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Assuming that Uzziah, as king, had the right to defend his city and country against the
enemy, one might perhaps object and ask why it should not be legitimate for him to make
use of the inventive genius of his time. Again, let the Book speak for itself:
"As long as he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper . . . . . he strengthened
himself exceedingly . . . . . he was marvellously helped, till he was strong; but when he
was strong, his heart was lifted up to destruction" (II Chron. 26: 5, 8, 15, 16).
It was not the mere possession of these inventions that mattered, but the evil influence
that their possession always produced--the inducing of a self-reliance that was
incipiently anti-christian. The next recorded act of Uzziah was the usurpation of the
priesthood, an action which was visited by leprosy, and which cut him off for the rest of
his days from the house of the Lord.
Two other words are found in the O.T. which are translated "inventions"--one in the
Psalms, and one in the Book of Proverbs. The word used in the Psalms has two forms,
maalal and alilah, both derived from the same word meaning "work'. Is "work" then to
be condemned as evil? Once again we must examine the context.
"Thou tookest vengeance on their inventions" (Psa. 99: 8).
"They provoked Him to anger with their inventions" (Psa. 106: 29).
"They went a whoring with their own inventions" (Psa. 106: 39).
These are the statements. Let us now consider the reason for the Lord's attitude.
Hebrew poetry balances thought rather than sound, and so we read in Psalm 106: 39:
"Thus were they defiled
With their own works;
And went a whoring
With their own inventions."
It is evident that the word "works" here corresponds with "inventions".
In the same Psalm, the same word comes again in verses 13 and 35:
"They soon forgat His works."
"They were mingled among the heathen and learned their works."
The terrible expression "to go a whoring" is used once more in the Psalms, at the close
of Asaph's experience in Psalm 72: In this passage it is used in direct contrast with
that utter trust in the Lord that Asaph had learned in the Sanctuary:
"Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside
Thee" (verse 25).
"Thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from Thee" (verse 27).
Here again it will be seen that the real evil in these "inventions" lay in the fact that
they undermined Israel's trust in the Lord, and substituted something else in its place.