Uzza, the Garden of

Uzza, The Garden Of (Heb., gan Uzzd, גִּן עֻזָּא; Sept. κῆπος Ο᾿ζᾶ; Vulg. hortus Aza), the spot in which Manasseh, king of Judah, and his son Amon, were both buried (2Ki 21:18,26). It was the garden attached to Manasseh's palace (ver. 18; 2Ch 33:20), and therefore presumably was in Jerusalem. The fact of its mention shows that it was not where the usual sepulchers of the kings were. Josephus (Ant. 10:3, 2) simply reiterates the statement of the Bible. It is ingeniously suggested by Cornelius a Lapide that the garden was so called from being on the spot at which Uzzah died during the removal of the ark from Kirjathjearim to Jerusalem, and which is known to have retained his name for long after the event (2Sa 6:8), SEE OBED-EDOM. The scene of Uzzah's death was itself a threshing-floor (ver. 6), and the change of the word from this, goren, גֹּרֶן, into gan, גִּן, garden, would not be difficult or improbable.

Bunsen (Bibelwerk, note on 2Ki 21:18), on the strength of the mention of "palaces" in the same paragraph with Ophel (A. V. "forts") in a denunciation of Isaiah (32,: 14), asserts that a palace was situated in the Tyropaeon valley at the foot of the Temple mount, and that this was all probability the palace of Manasseh and the site of the Garden of Uzzah! SEE UZZAH.