrates bodily consequence. In this exact position, the line beginning “But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for…” turns marvelous help and strength into pride, trespass, and incense intrusion.
Follow the Context
- When strong, Uzziah becomes proud, enters the temple to burn incense, resists eighty priests led by Azariah, develops tsara'at on his forehead, and lives separately while Jotham governs.
- The Chronicler draws a firm institutional boundary between royal power and priestly service, then narrates bodily consequence.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for…”
In plain language: Turns marvelous help and strength into pride, trespass, and incense intrusion.
The line beginning “But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for…” turns marvelous help and strength into pride, trespass, and incense intrusion.
Why it matters: The wording carries a material literary, historical, temple, royal-power, violence, ethnic, illness, gender, exile, reception, or misuse boundary.
How certain? probableWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
The passage does not make skin disease proof of sin, justify disability stigma or isolation today, condemn medical care, or give clergy unaccountable power.
What Remains True
Turns marvelous help and strength into pride, trespass, and incense intrusion. This concrete detail supports a bounded truth: Faithful memory tells the truth about worship and power together: it preserves covenant hope while naming labor, victims, institutional limits, human agency, and uncertainty.
How It Can Shape Life
- Because this verse turns marvelous help and strength into pride, trespass, and incense intrusion, keep it inside 26:16–26:21, compare its Samuel-Kings relationship honestly, protect affected people from coercion or stigma, and apply only the accountable principle the complete unit supports.
Teach It Back
Explain why 2 Chronicles 26:16 turns marvelous help and strength into pride, trespass, and incense intrusion. Use 26:16–26:21, paraphrase “But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for…,” state one source or reconstruction limit, identify one person or group power can obscure, and reject one conclusion this verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read 2 Chronicles 26:16–26:21 — Uzziah trespasses at the incense altar and develops a skin diseaseSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
2 Chronicles 26:16 remains within this thought-unit limit: The text explicitly links trespass and tsara'at in this case; the ancient category is broader than Hansen's disease and cannot be generalized or clinically reconstructed.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: 2 Chronicles 26:16–26:21, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 2 Chronicles
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, clauses, regnal formulas, temple vocabulary, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Chr.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 26:16–26:21
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible Full Notes: 2 Chronicles
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press; STEP Bible presentation, 2019 edition; current web presentation
Supports: Unit-bounded translation comparisons and only those lexical, textual, grammatical, numerical, historical, and parallel-passage notes attached to these verses.
Exact location: STEP Bible NET2full, 2 Chronicles 26:16–26:21, verse-attached translation and translator notes
Open source ↗