To the average citizen of Judah, therefore, the country was all right,
the king was all right, and the future had not the slightest cloud
before it. To Isaiah, the keen-sighted and well-posted young
statesman, however, neither the country nor the king was fit to deal
with a great national crisis--and the future had one in store.

When Uzziah became sick and abdicated, quietly, in favor of Jotham,
then a young man of twenty-five, Isaiah began to call Jotham's
attention to the internal social conditions of the country; but Jotham
had such a high respect for his father's ruling power that he would
not alter a single law nor make a single reform.

When Isaiah attempted to drum into Jotham's head the causes of the
reign of anarchy in Samaria and the lessons to be drawn therefrom for
Judah, Jotham, desiring to show his power as a ruler while his father
was yet alive, busied himself fighting with the Ammonites and
extending the boundaries of his kingdom.

When, finally, in the year 788 B. C. E., the news came to Jerusalem
that King Menahem, of Israel, had sent a heavy tribute to the Assyrian
Tiglath-Pileser, Isaiah's worries over the future of his own country
became very acute.

It was in this year Uzziah died; and it was on the day of the king's
funeral that Isaiah saw the remarkable vision in the Temple.

Up to that hour Isaiah was conscious only of the fact that something
must be done in Judah to save it from the evils of injustice and
unrighteousness that were being practiced by the rich and powerful