And Azariah the chief priest, and all the priests, looked upon him, and, behold, he was leprous in his forehead,.... He was leprous all over his body, no doubt, but it appeared in his forehead very remarkably, and was seen by them all, who, without doubt, informed him of his case, and of which he soon became sensible:and they thrust him out from thence; the holy place, he being now unfit to be in a common dwelling house, or his own palace, and much less to be in the house of God:yea, himself also hasted to go out, because the Lord had smitten him; fearing, should he continue there, that something worse would befall him; the Targum is, the Word of the Lord.
The leprosy was a disease sent immediately from God, as the case of Miriam, and this of Uzziah, show; and so the Persians had a notion, that those had it who sinned against the sun, and for that reason, and which they accounted and worshipped as God.
Herodot. Clio, sive, l. 1. c.