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Ucal   See Ukal.

Uel   A descendant of Bani (Binnui in Neh. 7:15) and a priest during postexilic times. His family returned from exile with Zerubbabel (Ezra 2:10). Listed by Ezra as one guilty of marrying a foreign wife (Ezra 10:34).

Ugarit   In 1928 a Syrian peasant farmer stumbled by chance onto a funerary vault of ancient provenance about half a mile from the Mediterranean coastline of Syria and about six miles north of the modern-day city of Latakia. This unforeseen discovery led to an archaeological excavation of Tell Ras Shamra (Cape Fennel) by the eminent French excavator Claude Schaeffer. What Schaeffer’s team unearthed was not merely an ancient tomb, but a city complete with palaces, private homes, temples, and streets paved with stone.

Within the first year of excavation, the ruins of Ugarit yielded a cache of clay tablets bearing a cuneiform script in a language hitherto unknown. From these mysterious texts scholars deciphered an alphabetic script written in a West Semitic language related to Canaanite, Arabic, and biblical Hebrew.

THE KINGDOM OF UGARIT

The site of the ancient city of Ugarit, Tell Ras Shamra, is enclosed by two small rivers that flow westward into the Mediterranean Sea. The presence of water ensured the fertility of the surrounding plain; thus a good crop of cereals, grapes, and olives was available to supplement the fishing industry as a local supply of food. The kingdom encompassed about twelve hundred square miles, bounded by the natural geography of the region. To the west of the site lies the Mediterranean, with a port that supplied an important route for international trade. To the south, the east, and the north are mountain ranges, including Mount Zaphon, whose majesty is recorded in Isa. 14:13. Indeed, the name “Zaphon” becomes simply a general word for “north” in biblical Hebrew.

The site of Tell Ras Shamra was occupied as far back as Neolithic times (seventh millennium BC), yet the kingdom of Ugarit properly dates to the second millennium BC. The time of Ugarit’s greatest flourishing was the period just prior to its destruction: from the fourteenth to the twelfth centuries BC, during the Late Bronze Age. The prosperity of the kingdom reached its height during this period. Ugarit’s coastal access and strategic location as a central hub within the matrix of Late Bronze Age superpowers made Ugarit an important focal point for international trade routes, both maritime and overland. Late Bronze Age Ugaritic society was diverse and cosmopolitan, a feature perhaps best epitomized by its scribal training center, in which tablets bearing inscriptions in several different languages have been discovered.

Around 1200 BC, in approximately the same time frame as the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, Ugarit met an untimely demise. (Note that some biblical scholars date the exodus from Egypt during the fifteenth century BC rather than the thirteenth.) Royal documents from the Egyptian and Hittite kingdoms, as well as one from Ugarit, record a concern over a group of invaders known as the Sea Peoples. The Sea Peoples likely originated in the northwest, leaving their mark on the coasts of Turkey, Cyprus, and the Levant. The descendants of the invading Sea Peoples remained on the coast of Palestine, and the biblical text refers to them as the Philistines. The destruction of Ugarit is attributed to these invaders from the sea. The archaeological remains of Tell Ras Shamra show that many homes were abandoned as invaders set the city on fire. Ugarit burned to the ground sometime between 1190 and 1185 BC.

Archaeological remains of the palace at Ugarit (fourteenth–thirteenth century BC)

THE TEXTS OF UGARIT

More than fifteen hundred Ugaritic texts have been discovered since excavations began at Tell Ras Shamra. The texts are written on tablets with wedgelike markings impressed into the clay by scribes using a triangular-shaped reed stylus. The majority of the texts of Ugarit were found in and around the remains of the royal palace grounds and temples, but some were found in the homes of high-ranking palace administrators and businessmen. The subject matter of these texts is diverse, and the various genres of written material from Ugarit include official letters, administrative and economic texts, scribal training texts, and religious and literary texts. The cosmopolitan character of Ugarit is also reflected in its texts. Among the various tablets discovered, many were written in Akkadian, which was the lingua franca of the Late Bronze Age in this region. Still other texts were written in various ancient Near Eastern languages; Hurrian, Hittite, and Cypro-Minoan, and Egyptian hieroglyphs were found inscribed into some artifacts, as well as upon cylinder seals.

Letters. The letter documents of Ugarit are formal in style with scripted introductions and closings, like most royal letters from the ancient Near East. Two notable examples may be pointed out. The first is a letter from the king of Tyre in Phoenicia (for Iron Age references to the city of Tyre, see Josh. 19:29; 2 Sam. 5:11; Ezek. 28) to the king of Ugarit. The occasion of the letter is the shipwreck of a Ugaritic trade vessel bound for Egypt that crashed on the coastline of Phoenicia after a violent storm. The king of Tyre writes that none of the ship’s crew survived, and its cargo was lost at sea. A second epistolary example is a letter written by the king of Carchemish in the Hittite Empire (see Isa. 10:9; Jer. 46:2) to the last king of Ugarit, Ammurapi. The occasion of this epistle is the Hittite king’s perceived mistreatment of his daughter who was married to Ammurapi. The letter suggests an impending divorce between the royal couple, detailing the division of their joint property.

Administrative and economic texts. The royal palace and temples provided the driving engine of Ugarit’s economy. Many discovered texts shed light upon the kinds of goods and activities that comprised local and international trade. Examples of administrative texts include lists of various towns within the kingdom of Ugarit, tributes that such towns paid to the king in the form of goods or labor service, lists of temple personnel with accompanying salaries, and details of distributed goods to those in royal service. Examples of economic texts include purchase receipts and bills of lading from maritime trade for products such as wool, grains, olives, milk, and metal ore.

Scribal training texts. Among the rich archives of texts at Ugarit, more than one hundred tablets bear witness to scribal training activities scattered throughout the city grounds. Scribes were universally employed by royal empires during the Late Bronze Age, but the sheer number of texts (thousands) found at Ugarit is unusual for a relatively small excavation site. Archives of texts were found in groups throughout the city, and in many of these archives excavators found tablets of special interest, called “abecedaries.” An abecedary is a tablet on which the cuneiform alphabet is written. The Ugaritic alphabet contained thirty signs in roughly the same order as the Hebrew alphabet, largely the same in content as the English alphabet. In addition to Ugaritic abecedaries, a Ugaritic-Akkadian abecedary was found in which equivalent phonetic values are given from the Ugaritic alphabet into Akkadian signs. Lexicons, or word lists, also were discovered, listing words from various ancient Near Eastern languages. Indeed, some of the tablets found in the archives are clearly practice tablets used to train scribes: these tablets display clear signs written by a scribal teacher at the top of the tablet, with the less skilled markings of the apprentice scribe written below. Thus, it is likely that Ugarit served as a training center for scribes from all over the ancient Near East, as well as its own.

Religious texts. Two large temples dominate the northern acropolis region of Ugarit: the temple of Baal, the god of fertility, and the temple of Dagon, the god of grain. Mythology was the vehicle of religious expression in the ancient Near East. Stories about the gods communicated something of the gods’ purposes and realms of authority. In the mythological literature of Ugarit, the pantheon of gods dwelt on Mount Zaphon, and from the dwelling place of El, the high god, rivers of life-giving water flowed. The name “El” was shared among Semitic languages and religions throughout the ancient Near East, including the OT. The name “El” in the Bible can refer either to a foreign god (e.g., Deut. 3:24: “What god [’el] is there in heaven or on earth who can do the deeds and mighty works you do?”) or to the God of Israel (e.g., Gen. 49:25; Deut. 7:9; Ps. 68:19–20). In the pantheon of Ugarit, El’s female consort was the goddess Asherah (1 Kings 18:19; Judg. 3:7).

El, however, was a more distant god in the religion of Ugarit, and the city’s patron god was Baal, the storm god. Baal was associated with fertile fields, abundant crops, and the birth of sons and daughters. The goddess Anat is sometimes described as Baal’s consort, and at other times as Baal’s sister. Anat is the goddess of war, and the epic mythological literature of Ugarit portrays her warfare in rather graphic and gruesome detail. Some scholars claim that Prov. 7:22–23 alludes to Anat’s warfare in the portrayal of the adulterous woman.

Some of the same epithets and accomplishments of Baal found in the religious texts of Ugarit are also attributed to Yahweh in the OT. For example, Baal is called the “Rider of the Clouds” in Ugaritic literature, and a similar description of Yahweh is found in Pss. 68:4 (“Extol him who rides on the clouds”) and 104:3 (“He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind”). This likely reflects a common ancient Near Eastern concern over the regularity of rain for producing crops, as well as a biblical assertion that Yahweh is superior to Canaanite deities, such as Baal, who claim authority over the forces of nature. Indeed, the OT mocks the impotence of the Canaanite deity Baal to wield power over the forces of nature in narratives such as Elijah versus the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:16–45).

Baal is also portrayed in the religious literature of Ugarit as the god who conquered the rival gods Sea (Yam) and Death (Motu). The OT gives similar portrayals of Israel’s God in texts such as Gen. 1:2; Isa. 25:7–8. In Gen. 1:2 God’s Spirit “was hovering over the waters,” “the deep,” or the primordial waters from which God brings to life the created world and all of nature (cf. Job 38:8–11). In Isa. 25:7–8 Yahweh is portrayed as more powerful than death in a text of praise that extols his power by saying that “he will swallow up death forever.” Again the biblical texts rely upon a stock set of religious symbols, language, and imagery common to ancient Near Eastern peoples to portray Yahweh, the all-powerful, one God of Israel.

CONCLUSION

The discovery of Ugarit was an earthshaking event for biblical studies. Scholars have only begun to garner the gems of knowledge hidden within the remains of this lost civilization. The study of the Ugaritic language is invaluable for better understanding biblical Hebrew. Ugaritic sheds light particularly upon rare words and phrases used in the biblical text, as well as upon literary devices and poetic structure, such as parallelism and meter. Furthermore, the study of Ugarit’s religion illuminates the backdrop of Canaanite worship, against which is set the worship of Yahweh in the OT. Ugarit provides for us a snapshot of Late Bronze Age Canaan, the crucible of ancient Near Eastern culture from which the Hebrew Bible was birthed.

Ukal   “Ukal” is found only in Prov. 30:1: “This man says to Ithiel, to Ithiel and to Ukal” (NET; see NIV mg.). Although many translations (NET, NASB, NKJV, KJV) treat “Ukal” (also spelled “Ucal”) as a personal name, it may be a form of the verb “to be able,” as in the NIV: “I am weary, God, but I can prevail” (see also NRSV).

Ulai   A river or canal near the Persian capital of Susa where Daniel witnessed the revelation of the ram and the goat (Dan. 8:2, 16).

Ulam   (1) A son of Peresh and the father of Bedan, of the tribe of Manasseh (1 Chron. 7:16–17; GW, NCV identify his father as Peresh’s brother, Sheresh; in the Hebrew and many English versions the text is ambiguous). (2) The firstborn son of Eshek, descendant from Mephibosheth, his sons were “brave warriors who could handle the bow” (1 Chron. 8:39–40).

Ulla   A descendant of Asher and the father of Arah, Hanniel, and Rizia, three of the “choice men, brave warriors and outstanding leaders” (1 Chron. 7:39–40).

Ummah   A town allocated to the tribe of Asher (Josh. 19:30). Many scholars understand “Ummah” to be a corruption of “Akko,” a town in Asher’s territory and absent from this list. Otherwise no location is known.

Uncircumcised   See Circumcision.

Unction   See Anoint, Anointed.

Undefiled   See Clean, Cleanness.

Unicorn   The KJV translates as “unicorn” the Hebrew word re’em, referring to a “wild ox” (NIV). The KJV was following the Vulgate’s Latin word unicornis (Pss. 22:21; 29:6; 92:10; Isa. 34:7; cf. Lat. rinoceros in Num. 23:22; 24:8; Deut. 33:17; Job 39:9–10) and the LXX’s monokerōs. Legends about this fantastic animal flourished in the Middle Ages.

Unity   The idea of unity has always been significant for God’s people and their relatedness to one another. In the OT, unity centered on the covenant and on Yahweh, who is the heart of the covenant. In 2 Chron. 30:12 the hand of God was on the people to give them unity to carry out the tasks that had been ordered by the king at God’s command. In Ps. 133:1 the psalmist notes the goodness of the unity of the extended family, no doubt also to be extended to the unity of God’s people, Israel.

In the NT, unity centers on Jesus Christ, who is the heart of the new covenant. John emphasizes this unity as he records the teaching of Jesus on the relationship of the Father and the Son (John 14). The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father. In John 16 Jesus notes that this is the standard by which oneness is to be compared; the disciples are to be one, just as the Father and the Son are one. There will also be oneness between the triune God and his people as the Holy Spirit comes to reside in the disciples. Unity and its various outcomes are the subject of Jesus’ final prayer in the garden (John 17).

In Acts 1 Luke notes that the disciples were unified after the resurrection and ascension as they worshiped and prayed together in the upper room (v. 14 NASB, NET: “with one mind” [homothymadon]). Luke uses the same word in Acts 2:46 when he notes the same unity for the early church as they gathered for the sake of worship and praise to God in the temple (cf. 4:24 [unison prayer for power from God]; 5:12 [meeting together at Solomon’s Colonnade]; 15:25 [unanimity in a decision to send representatives to Antioch]). Indeed, the story of the beginning of the early church is the story of the fulfillment of Christ’s command to be unified. It is sometimes supposed, probably correctly, that the apostles from Jerusalem went to the Samaritan church to lay on hands for the bestowal of the Spirit in order that the long-standing Jewish-Samaritan rift might not destroy the unity of the growing body (see Acts 8:14–17).

In Eph. 4:3 Paul commands the believers to be zealous to keep their unity based in the Spirit as they are bound together by the peace that Christ gives. Later, in 4:13, Paul notes that God has given gifted people to the body of Christ so that the believers may be trained for the ministry of building up that body. This has its goal in the unity of believers and maturity of the faith in the knowledge of Christ—so that the body might be like him. So the unity of believers here is linked to the ubiquitous NT goal of Christlikeness. This also entails rejecting false teaching (4:14).

Unleavened Bread   Any type of bread made without a leavening agent to make it rise. It developed symbolic value after the exodus (Exod. 12:17–20). Leaven became a symbol of sin and was removed from homes during feasts as a physical reminder of the need to remove sin from one’s life. Unleavened bread was also the only acceptable form of bread to be offered as a sacrifice or placed in the tabernacle (Exod. 25:30; Lev. 6:17). See also Leaven.

Unni   (1) A Levite musician and gatekeeper at the time of David appointed to play the harp “according to alamoth” (cf. Ps. 46 superscription), perhaps a tuning, melody, or style (1 Chron. 15:18, 21). (2) A Levite singer who returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel. He “stood opposite” the singers of thanksgiving, perhaps indicating that he sang responsively (Neh. 12:9). “Unni” is a scribal emendation (Qere) of the name that is written (Kethib) in the MT, “Unno” (NRSV).

Unno   See Unni.

Unpardonable Sin   See Sin, Unpardonable.

Unplowed Ground   See Fallow Ground.

Upharsin   See Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin.

Uphaz   A region well known for its gold (Dan. 10:5 [KJV, NRSV, NASB]; Jer. 10:9), though its location remains uncertain. Some scholars believe that “Uphaz” is a misspelling of “Ophir,” a famous gold-bearing region. See also Ophir.

Upper Gate   One of the gates of the temple in Jerusalem. The KJV calls it the High Gate. It apparently was also called the Upper Gate of Benjamin (Jer. 20:2). Its location is uncertain, but it apparently faced north (Ezek. 9:2). Second Chronicles 27:3 and 2 Kings 15:35 identify it with a gate of the temple that Jotham rebuilt, but 2 Chronicles 23:20 suggests it (or a similarly named gate) led into the king’s palace.

Upper Room   A room on an upper story or roof of a building. King Ahaziah’s fall through the lattice of an upper room caused his death (2 Kings 1:2). Jesus instructed his disciples to prepare their final meal together in an upper room (Mark 14:15; Luke 22:12). Tradition holds that the disciples met to pray in this room after Jesus’ ascension (Acts 1:13). Widows grieved over Dorcas in an upper room until Peter’s prayer restored her life (Acts 9:39). Paul revived Eutychus, who had died after dozing off and falling from an upper room to the ground (Acts 20:8–12).

Ur   (1) An ancient Sumerian city that can be identified with modern Tell Muqayyar near the Euphrates River in modern-day Iraq. The site was excavated in the early twentieth century, revealing a long history reaching back to the earliest period of southern Mesopotamian civilization (c. 5000 BC) and stretching to around the third century BC. The most impressive archaeological remains date to the third millennium BC and feature royal tombs (c. 2600–2500 BC) that contained multiple royal treasures including jewelry, gold weapons, and musical instruments, and also a ziggurat (c. 2154–2004 BC). After 2004 BC Ur fell under the control of various external powers and never achieved political independence again.

The four biblical references to Ur mention it as the place of origin of Abraham’s family (Gen. 11:28, 31; 15:7; Neh. 9:7). Genesis 11:31–12:9 describes Abraham’s journey from “Ur of the Chaldeans” northwest to Harran and then south into Canaan. The name “Ur of the Chaldeans” for the city at the time of Abraham (Middle Bronze Age [2000–1550 BC]) is most likely an anachronism, since the Chaldeans did not arise as a recognizable group until the ninth century BC.

(2) The father of Eliphal, one of David’s mighty warriors (1 Chron. 11:35).

Partially reconstructed ziggurat at Ur

Urbanus   A prominent Christian in Rome. He was a coworker with Paul and the Christians in Rome in the work of Christ (Rom. 16:9). Some have claimed that Urbanus was a freed slave, since “Urbanus” was a common slave name. This is debated, however, and the epigraphic evidence for Urbanus as a slave name is not conclusive.

Uri   (1) Of the tribe of Judah, he was the son of Hur and the father of Bezalel, the divinely gifted craftsman directed by Moses (Exod. 31:2; 35:30; 38:22; 1 Chron. 2:20; 2 Chron. 1:5). (2) The father of Geber, a Gileadite (1 Kings 4:19). (3) A gatekeeper in the time of Ezra who pledged to put away his foreign wife (Ezra 10:24).

Uriah   (1) The ill-fated husband of Bathsheba, with whom David had an illicit affair. His designation as “the Hittite” implies an ethnic tie to the Anatolian Hittite Empire, in modern-day Turkey. David conspired with his military leader Joab to have Uriah murdered in order to cover up the scandal of a child conceived from David’s unchecked lust for Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11; 1 Chron. 11:41). (2) A priest of Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, during the reign of Ahaz, he built a new altar in the temple in accordance with the sketch and plan of a foreign altar that Ahaz had seen in Damascus (2 Kings 16:10–16). This is likely the same Uriah referred to in Isa. 8:2–4 as one of two reliable witnesses Isaiah uses to testify to a prophetic oracle written on a tablet. (3) The son of Shemaiah from Kiriath Jearim, he joined Jeremiah in prophesying against the city of Jerusalem and the land of Judah during the reign of Jehoiakim. He was persecuted, captured, and put to death by Jehoiakim, and his body was thrown in the burial place of common people (Jer. 26:20–23). (4) One of the men who stood with Ezra when he publicly read the law to the people (Neh. 8:4). (5) Father of Meremoth, who repaired part of the wall of Jerusalem (Ezra 8:33; Neh. 3:4, 21).

Uriel   (1) A Kohathite Levite, the son of Tahath (1 Chron. 6:24). (2) The chief of the Kohathites who assisted in returning the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem (1 Chron. 15:5, 11). (3) From Gibeah, he was the father of Maakah, who was the wife of Rehoboam and the mother of Abijah (2 Chron. 13:2).

Urijah   See Uriah.

Urim and Thummim   Objects used in the OT for determining the will of God. “Urim” traditionally is taken to mean “light,” while “Thummim” is generally connected with a word for “perfect.”

The size and shape of these objects is unknown. They may have been two disks, each with a shiny side and a dull side. They belonged in the breastpiece of the high priestly garments (Lev. 8:8), and presumably they were drawn out by the priest or thrown down in a particular way in response to a question posed (Exod. 28:30; Num. 27:21) and could give a yes or no answer.

In his farewell blessings, the first thing to come to Moses’ mind in outlining the privileges of the priestly tribe of Levi is the Thummim and Urim (Deut. 33:8).

Their use possibly is involved in the accounts of the progressive splitting of the people into two groups in order to find a guilty person (1 Sam. 14:41). A couple of instances of apparently nonbinary answers may be discerned in 1 Sam. 10:22; 2 Sam. 5:23, though it is not explicitly stated that these involved the Urim and Thummim, and if they did, supplementary questions not explicit in the text may have been asked.

King Saul was unable to secure an answer from God by any of the normal means, including Urim (1 Sam. 28:6), which suggests that an indeterminate answer from the disks was possible, perhaps when the disks presented different faces.

The sacred stones that Hosea mentions as being among the things of which Israel would suffer loss in exile (Hos. 3:4) may be the Urim and Thummim. Ezra 2:63 indicates that at that time no priest with Urim and Thummim was available (cf. Neh. 7:65). Whatever the cause, in postexilic times the use of Urim and Thummim as a means of oracular decisions fell into disuse.

Uruk   The Sumerian city Uruk (modern Warka; rendered “Erech” in Hebrew) is located on a subsidiary branch of the Euphrates River, forty miles northwest of Ur. It is mentioned in Gen. 10:10 as one of the cities founded by Nimrod in the country of Shinar (Mesopotamia). Information about this city comes from excavations of this site conducted during the mid-twentieth century and comments about the city in Sumerian and Akkadian literature. It was founded around 4000 BC, in the Ubaid period (5500–4000 BC), and continuously inhabited until the end of the Parthian Empire (AD 224). Prominent rulers include the legendary Gilgamesh, from the Sumerian flood story, and Sargon of Akkad (2300–2230 BC), whose birth legend mirrors that of Moses. The city’s most prominent temple was Eanna (“house of heaven”), dedicated to Anu, the sky god, and Inanna/Ishtar, the chief goddess of the pantheon.

Usury   The term used in some Bible translations for the practice of charging interest (especially exorbitant interest) on a loan (e.g., Neh. 5:7–11; Ps. 15:5). The OT prohibited charging interest on money loaned to another Israelite but permitted it when loaning money to a Gentile (Deut. 23:19–20). See also Interest.

Utensils   See Vessels and Utensils.

Uthai   (1) A descendant of Judah through Perez, Bani, Imri, Omri, and Ammihud who left Babylon and settled in Jerusalem (1 Chron. 9:4). (2) A descendant of Bigvai, he was one of the family heads who traveled from Babylon to Jerusalem with Ezra during the reign of Artaxerxes (Ezra 8:14).

Uz   (1) The homeland of Job (Job 1:1), its location is uncertain. According to Lam. 4:21, the land of Uz is equivalent to Edomite territory (probably also Jer. 25:20). The geographical designations of Job’s companions (particularly Eliphaz the Temanite) suggest a setting in Transjordan rather than northern Mesopotamia (Aram). (2) The oldest of the four sons of Aram and a grandson of Shem, he appears in the genealogy of the Arameans (Gen. 10:23; 1 Chron. 1:17). (3) The son of Abraham’s brother Nahor and Milkah, also associated with Arameans (Gen. 22:21). (4) The first of the two sons of Dishan son of Seir the Horite, among the people of Seir in Edom (Gen. 36:28; 1 Chron. 1:42).

Uzai   The father of Palal, who helped to repair the wall of Jerusalem (Neh. 3:25). “Uzai” is perhaps a short form of “Azaniah” (Neh. 10:9) and may mean “the LORD listened.”

Uzal   (1) The sixth of the thirteen sons of Joktan the son of Eber (Gen. 10:27; 1 Chron. 1:21). (2) One of the places that traded with Tyre cited by Ezekiel in a lament over Tyre (Ezek. 27:19; NIV: “Izal”). See also Izal.

Uzza   (1) The owner of a garden where two kings of Judah, Manasseh and Amon, were buried (2 Kings 21:18, 26). (2) One of the sons of Gera (perhaps also called “Heglam” [cf. RSV, LXX]), a Benjamite among those forced to move to Manahath (1 Chron. 8:7). (3) One of the ancestors of the temple servants who returned to Judah from the Babylonian captivity under the leadership of Zerubbabel in 539 BC or soon after (Ezra 2:49; Neh. 7:51).

Life-size model of the ark of the covenant in the replica of the tabernacle at Timnah, Israel. Uzzah was struck down when he touched the ark (2 Sam. 6).

Uzzah   This name is a shortened form of “Uzziah.” (1) The son of Abinadab and brother of Ahio. The brothers were guiding the cart on which the ark of the covenant was being transported to Jerusalem. Uzzah touched the ark and was stricken by God (2 Sam. 6:1–11; 1 Chron. 13:7–11). Here, “Uzzah” might be a nickname for the Eleazar of 1 Sam. 7:1. (2) The son of Shimei, a Merarite Levite (1 Chron. 6:29).

Uzzen Sheerah   A town founded by Sheerah, who also founded the towns of Upper and Lower Beth Horon, located in southern Ephraim. The name “Uzzen Sheerah” means “ear/corner of Sheerah.” Sheerah was the daughter of Beriah and a descendant of Ephraim (1 Chron. 7:20–24).

Uzzi   (1) The son of Bukki and the father of Zerahiah, listed in Aaron’s and Ezra’s genealogies (1 Chron. 6:6–7; Ezra 7:4). (2) A son of Tola, he was one of the family heads in the tribe of Issachar (1 Chron. 7:2–3). (3) A son of Bela, he was one of the family heads in the tribe of Benjamin (1 Chron. 7:7). (4) The son of Mikri, he was a Benjamite among the returning Babylonian exiles (1 Chron. 9:8). (5) A Levitical chief officer chosen to live in Jerusalem (Neh. 11:22). (6) The head of the priestly family of Jedaiah (Neh. 12:19). He may be the same person as the Uzzi of Neh. 11:22. (7) One of the leaders who participated in the dedication of the Jerusalem wall (Neh. 12:42). He may be the same person as the Uzzi of Neh. 11:22; 12:19.

Uzzia   The only one of David’s mighty warriors identified as an Ashterathite (1 Chron. 11:44), probably indicating that he was from Ashtaroth, east of the Jordan. “Uzzia” is an earlier spelling of Uzziah, meaning “the LORD has shown himself strong.”

Uzziah   (1) A Levite, the son of Uriel, a descendant of Levi through Kohath (1 Chron. 6:24).

(2) The father of Jonathan, who was an administrator during David’s reign (1 Chron. 27:25).

(3) Also known as Azariah, he was the king of Judah from approximately 783 to 742 BC. The account of his rule is in 2 Kings 14:21–22; 15:1–7; 2 Chron. 26:1–23. He likely ruled as coregent with his father, Amaziah, starting in 792 BC, before he was sole ruler. He became king at the age of sixteen, when his father was assassinated. Much of his reign overlapped with that of Jeroboam II of Israel, and both kingdoms prospered economically during this time.

Uzziah was a relatively faithful king. He was also successful, maintaining a robust building program and achieving victory over the Philistines. His reign and life turned in a negative direction, however, when he pridefully presumed to offer incense in a holy area of the temple. Such actions were permitted only for the priests. The priests tried to stop him, but he continued, and so God caused him to become leprous for the rest of his life and thus excluded from the temple. Thereafter, his son Jotham discharged the kingly duties. When Uzziah died, he was buried with his fathers, but at some distance because of his condition (2 Chron. 26:23).

Although their messages were directed to the northern kingdom, the superscriptions to the books of Amos and Hosea indicate that these two prophets ministered during Uzziah’s reign (Hos. 1:1; Amos 1:1). Isaiah was called to be a prophet in the year Uzziah died (Isa. 1:1; 6:1), and Zech. 14:5 records an earthquake that took place during his rule.

(4) A priest who was guilty of marrying a foreign woman during the time of Ezra (Ezra 10:21).

(5) The father of Athaiah, a member of the tribe of Judah who was a provincial leader who settled in Jerusalem during the time of Nehemiah (Neh. 11:4).

Uzziel   (1) The ancestor of the Uzzielite clan (Num. 3:27), he was a grandson of Levi (Exod. 6:18), an uncle of Aaron, and the father of three sons (Exod. 6:22), two of whom carried Aaron’s dead sons outside the camp (Lev. 10:4). (2) One of the four sons of Ishi who led five hundred Simeonite fighters against the Amalekites in the hill country of Mount Seir during the reign of King Hezekiah (1 Chron. 4:42). (3) A grandson of Benjamin, he was the third of the five sons of Bela, heads of families (1 Chron. 7:7). (4) One of the fourteen sons of Heman the seer, he was among the musical prophets during the reign of King David (1 Chron. 25:4). (5) A Levite descendant of Jeduthun who helped cleanse the temple during the reforms of King Hezekiah (2 Chron. 29:14). (6) The son of Harhaiah, he was a goldsmith who helped rebuild the wall of Jerusalem (Neh. 3:8).

Uzzielite   Descended from Uzziel, a clan in the tribe of Levi (Num. 3:27; 1 Chron. 26:23).