The above verse is about Uzziah, king of Judah. Uzziah was a true son of his father David. David loved husbandry. He loved to care for his sheep and was very attached to them. Nathan the prophet had used that very love of David for his sheep to point out his sin to him. Uzziah too loved husbandry. The Hebrew says that Uzziah loved the land, which means not simply the land but also all the work that comes with the land. He loved the land of Canaan and of the kingdom of Judah. Uzziah loved the land as the Lord’s land and as the heritage that Jehovah had conferred on his people. And Uzziah loved all the work that was to be done in the Lord’s land.

Uzziah found it to be a dry and thirsty land, and he dug wells to water his cattle. When he came to the throne, certain parts of his land where he raised his cattle had been overrun with Arabians, Ammonites, Edomites, and Philistines who pillaged and stole his animals or otherwise took the land for themselves. Uzziah brought them to heel and built towers to protect his herds from their raids. Yes, cows and sheep and donkeys, and maybe camels and goats too. He had many animals that needed water and protection.

Uzziah had plowmen too and vinedressers in the mountains. You can see his fields in the valleys: This one for barley and that one for wheat and that one over there for a garden of herbs, cucumbers, leeks, and melons. You can see his vineyards on the sides of the hills, full of vinedressers ridding the plants of pests and disease, pruning the branches of the establishing vines, and fertilizing the vines to produce an abundant harvest of grapes to be made into the rich wine of Canaan. It was a land that flowed with milk and honey, that was watered abundantly with the early and the latter rains, and that was drenched in the sunshine that warmed the earth.

And at the center of it all was King Uzziah, who loved that work in the Lord’s land. He never viewed the labors as drudgery or merely as a job to complete. He loved the work. He loved to plan for it, to think about it, to oversee it, and to engage in that work. After the long confinement of winter, he was eager to see his fields tilled and planted and his flocks and herds turned loose again into their lush summer pastures. You can see Uzziah touring his estates and walking in the freshly plowed fields, listening to the contented lowing of the cattle and the pleasant bleating of the sheep, and observing the careful tending of his vineyards. And when harvest came, he gathered his grain into the barns, pressed his grapes in the winepresses, and sheared his sheep on the hills. He had much cattle, and he loved husbandry.

He was but a type of David’s greater Son.

Listen as that Son describes his love of husbandry. “No man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles” (Mark 2:22). “Behold, a sower went forth to sow” (Matt. 13:3). “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman” (John 15:1). “Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matt. 3:12).