Lives of Scripture

Jotham, son of Uzziah and Jerusha, governed Judah as regent while his father lived isolated with leprosy after Uzziah's unlawful attempt to burn incense in the temple (2 Kings 15:5; 2 Chronicles 26:16-21). At twenty-five, Jotham became king in his own right and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, doing "right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Uzziah had done" (2 Kings 15:32-34). He built the upper gate of the temple, did extensive construction on the wall of Ophel, and built cities in the hill country of Judah along with forts and towers in the forests (2 Chronicles 27:3-4). He made war against the king of the Ammonites and prevailed, and for three years the Ammonites paid him a heavy annual tribute of silver, wheat, and barley (27:5). Scripture credits his strength directly to his obedience: "he ordered his ways before the LORD his God" (27:6). Yet the record is not uncritical -- "the people continued acting corruptly," and, as under his father, the high places used for unauthorized worship were not removed (2 Kings 15:35). His reign overlaps the ministries of the prophets Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah, and he appears in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus as an ancestor of the Messiah (Matthew 1:9).