Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. He did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, after the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh cast out before the children of Israel. For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down; and he raised up altars for the Baals, made Asheroth, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served them. He built altars in Yahweh’s house, of which Yahweh said, “My name shall be in Jerusalem forever.” He built altars for all the army of the sky in the two courts of Yahweh’s house. He also made his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom. He practiced sorcery, divination, and witchcraft, and dealt with those who had familiar spirits and with wizards. He did much evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger. He set the engraved image of the idol, which he had made, in God’s house, of which God said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever. I will not any more remove the foot of Israel from off the land which I have appointed for your fathers, if only they will observe to do all that I have commanded them, even all the law, the statutes, and the ordinances given by Moses.” Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that they did more evil than did the nations whom Yahweh destroyed before the children of Israel.
Yahweh spoke to Manasseh, and to his people; but they didn’t listen. Therefore Yahweh brought on them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh in chains, bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon.
When he was in distress, he begged Yahweh his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him; and he was entreated by him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that Yahweh was God.
Now after this, he built an outer wall to David’s city, on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, even to the entrance at the fish gate. He encircled Ophel with it, and raised it up to a very great height; and he put valiant captains in all the fortified cities of Judah. He took away the foreign gods, and the idol out of Yahweh’s house, and all the altars that he had built in the mountain of Yahweh’s house, and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city. He built up Yahweh’s altar, and offered sacrifices of peace offerings and of thanksgiving on it, and commanded Judah to serve Yahweh, the God of Israel. Nevertheless the people sacrificed still in the high places, but only to Yahweh their God.
Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel, behold, they are written among the acts of the kings of Israel. His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him, and all his sin and his trespass, and the places in which he built high places, and set up the Asherah poles and the engraved images, before he humbled himself: behold, they are written in the history of Hozai. So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house; and Amon his son reigned in his place.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 Read 2 Kings 16:3.
Read 2 Kings 16:3.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–20 2Ch 33:1 Manasseh [was] twelve years old when he…
2Ch 33:1 Manasseh [was] twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem:
Ver. 1. Manasseh was twelve years old.] See 2Ki 21:1.
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And he reigned fifty and five years.] So long he reigned, (1.) For the punishment of the people’s sins; (2.) That he might have time enough to amend his own life; (3.) That in him, as afterwards in Paul, "God might show forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them who should afterwards believe on him to life everlasting." {1Ti 1:16} Vide ubi supra.
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Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20 This and the following verses, to ver 11, are…
This and the following verses, to ver 11, are taken out of 2Ki 21:1 &c.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 11 We have here an account of the great wickedness…
We have here an account of the great wickedness of Manasseh. It is the same almost word for word with that which we had Kg2 21:1-9, and took a melancholy view of. It is no such pleasing subject that we should delight to dwell upon it again. This foolish young prince, in contradiction to the good example and good education his father gave him, abandoned himself to all impiety, transcribed the abominations of the heathen (Ch2 33:2), ruined the established religion, unravelled his father's glorious reformation (Ch2 33:3), profaned the house of God with his idolatry (Ch2 33:4, Ch2 33:5), dedicated his children to Moloch, and made the devil's lying oracles his guides and his counsellors, Ch2 33:6. In contempt of the choice God had made of Sion to be his rest for ever and Israel to be his covenant-people (Ch2 33:8), and the fair terms he stood upon with God, he embraced other gods, profaned God's chosen temple, and debauched his chosen people. He made them to err, and do worse than the heathen (Ch2 33:9); for, if the unclean spirit returns, he brings with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself. That which aggravated the sin of Manasseh was that God spoke to him and his people by the prophets, but they would not hearken, Ch2 33:10. We may here admire the grace of God in speaking to them, and their obstinacy in turning a deaf ear to him, that either their badness did not quite turn away his goodness, but still he waited to be gracious, or that his goodness did not turn them from their badness, but still they hated to be reformed. Now from this let us learn, 1. That it is no new thing, but a very sad thing, for the children of godly parents to turn aside from that good way of God in which they have been trained. Parents may give many good things to their children, but they cannot give them grace. 2. Corruptions in worship are such diseases of the church as it is very apt to relapse into again even when they seem to be cured. 3. The god of this world has strangely blinded men's minds, and has a wonderful power over those that are led captive by him; else he could not draw them from God, their best friend, to depend upon their sworn enemy.
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John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 Manasseh was twelve years old,.... From hence to the…
Manasseh was twelve years old,.... From hence to the end of Ch2 33:9 the same things are recorded, almost word for word, as in Kg2 21:1, see the notes there. See Gill on Kg2 21:1.
.
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2 Chronicles 33:10
ch2 33:10
ch2 33:10
ch2 33:10And the Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his people,.... By his servants the prophets, see Kg2 21:10, where what was said to them is recorded:
but they would not hearken; to what was said, to reproofs, admonitions, and exhortations to repent and reform.
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John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19 The wicked reign of Manasseh, ver. 1-10. His captivity,…
The wicked reign of Manasseh, ver. 1-10. His captivity, prayer, and reformation, ver. 11-17. The conclusion of his reign, ver. 18-20. The wicked reign and death of Amon, ver. 21-25.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19 Manasseh reigns fifty-five years, and restores idolatry,
CHAPTER XXXIII
Manasseh reigns fifty-five years, and restores idolatry,
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pollutes the temple, and practises all kinds of abominations,
1-9.
He and the people are warned in vain, 10.
He is delivered into the hands of the Assyrians, bound with
fetters, and carried to Babylon, 11.
He humbles himself, and is restored, 12, 13.
He destroys idolatry, and restores the worship of God, 14-16.
The people keep the high places, but sacrifice to the Lord on
them, 17.
His acts, prayer, and death, 18-20.
His son Amon succeeds him; and after a wicked idolatrous reign
of two years, is slain by his own servants in his own house,
21-24.
The people rise up, and slay his murderers, and make Josiah his
son king in his stead, 25.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXXIII
Verse 1. Manasseh was twelve years old] We do not find that he had any godly director; his youth was therefore the more easily seduced. But surely he had a pious education; how then could the principles of it be so soon eradicated?
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20 2Ch 33:1. Manasseh was twelve years old, &c. —…
2Ch 33:1. Manasseh was twelve years old, &c. — This and the following verses, to 2Ch 33:11, are taken out of 2Ki 21:1, &c., where the reader will find them explained.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 11, 14, 17, 18, 19 Compare references and notes. The author of Chronicles differs…
Compare references and notes. The author of Chronicles differs chiefly from Kings in additions (see the 2Ki 21:17 note). The central part of this chapter (2Ch 33:11-19) is almost entirely new matter.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 The host of heaven. The sun, moon, and stars,…
The host of heaven. The sun, moon, and stars, (Ch.) in imitation of the Phœnicians and ancient Chanaanites.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 o. Manasseh and Amon.—Ch. 33
o. Manasseh and Amon.—Ch. 33
α. Manasseh: 2Ch_33:1-20
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2Ch_33:1.Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned 2fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And he did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord, like the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had 3cast out before the sons of Israel. And he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had pulled down, and reared up altars for Baalim, and 4made asheroth, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them. And he built altars in the house of the Lord, although the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be for e2 Chronicles 2Ch_33:5 And he built altars to all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. 6And he caused his sons to pass through the fire in the valley of Ben-hinnom; and he practised sorcery, and divination, and enchantment, and appointed conjurors and soothsayers: he wrought much evil in the eyes of the Lord to provoke Him. 7And he set the carving of the image which he had made in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name 8for ever. And I will no more remove the foot of Israel from the soil which I have appointed for your fathers,1 if only they will hold on to do all that I have commanded them, in all the law and the statutes and the judgments 9given by Moses. And Manasseh led astray Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed 10before the sons of Israel. And the Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his people; but they did not attend.
11And the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, and they took Manasseh in fetters, and bound him with chains, and carried him to Babel. 12And when he was in affliction, he besought the grace of the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, 13And prayed unto Him; and He was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom: and 14Manasseh knew that the Lord He is God. And after this he built the outer wall of the city of David, to the west of Gihon, in the valley, and at the entrance of the fish gate, and encompassed Ophel, and made it very high, and put captains of war in all the fenced cities of Judah. 15And he took away the strange gods and the image out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem, 16and cast them out of the city. And he built2 the altar of the Lord, and offered on it sacrifices of peace and thanksgiving, and commanded Judah to 17serve the Lord God of Israel. But the people still sacrificed in the high places, but only to the Lord their God.
18And the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer unto his God, and the words of the seers that spake to him in the name of the Lord God of 19Israel, behold, they are written in the history of the kings of Israel. And his prayer, and his being heard, and all his sin, and his apostasy, and the places in which he built high places, and set up asherim and carved images, before 20he was humbled, behold, they are written in the history of Hozai.3 And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house: and Amon his son reigned in his stead.
β. Amon: 2Ch_33:21-25
21Amon was twenty and two years old when he became king, and he reigned 22two years in Jerusalem. And he did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord, as Manasseh his father had done; and Amon sacrificed unto all the 23carved images which Manasseh his father had made, and served them. And he humbled not himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father humbled himself; for he, Amon, multiplied trespass. 24And his servants conspired against 25him, and slew him in his own house. And the people of the land smote all the conspirators against King Amon: and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead.
EXEGETICAL
The idolatrous proceedings in the beginning of Manasseh’s reign are depicted by our author, 2Ch_33:1-10, mostly in verbal agreement with 2Ki_21:1-10. Instead of the summary report there following (2Ch_33:11-16) of the threatening words of the prophets addressed to him, he appends the narrative of Manasseh’s removal to Babel, his repentance and conversion, 2Ch_33:11-17, for which the book of Kings has no parallel. The closing notices of Manasseh’s reign (2Ch_33:18-20), and that which relates to Amon (2Ch_33:21-25), are again in close agreement with 2Ki_21:1 ff., 2Ki_21:19 ff.
1. Idolatrous Proceedings at the Beginning of Manasseh’s Reign: 2Ch_33:1-10; comp. Bähr on the parallel.—Manasseh was twelve years old. For the occurrence of this king’s name (in the form of Minasi) on the Assyrian inscriptions, see Evangelical and Ethical Reflections, No. 2.—And he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem, 696–641 b. c. (according to the usual chronology, which can scarcely be disputed). Against the length of the reign of Manasseh, as our report states it in harmony with 2 Kings, Scheuchzer (Phul und Nabonassar, Zürich 1850) and v. Gumpach (Die Zeitrechnung der Assyrer und Babylonier, 1852, p. 98 ff.) have raised objections, and attempted to reduce it to thirty-five years. Bertheau (Komment. p. 406) concurs with them in this; and Neteler endeavours to confine at least the independent reign of Manasseh approximately to the same narrow measure, as he makes him reign fourteen years (say 692–678) in common with Hezekiah, and then forty or forty-one years (678–638) alone. On the contrary, Schrader (pp. 225 ff., 238 ff.) shows that no reduction whatever of the fifty-five years is requisite, as the Assyrian monuments bear no testimony against a reign of more than half a century for this king.
2Ch_33:3. And reared up altars for Baalim. In 2 Kings stands the sing.: “for Baal”; as also in the following words: “made an asherah.” The phrase of the Chronist appears here to be rhetorically generalizing and climactic; comp., moreover, 2Ch_14:2, 2Ch_28:2, 2Ch_31:1
2Ch_33:6. And he caused his sons to pass through the fire. According to 2 Kings, this happened only to one son (בְּנוֹ for בָּנָיו), precisely the same difference as above in Ahaz (2Ch_28:3; comp 2Ki_16:3); see on 2Ch_28:3. The Chronist alone states that this horrid human sacrifice took place in the valley of Ben-hinnom; in 2 Kings this note is wanting.—And he practised sorcery and divination, etc., “bewitched with an evil eye (עוֹנֵן connected with עַיִן), and divined (נִחֵשׁ, properly, watched serpents), and muttered” (כִּשֵּׁף, whispered charms; comp. Deu_18:10). The third of these phrases is wanting in 2 Kings; whereas the following words: “appointed conjurors and soothsayers” (literally, “made a conjuror and a wizard”), agree again verbally with that text.
2Ch_33:7. And he set the carving of the image . . . in the house of God. In 2 Kings, “the carving (פֶּסֶל, as here, ‘carved image,’ as distinguished from מַסֵּכה, ‘molten image,’ 2Ch_28:2; comp. 2Ch_34:3) of the asherah.” The term סֶמֶל “idol, image, “arising perhaps from Deu_4:16, appears here and 2Ch_33:15, as in Eze_8:3, to be a contemptuous and abhorrent designation of the asherah.—Will I put my name for ever;לְעֵילוֹם only here for לְעוֹלָם.
2Ch_33:8. Which I have appointed for your fathers, “fixed,” as in 2Ch_30:5. Instead of “your,” perhaps “their” is the original reading; see Crit. Note.
2Ch_33:10. And the Lord spake to Manasseh, by the mouth of His prophets, whose speech in the parallel text, 2Ki_21:11-16, is also given in a summary form; whereas our author omits these words (words of the seer, 2Ch_33:18), though not without adding a reference to them (see under 2Ch_33:18), as contained in the “history of the kings of Israel.”
2. Manasseh’s Captivity and Conversion: 2Ch_33:11-17.—The Lord brought upon them. According to the Assyrian monuments, this took place about 647, under King Assurbanipal, the Sardanapalus of the Greek historians.—Took Manasseh in fetters, scarcely in nets or hooks (חוֹחַ synonymous with חָח, 2Ki_19:28; Eze_19:4; comp. also Job 40:26), as if Manasseh were to be represented as an untamed wild beast, Psa_32:9 (Keil). Rather is חֹחִים to be taken simply as a synonym of the following נְחֻשְׁתַּיִם, “brass fetters, double fetters” (comp. Jdg_16:21; 2Sa_3:34; and also 2Ch_36:6), as it is taken in this sense by the Sept. (δέσμοις), Vulg. (catenis), and several Rabbins. There is as little reason to think of a place, Hohim, where he was taken captive (Then.), as of a thorn hedge, into which (comp. 1Sa_13:6) he had rushed through fear (Starke and other ancients), or even of a tropical meaning of the phrase, according to which בַּחֹחִים should be: “with deceit, not in open conflict” (Cellarius, Disput. de Captivitate Babylonica, and others). For the question of the credibility of a carrying away of Manasseh in chains, and that to Babel, comp. the Evangelical and Ethical Reflections, No. 3.
2Ch_33:12. And when he was in affliction (comp. 2Ch_28:22) he besought the grace of the Lord, literally, “stroked or smoothed” the face of the Lord; comp. Exo_32:11; 1Sa_13:11; 1Ki_13:6; Dan_9:13. The contents of this penitent prayer of the captive king were handed down to the Chronist by those old sources which he quotes 2Ch_33:18 f., namely, the “history of the kings of Israel,” and the “history (words) of Hozai.” The “prayer of Manasses” in the Old Testament Apocrypha is scarcely identical with this older record, which lay before our author; it appears to have been composed-originally in Greek, is wanting in many older manuscripts of the Sept., and is first communicated from the Constit. Apostolicœ, ii. 22 (2d or 3d century), on which account the Council of Trent excluded it from the canon of the Romish Church. Yet recently, Jul. Fürst (Geschichte der bibl. Literatur, ii. 399 ff.) has defended the document as genuine (after the ancients; see J. A. Fabricius, Bibliotheca Grœca, ed. Harles, iii. 732 ff.).
2Ch_33:13. And He was entreated of him. The Apocryphal accounts in the Targ. on our passage, in the Const. Ap. p. 9, in Johannes Damascen. ‛Iερὰ παραλλ. ii. 15, in Anastasius on Psalms 6, etc., contain all kinds of wonders concerning the way in which God delivered the penitent Manasseh (by sudden melting or sudden breaking of his chains, etc.). Comp. O. F. Fritzsche, in the Kurzgefassten exegetischen Handbuche zu den Apokryphen des Alten Bundes, i. p. 158, and Ew.Geschichte, iii. 1, p. 378.
2Ch_33:14. And after this he built the outer wall, perhaps that on which Hezekiah had already built (2Ch_32:5); בָּנָה stands, therefore, as often, for finishing a building (elevating). The absence of the article from חוֹמה, however, cannot constrain us at once (with Berth. and others) to translate “an outer wall,” as, on the other hand, the emendation proposed by Arnold (Art. “Zion,” in Herzog’s Realencycl. xviii. 634), הַחִיצוֹנָה הַחוֹמָה, is scarcely necessary.—Of the city of David (literally, “to the city”) to the west of Gihon in the valley, that is, in that valley between the city of David (Zion) and the lower city (Akra), which in its south-eastern outlet was afterwards (in Josephus, etc.) the cheesemakers’ valley, or the valley Tyropæon. These words first assign the direction of the wall towards the west, and the following words: “at the entrance of the fish gate,” denote, again, the direction towards the east; for the fish gate lay, according to Neh_3:3, near the north-east corner of the lower city and the tower Hananeel.—And encompassed Ophel, with that outer wall which he carried from the fish gate and the north-east corner on to the south, and then round Ophel (see 2Ch_27:3). So, no doubt correctly, Berth. and Kamph.; for against the assumption of Arnold (in p. 9) and Keil, that a special wall is here intended, distinct from the former, to enclose Ophel, is the following statement: וַיַּגְבִּיהֶהָ מְֹאד, “and made it very high,” which clearly refers to the former wall.—And put captains of war; comp.2Ch_18:2, 2Ch_32:6.
2Ch_33:15. Took away the strange gods; comp. 2Ch_33:3-7. On the closing words: “and cast them out of the city,” 2Ch_29:16 and 2Ch_30:14 are to be compared. Moreover, according to 2Ki_23:6; 2Ki_23:12, this removal of the idols, and their altars, appears not to have been complete; for, according to these verses, much of this sort still remained for Josiah to remove (comp. also 2Ch_33:17), which constrains us to assign either an incomplete, or at least a transitory and by no means permanent character to the reform of worship by Manasseh.
2Ch_33:16. And he built the altar of the Lord, the altar of burnt-offering, of which, moreover, it is not to be assumed from this remark that Manasseh had before removed it from the temple court (as Ew.Geschichte, iii. 1. 367, holds). The building, at all events, is to be regarded as a repairing (comp. 2Ch_24:4 ff.; 1 Kings 5:32); even if וַיִּכֶן were the original reading (see Crit. Note), the same sense of repairing would result.
3. Manasseh’s End; Amon: 2Ch_33:18-25.—For 2Ch_33:18-19, see above on 2Ch_33:10; 2Ch_33:13; and with regard to the history (words) of Hozai, Introd. § 5, ii. p. 20 (also Crit. Note on this passage).
2Ch_33:20. And they buried him in his own house; more exactly, 2Ki_21:18 : “in the garden of his house, in the garden of Uzza.” This garden of Uzza the Englishman Lewin believes he has found in the so-called Sakra, on the east side of the Haram. He affirms that there also the Maccabean King Alexander was buried, on which account the burying - place in question occurs in Josephus, de B. Jud., under the name of the grave of King Alexander (comp. Athenœum, 1871, March, pp. 278, 309).
2Ch_33:21 ff.; comp. 2Ki_21:19-26, and Bähr on this passage. The concise report of our passage says nothing of Amon’s mother (as also, 2Ch_33:1, the mention of Manasseh’s mother is wanting), and at the close contains nothing of the burial of the king nor of the sources employed, but, on the contrary, appears enlarged by a parallel drawn between him and Manasseh, according to which he did not humble himself as his father had done (2Ch_33:23).
evangelical and ethical reflections, homiletical and apologetic remarks, on 2 Chronicles 33
1. The evangelical import of the captivity and conversion of Manasseh consists mainly in this, that it is a pregnant type of the conversion of the ungodly by means of divine chastisement,—a significant confirmation and impressive exhibition of that truth, preached by all the prophets and men of God of the Old Testament, that God the Lord is found only of those who seek Him, that His call to repentance comes to no sinner too late (the nusquam conversio sera of Jerome, Comm. in Ezech. viii. 21; Ep. 16 ad Damasum, c. 1; Ep. 39 ad Paulam, 1; Ep. 42, 107, 147, etc.), that He “killeth and maketh alive, bringeth down to Sheol and bringeth up” (1Sa_2:6; comp. Psa_30:4; Psa_86:13; Psa_116:3), that always again His comforting “return” sounds anew in the ear of the penitent sinner (comp. Joe_2:12; Eze_33:11). As a deeply impressive illustration and verification of the text: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me,” Psa_50:15, from the history of the Old Testament, the event forms at the same time a very significant parallel to the New Testament parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15), as well as to those similar exemplifications of the evangelical process in the appropriation of salvation (as the woman that was a sinner, Zacchæus, the robber, etc.), of which that evangelist, who stands in the same relation, as supplementer to the other evangelists, as the Chronist to the older historians of the Old Testament, possesses an exceedingly precious treasure.
2. To this general evangelical importance of our history is to be added its special prefigurative relation to the judgment of the Babylonish captivity, which took place half a century after it. What was announced once in the reign of Hezekiah by the fearfully earnest warning of the destruction of the northern kingdom, and then also by the direct message of Isaiah addressed to the king, as the final doom of the Jewish people persisting in the way of unfaithfulness to God (Isa_36:6 f.; 2Ki_20:17 f.), this appears to be here realized by the transportation of Manasseh to Babel already in literal truth and full extent. Through the grace of the Lord, moved by the entreaty of the penitent Manasseh, the worst and most terrible calamity—a long exile, with its dissolving and unsettling consequences for the whole state—is at once avented; and as once to Hezekiah, for his personal life and reign during fifteen years, so now to his son is granted a prolongation of nearly fifty years for the existence of the whole kingdom. Manasseh’s lot thus stands intermediate between that which Hezekiah and that which the last kings—Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah—experience, as the reform of the religious life attempted by him after his return from Babel, but unsatisfactory and by no means permanent, falls in the middle between the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah, with whose thorough energy and decision it certainly cannot be remotely compared.
3. From the absence of a parallel to our report in 2 Kings 21, the hypercriticism of our century has sought to refer to the region of unhistorical legend either the whole history of Manasseh (de Wette, Gramberg, Graf, Nöldecke; comp. Introd. § 6, p. 22, and § 7, p. 29), or at least that of his conversion and the reform of worship consequent upon it; comp. what is asserted in the latter respect by Movers (Chron. p. 328 ff.), Ewald (Gesch. iii. 1. 366 ff.), Berth. (Chron. p. 408), and Hitzig (Gesch. p. 230 f.). The mythifying of the whole history, and therefore of the account of the capture and deportation of Manasseh to Babel, appears in the present state of historical investigation to be a glaring anachronism. This has been also perceived by Hitzig, who, after he had declared (Begriff der Kritik, etc. p. 180 f.) the captivity of Manasseh to be an invention derived from the prophecy of Isa_39:6, has recently (Gesch. as quoted) acknowledged the historical validity of this fact; whereas Graf has in his last work (Die geschichtlichen Bücher des Alten Test. 1866, p. 174) adhered to his former (Studien und Krit. 1859, iii.) absolutely sceptical treatment of the whole narrative. In the face of the most recent Assyriologic investigations of Rawlinson, Oppert, Schrader, etc., a further persistence in such a position could only be regarded as an inveterate unscientific obstinacy. The assumption, indeed, which was at first thought to be confirmed by the Assyrian monuments, namely, that it was Esarhaddon who, on the occasion of his campaign against Phœnicia, about 677, took Manasseh captive and carried him to Babel (an assumption with which the report of Abydenus in Eusebius, Chron. i. p. 54, concerning a conquest of “Lower Syria” by Axerdis, that is, Esarhaddon, may very well combine), would scarcely be reconcilable with the most recent state of these investigations. The capture and Babylonish exile of Manasseh cannot be transferred to so early a time as the third or fourth year of Esarhaddon, who, according to Ptolemy and the inscriptions, reigned 681–668. For even if an inscription of this Assyrian king, in a list enumerating twenty - two names of tributary Syrian (“Chattite,” Hittite) kings, distinctly mentions a Minasi sar Yahudi, and thus, at all events, testifies that Manasseh belonged to the vassal-princes of that great king (comp. Schrader, pp. 227, 238), yet the same evidence reverts to a considerably younger inscription, wherein Asurbanipal (Sardanapalus), Esarhaddon’s successor, in a list of tributary Syro-Phœnician princes, along with the kings of Tyre, Edom, Moab, Gaza, Ascalon, Ekron, Gebal, Arvad, enumerates also between Tyre and Edom a sar Yahudi, “king of Judah,” who again, as is clear from the names of his contemporary neighbouring princes, can be no other than Manasseh. Accordingly Ms deportation, together with the attempt at revolt which no doubt occasioned it, may very well have taken place under this later sovereign; and that it did so is rendered highly probable by several circumstances, particularly this, that so long as Esarhaddon reigns we hear nothing, but under his successor Asurbanipal very much, of the disquiet and revolt of the vassals in Hither Asia against the Assyrian power. Hence the deportation of Manasseh by the Assyrian troops to Babel, and his short stay in captivity there, are to be placed under Asurbanipal about the year 648, when the Babylonish viceroy, Sammughes or Samul-sumukin, headed the western vassal-princes in an insurrection against the sovereign residing at Nineveh, and thereby occasioned a victorious expedition of the Assyrian army against them. The combination, keeping in view that point of time at the beginning of Esarhaddon’s reign, which has been adopted by Bertheau, Keil, and Neteler, after J. Cappellus, Ussher, des Vignoles, Prideaux, Calmet, Rambach, J. H. and J. D). Michaelis, and recently Ewald, Duncker (Gesch. des Alterthums, i. 697 ff., ii. 592, 3d ed.), Reinke (Beiträge zur Erklä-rung des A. T. viii. p. 127 f.), Hitzig (Gesch. as quoted), Thenius (on 2 Kings 21), must accordingly be corrected; see the searching and cogent proof by Schrader in the often quoted work (p. 238 ff.), with which also the not essentially different combination of J. Fürst (Gesch. der bibl. Literatur, ii. pp. 340, 372 f.) is to be compared, although the king Sarak there named as captor of Manasseh, as Schrader has proved, p. 233, is a later sovereign, different from Asurbanipal, the Asur - idil - ili of the inscriptions.4 And with regard to Babylon as the place of deportation, and to the mode of removal with chains and iron fetters, Schrader has produced the most satisfactory explanations and confirmatory parallels from the Assyrian monuments; since, with regard to the latter point, he shows from an inscription of Asurbanipal that even King Necho i. (Ni-ik-ku-u) suffered a “binding of the hands and feet with iron bands and chains when he was carried captive to Nineveh about this time,”5 and referring to this fact justly remarks: “But what might thus befall the king of Egypt might certainly as well be inflicted on a Jewish prince ” (p. 243). The final judgment of this distinguished Assyriologist concerning our fact runs thus: “There is nothing to cast suspicion on the notice of the Chronist, and his report is sufficiently intelligible from the state of things about 647 b.C.”
4. But even with respect to the history of Manasseh’s conversion and his subsequent reforms, the report of our author in 2Ch_33:13-17 contains nothing to justify the suspicion of the above-named critics (with whom also Schrader in the main accords, so far as he assumes the legendary as well as the historical in the report). For—1. In close connection with this history is communicated, 2Ch_33:14, a notice of the buildings and fortifications of Manasseh that resembles anything but a mere invention or fable, and the separation of which from the surrounding accounts, as if it only were historical and they were fabulous embellishment, is impossible (as the highly unfortunate attempt of Graf, as quoted, p. 174, proves). 2. The report also, 2Ch_33:16, of the restoration of the altar of the Lord by Manasseh, is much too historically definite and concrete to be fairly taken for the product of a biassed imagination or a fabulous rumour. 3. The removal, noticed 2Ch_33:15, of the strange gods, of the idol, that is, the figure of the asherah (2Ki_21:7) and of the idol-altar, must by no means be thought necessarily connected with the complete annihilation of these monuments of idolatry, as if there were here a contradiction of 2Ki_23:6; 2Ki_23:12; rather the complete destroying, crushing, and reducing to powder there mentioned, which Josiah thought it necessary to inflict on these monuments, directly suggest the thought that Manasseh neglected that which was important, and proceeded with too much mildness and forbearance (towards the priests of this idolatrous worship). Even the phraseology employed is against the assumption that the Chronist reports anything contradictory of those passages of the second book of Kings; for our author knows very well how to distinguish between הֵסִיר, “remove” (or even הִשְׁלִיךְ, “cast out,” 2Ch_33:15), and שִׁבַּר,הֵדק ,בָּרַת, and similar words, denoting the annihilation of the images or altars, according to such passages as 2Ch_15:16, 2Ch_31:1, 2Ch_34:4 (comp. Keil, p. 365). 4. To the assumption that neither Manasseh’s reform of worship was truly thorough and radical, nor his conversion solid and permanent, there is not the least objection; on the contrary, 2Ch_33:17 speaks expressly against the conception that he had swept away the monuments of idolatry as thoroughly as his father Hezekiah had done, or his grandson Josiah afterwards did; and the remainder of his reign and life, after his return from Babel (647–642 or 641), amounting perhaps to five years, left him quite time enough to relapse a second time partially or wholly into the idolatrous and immoral course of his earlier days. 5. If, accordingly, as is not merely possible, but probable, his return to the worship of the Lord was not a permanent change, but merely an episode in the long series of acts and events in his reign, it will be the less surprising if, in the judgment as well of the men of his day as of posterity regarding this sovereign, a division arose, so that only here and there express mention is made of the temporary repentance and better theocratic disposition wrought in him by the calamity of his exile; while he was otherwise, and perhaps usually, without any reference to this circumstance, reckoned among the sovereigns who were to be rejected from the theocratic stand-point. That accounts have been preserved to us in the canon by representatives of both of these views—that besides the present report, relatively favourable to Manasseh, the decidedly unfavourable account of the book of Kings, that uses the phrase “sins of Manasseh” several times (2Ki_24:3; 2Ki_23:26; comp. Jer_15:4) almost as a proverb, has come down to us,—this can by no means be called more wonderful than, for example, the existence of two relations, a more idealizing and a more realistic (duly emphasizing the dark along with the light), concerning the transactions in the reign of a David, a Solomon, a Jehoshaphat, or than the very dimly coloured picture of the religious and moral conduct of the northern kingdom, as the indications of our author, obviously betraying a certain aversion and rooted antipathy, exhibit it, compared with the far more favourable delineations of the books of Kings. In abatement of that which the opponents have specially to allege from the last-quoted passages against the credibility of the account of Manasseh’s reforms, comp. also especially Keil, p. 366. If this be the case with the conversion of Manasseh, the passages 2Ki_24:3; 2Ki_23:26, Jer_15:4, where it is said that the Lord removed Judah out of His sight on account of the sins of Manasseh, lose all significance for the opposite view. Manasseh is here presented as the man who by his ungodliness rendered the doom of Judah and Jerusalem inevitable, because he so corrupted Judah by his sins that he could no longer turn truly to the Lord, but fell back ever more into the sins of Manasseh. In like manner it is said, 2Ki_17:21-22, of the ten tribes, that the Lord cast them off because they walked in all the sins of Jeroboam, and departe not from them.
Footnotes:
[1]For לַֽאַנוֹתֵיכֶם the Sept., Vulg., Syr., etc., read לַֽאֲבוֹתָם which is preferred by many moderns since Luther (Berth., Kamph., etc.).
[2] וַיִּבֶן is the Kethib in most mss. and editions; some mss. and many old editions, however, give וַיִּבֶן as the Kethib and ויבן as the Keri. At all events, וַיִּבֶן appears to be the original reading, for which also the Vulg. (restauravit) and Syr. testify.
[3]For חוֹזַי the Sept. read הַהֹזִים (“words of the seers,” as in 2Ch_33:18); comp. Introd. § 5, ii.
[4]With respect also to the date (645 or a subsequent year), as well as some other circumstances, the combination of Fürst deviates from that of Schrader: among other things in this, that Fürst endeavours to prove historically a league of Manasseh, after his return from Babylon, with Psammetichus of Egypt (?), and so forth.
[5]The words of the inscription. which are remarkable as parallel to 2Ch_33:11 of this chapter, run thus: “The Sarludari (and) Necho they seized, then bound with iron bands and iron chains the hands and feet.” There also mention is made of a subsequent kindness to the captive Egyptian king in Nineveh and his return in company with royal “officers and governor” to Egypt. It was thus by no means an unheard of or extraordinary thing that befell Manasseh at this time; only in the manner of the divine decree and the restoration lies the difference.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 14, 17, 20 HE IS CARRIED UNTO BABYLON, WHERE HE HUMBLES HIMSELF…
HE IS CARRIED UNTO BABYLON, WHERE HE HUMBLES HIMSELF BEFORE GOD, AND IS RESTORED TO HIS KINGDOM. (Ch2 33:11-19)
the captains of the host of the king of Assyria--This king was Esar-haddon. After having devoted the first years of his reign to the consolidation of his government at home, he turned his attention to repair the loss of the tributary provinces west of the Euphrates, which, on the disaster and death of Sennacherib, had taken the opportunity of shaking off the Assyrian yoke. Having overrun Palestine and removed the remnant that were left in the kingdom of Israel, he despatched his generals, the chief of whom was Tartan (Isa 20:1), with a portion of his army for the reduction of Judah also. In a successful attack upon Jerusalem, they took multitudes of captives, and got a great prize, including the king himself, among the prisoners.
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took Manasseh among the thorns--This may mean, as is commonly supposed, that he had hid himself among a thicket of briers and brambles. We know that the Hebrews sometimes took refuge from their enemies in thickets (Sa1 13:6). But, instead of the Hebrew, Bacochim, "among the thorns", some versions read Bechayim, "among the living", and so the passage would be "took him alive."
bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon--The Hebrew word rendered "fetters" denotes properly two chains of brass. The humiliating state in which Manasseh appeared before the Assyrian monarch may be judged of by a picture on a tablet in the Khorsabad palace, representing prisoners led bound into the king's presence. "The captives represented appear to be inhabitants of Palestine. Behind the prisoners stand four persons with inscriptions on the lower part of their tunics; the first two are bearded, and seem to be accusers; the remaining two are nearly defaced; but behind the last appears the eunuch, whose office it seems to be to usher into the presence of the king those who are permitted to appear before him. He is followed by another person of the same race as those under punishment; his hands are manacled, and on his ankles are strong rings fastened together by a heavy bar" [Nineveh and Its Palaces]. No name is given, and, therefore, no conclusion can be drawn that the figure represents Manasseh. But the people appear to be Hebrews, and this pictorial scene will enable us to imagine the manner in which the royal captive from Judah was received in the court of Babylon. Esar-haddon had established his residence there; for though from the many revolts that followed the death of his father, he succeeded at first only to the throne of Assyria, yet having some time previous to his conquest of Judah, recovered possession of Babylon, this enterprising king had united under his sway the two empires of Babylon and Chaldea and transferred the seat of his government to Babylon.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv11, 13, 14, 18, 19 11. The captains of the host of the king…
11. The captains of the host of the king of Assyria — This king of Assyria was Esar-haddon, the son and successor of Sennacherib. This we learn from the statement that they carried him to Babylon, for Esar-haddon was the only Assyrian monarch, so far as we can find, who had a palace and held his court at Babylon. Also, in an inscription now in the British Museum, Esar-haddon says: “I transported into Assyria men and women innumerable. I counted among the vassals of my realm twelve kings of Syria, beyond the mountains, Balou, king of Tyre, Minasi, king of Judah,” etc. The king himself seems not to have been present in person at the capture of Manasseh, but left it to the management of the captains of his host.
Took Manasseh among the thorns — Rather, took him with hooks; an ignominious and humiliating mode of dealing with a distinguished and offensive captive, which prevailed among the Assyrians. See 2Ki_19:28, note.
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Bound him with fetters — Hebrew, with double brass. See note on Jdg_16:21. It was this bitter treatment that speedily led the captive king to humble himself before God, and repent of his sins.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 Ch. 2Ch_33:1-10 (Cp. 2Ki_21:1-16). Manasseh’s Reign. His Apostasy
Ch. 2Ch_33:1-10 (Cp. 2Ki_21:1-16). Manasseh’s Reign. His Apostasy
1. in Jerusalem] The Chronicler omits here the name of Manasseh’s mother, Hephzi-bah.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 (3) For.—And. (See margin.)
(3) For.—And. (See margin.)
Broken down.—2Ch_23:17; 2Ch_31:1 (“threw down”). Kings has “destroyed” (‘ibbad).
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Baalim.—The Baals—i.e., the different images of Baal. Kings has the singular, both here and in the next word, “groves,” or rather Asheras (‘Ashçrôth; Kings, ‘Ashçrah). The latter plural is rhetorical: Manasseh made such things as Asheras. (Comp. also the use of the plural in 2Ch_32:31, and the passages there referred to.) Kings adds: “as Ahab king of Israel made.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20 The first twenty verses of this chapter are taken…
The first twenty verses of this chapter are taken up with the account of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah and Hephzibah, who, beginning to reign at the early age of twelve years, reigned in all fifty-five years; the remaining five verses with the account of the reign of his son Amon. The parallel to this chapter is 2Ki 21. The repeated references in this chapter to Manasseh"s neglect, and to his people"s neglect, after his example, of injunction, promise, and threat of the Word of the Lord and of the Law, make it a prominent instance of the spirit of the compiler, and an indication of one of the main objects he had in view, and kept in view in writing these chronicles.
The parallel adds the name of Manasseh"s mother, the well-omened name Hephzibah, "My delight is in her". (Isa_62:4)
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Vers. 1-20.
Uncertain repentances.
While the father Hezekiah filled one of the niches of the throe typical best kings, his son Manasseh, the thirteenth King of Judah, by mournful contrast, occupies one of those of the three worst of all the kings of both lines, the other two being Jeroboam and Ahab. His reign, filling the longest space of all, viz. fifty-five years, occupies but a very unequal space on the page of the present history, and a yet shorter in the parallel. (2Ki_21:1-18) Eventful as it was, its eventfulness was of such a character that the historians may be pardonably credited with the very natural disposition to get over it as quickly as was possible. But from another point of view, the brevity marks significantly enough one unrelieved tale, one catalogued accumulation of personal sin, and sin against his high office and position, sin against his nation, and that sin some of the worst of all sin which consisted in seducing (ver. 9 and (2Ki_21:9) others to sin. The phenomena spread before the student in this chapter exhibit the King Manasseh
I TOUCHING THE LOWEST DEPTHS OF SIN THAT HAD DISTINGUISHED EITHER THRONE OF THE RENDED KINGDOM. The following particulars may be identified, as e.g. :
1. The general type of his evil work resembled him to "the heathen, whomGod" had actually driven out as intolerable, while making room in the land for his own people.
2. The evil work which he did was an undoing of good work, and that thegood of his own father before him. "He built again what Hezekiah his father had broken down" (ver. 3).
3. The evil work which he did was so much worse than that of King Ahaz, (2Ch_28:24) who shut up "the house of the Lord," in that it proceeded to the sacrilegious profanity of "building altars" for idolatrous worship, and "for all the host of heaven" in that house itself, "whereof the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall my Name be for ever." In "that house" also he set "a carved image idol.
1. The evil work which he did was a persuading and seducing of the people( over whom he was presumably shepherd) to sin, so strong as to amount to little less than compulsion. Note how often the peculiar circumstances surrounding a tempter"s tempting make the tempting so called, in nothing appreciable to fall short of compulsion. The serpent"s tempting of Eve was discretion itself as compared with the brute force and the overpowering force with which evil and sin itself are proffered(?) to the mind, heart, hand, of many a helpless one, many a helpless thousand in the vortex of modern civilization, its methods and systems.
2. The evil work did not shrink or stay before the enormity of "sheddinginnocent blood" (2Ki_21:16) that triumph of devilishness but e"en carried it to such excess that could make it possible for the historian to write, that with the wickedness "he filled Jerusalem from one end to another," making it to ring again with its sorrows and "cries from the ground," and with his sin.
II WARNED IN AN EXCEPTIONALLY FORCIBLE MANNER. Allusion is made to this interposition in our vers. 10, 18; but fuller information respecting it is given in 2Ki_21:10-15, and especially vers. 12, 13, in language that has indeed made its mark. For the expression (ver. 12), "both his ears shall tingle," see 1Sa_3:11; Jer_19:3; and upon the latter verse (ver. 13), see Rogers"s "Superhuman Origin of the Bible," p. 268 (1st edit., 8vo). Note what real force, though so often neglected, warning" should be.
III SUFFERING THE MOST ABJECT DEGRADATION OF CAPTURE AND HUMILIATION OF PUNISHMENT. This is expressed in ver. 11, compared with 2Ki_19:28; Amo_4:2; Job_41:2; see also again Rogers"s " Superhuman Origin of the Bible," p. 286. The retribution in the mode and the place of punishment is to be observed. It is the Assyrians who carry him away, but his captivity is to Babylon.
IV HIS EXCEEDING HUMBLING OF HIMSELF WITH ENTREATIES AND PRAYER BEFORE GOD IN HIS AFFLICTION, AND BECAUSE OF AFFLICTION. There are sufficient reasons for believing that there were present alike some penitence and some repentance in this humbling of himself, and beseeching "of the Lord his God," and "prayer to the God of his fathers." For God heard the prayer, in some sense also undeniably answered it, brought Manasseh again to Jerusalem and to his throne there. It is also said that Manasseh came to be convinced of what he should never have doubted, that "the Lord he was God" (ver. 13); that he reversed his former idolatrous practices and commands, cast out idols and altars from the city, repaired God"s altar and offered peace offerings and thank offerings (vers. 15, 16), and began other useful works for the defence of Jerusalem and his country. If he cleared himself, however, it is plain that he could not succeed in winning the people away with a perfect heart from "the high places," and their sacrifices and worship there (ver. 17), which temptation it was he who had again put in their way at the beginning. How often has God"s ready mercy and abundant pity run to meet and to help and to receive a penitence that did not prove itself after all pungent and intrinsically deep and lasting! How often does he still manifest himself thus "ready to forgive," while the strictest and severest self- searchings of our own hearts as to their sincerity and purity remain to be challenged! It is indeed to be noted, and it is a thing unexplained, and painfully, warningly suggestive, that one of the inspired histories (our parallel) has not a single word to say of his repentance and amendment; as though, whatever it were personally, and not a case "where tears of penance came too late for grace" for the individual, yet such repentance was all too late to rehabilitate his character, redeem his reign, or undo for a miserable nation the worst of his sins" consequences!
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Vers. 1-9.
The apostate.
Well indeed was it for King Hezekiah that he did not foresee, though he may have feared (see previous homily), the character and the course of his son and successor. Had he done so, not all his riches and honour, not all his treasuries and storehouses, not all his flocks and herds, not all his watercourses and other works, would have removed sorrow from his heart. There has never, in any land, been a greater change, a sadder reaction, than that experienced by Judah when the godly Hezekiah was succeeded by the apostate Manasseh. It is true, indeed
I THAT PITY AS WELL AS BLAME MAY BE EXTENDED TO THE YOUNG KING. He was but twelve when he ascended the throne of Judah. He was far too young to encounter the peculiar temptations of sovereignty; and there was much excuse for him if, at that tender age, he allowed his own youthful inclinations to be overborne by the counsels of those so much older and so much more experienced than himself. In view of his circumstances, we may commiserate as much as we condemn him. No one need wish to occupy a higher position than his years, his experience, his training, have fitted him to fill. Its honours and its emoluments, however great they may he, are of no account at all in view of the immense disadvantage at which such a one is placed, and of the temptations to which he is exposed. Let youth wait its time; let it not seize the opportunity before the hour is ripe; let it understand that the position of subjection, of apprenticeship, of culture (special or general), is a far happier and far wiser one for the present, and that it is the one hope of a really prosperous and honourable career.
II THAT MORAL EVIL MAY BE HIT VERY HARD, AND YET NOT BE SLAIN. Nothing will account for the speedy apostasy of Judah but the supposition that there was a vigorous idolatrous party at court, or that beneath the outward conformity of the previous reign there was a secret and yet strong inclination toward the practices of the time of Ahaz, Hezekiah did well to put down the altars and the "high places" with the unsparing energy he showed. But it was proved once more that it is one thing to remove the temptation and another thing to change the character. No reformer must be satisfied until he has reason to be convinced that sin is rooted out of the heart as well as taken out of the hand, that righteousness is loved within as well as manifested without.
III THAT SIN LEADS RAPIDLY DOWN FROM BAD TO WORSE. It is painful, indeed, to think of the lad carefully cultured in Hebrew ways of piety and morality going down into such sad depths of sin and shame as are indicated in the text (vers. 3, 4, 5, 7). Not all at once, but by somewhat rapid stages, he went on and down from the piety and purity of his boyhood to the "depths of Satan," as they may be called. That is too often the lamentable course of sin. It takes but a few years for the soul that was taught to hate iniquity and to shrink from its touch to become familiar with its phases and to become an adept in its practices. The "monster of the hideous mien," when we have become
familiar with its face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Shun the first step that leads down the evil slope.
IV THAT SIN BECLOUDS THE INTELLECT WHILE IT DEGRADES THE SOUL. Manasseh "used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit," etc. (ver. 6). When men leave the rational service of the one Lord of all, and betake themselves either to superstition or to unbelief, they are very apt to yield themselves up to the greatest follies; to accept theories and to practise arts which a very moderate share of intelligence condemns as childish and vain. Only in the way of Divine truth shall we tread the path of human wisdom; once out of that track we lose our way, and wander in labyrinths of folly and of error. With Jesus Christ for our Teacher, we shall shun those byways of folly which would dishonour and degrade us.
V THAT ONE SINFUL SOUL MAY WORE A WORLD OF HARM. "So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen," etc. (ver. 9). Perhaps those who first used their influence to withdraw him from the service of Jehovah shrank from some of the "developments" of their own work; but when we send a human spirit on a downward course, we little know whither that course will lead, or in what it will end. There are scarcely any limits to the evils which one bad life may work or start. Heavy indeed is the responsibility, great is the guilt, of those who lead the young astray, and send them along a path where they not only err and fail themselves, but scatter broadcast the seeds of sin and sorrow. C.
HOMILIES BY T. WHITELAW Vers. 1-20.
The reign of Manasseh.
I ITS EARLY COMMENCEMENT. Manasseh, "One who forgets" (Gesenius) an exceedingly appropriate name for one who in his lifetime forgat God and every good thing; in the inscriptions Minasi; perhaps so called "in allusion to the zeal with which the northern tribe had joined in Hezekiah"s reforms", (2Ch_30:11) or to the desire which prevailed in Hezekiah"s reign for a union of the two kingdoms" (Stanley) was twelve years old when he ascended his father"s throne (ver. 1). Awise child may be better than a foolish king; (Ecc_4:13) but, as a rule, "foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child", (Pro_22:15) while wisdom is the ripe fruit of age and experience. (Job_32:7) The experiment of boy-kings unless where these have been placed under regents or guided by wise counsellors, as were Joash (2Ch_24:2) and Uzziah (2Ch_26:5) has seldom been successful; (Ecc_10:16) though Manasseh"s grandson, Josiah, must be pronounced an honourable and brilliant exception. (2Ch_34:2)
II ITS EVIL CHARACTER. Manasseh "did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord" (ver. 2).
1. In imitation of the heathen. Whether he endeavoured to become acquainted with all the heathen religions he could find, and to introduce them into Judah, and "for this purpose sent into the most distant lands where there was any famous cultus, and grudged no pains for his one object" (Ewald, "History of Israel," 4:208) which seems a pure conjecture on the part of the learned author who propounds it it is undoubted that he resuscitated paganism and carried it to a higher degree of prevalence than it had ever before attained in Judah.
(1) He restored all the Canaanitish abominations, i.e. the ancient worship on hill-tops, which had flourished under Ahaz, but which his father Hezekiah had destroyed (vers. 2, 3).
(2) He revived the Baal and Moloch worship of Phoenicia, which Ahab had introduced into Israel, rearing up altars for the Baalim, making Asheroth, or male and female statues, with their accompanying abominable houses (ver. 3), and setting up a Moloch idol in the vale of Hinnom, to which he sacrificed one, if not more, of his own sons (ver. 6), and encouraged his people to offer theirs. (Jer_7:31, 32 19:2-6 32:35)
(3) He extended the Assyrio-Chaldean star-worship, which his grandfather Ahaz had introduced; (2Ki_23:12) he "worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them" (ver. 3). (On the nature of this worship, consult Exposition.)
(4) "He plunged into all the mysteries of sorcery, auguries, and necromancy" (Stanley); "he practised augury, and used enchantments, and practised sorcery, and dealt with them that had familiar spirits" (ver. 6). "Magic occupied an important place in the regards of the upper classes in Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt. At Babylonia the interpretation of omens was reduced to a science" (Rawlinson, "Kings of Israel and Judah," p. 206).
2. In dishonour of his father. "He built again the high places his father Hezekiah had thrown down" (ver. 3). Two things may have accounted for this sudden outbreak of paganism after Hezekiah"s death.
(1) The superficial character of Hezekiah"s reformation, which, though extensive enough, reaching to the furthest limits of Judah, (2Ch_31:1) does not appear to have been sufficiently intensive. (see Isa 28 Isa 32) The heathen party which had the upper hand during Ahaz"s reign, though suppressed by Hezekiah with Isaiah"s help, was not destroyed. The spirit of idolatry, compelled to be quiet and in a measure hold itself in abeyance, was neither eradicated from the community nor greatly weakened in its energy merely it was waiting a convenient opportunity to start up with renewed life and vigour. To this party belonged Shebna, the treasurer whose deposition Isaiah demanded. (Isa_22:15-25)
(2) The youth of Manasseh on acceding to the throne. Whether Hezekiah"s only son (Josephus, "Ant.," 10:2. 1) or not (Ewald, "History of Israel," 4:206, note), Manasseh was only twelve years of age on assuming the regal dignity, and must have been born three years after the illness referred to in the preceding chapter. (2Ch_32:24) His father"s death, therefore, having thrown him into the hands of the heathen party at a tender and susceptible age, he was quickly perverted from the right way of the Lord. Even the example, teaching, and prayers of his mother, Hephzibah, (2Ki_21:1) traditionally reported to have been Isaiah"s daughter, were powerless to resist the corrupting influences of the statesmen and courtiers who surrounded him. "The young years of Manasseh gave advantage to his miscarriage; even while he might have been under the ferule, he swayed the sceptre. Whither may not a child be drawn, especially to a gairish and puppet-like superstition? As infancy is capable of all impressions, so most of the worst" (Bishop Hall).
3. In defiance of Jehovah. Not content with re-establishing idolatry in general, he proceeded to put a special affront upon Jehovah.
(1) He built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts (outer and inner) of the house of the Lord (ver. 5), thus desecrating the city of which Jehovah had said, "In Jerusalem shall my Name be for ever" (ver. 4).
(2) In the house of God, perhaps in the holy place, he set the graven image of the idol he had made (ver. 7), i.e. of the Phoenician Astarte, so dishonouring the city and the temple of which God had said, "In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put my Name for ever" (ver. 7), and braving the Divine threatening Jehovah had pronounced against apostasy from his Law and worship (ver. 8). That he "went so far as to remove the altar from the forecourt of the temple, and the ark from the holy of holies" (Ewald), though not certain, is at least probable (cf. ver. 16; 35:3; (Jer_3:16)
(3) He along with his people rejected the admonitions of Jehovah"s prophets (ver. 10; cf. (2Ki_21:10) Whether one of these was Hozai, who survived Manasseh"s reign and recorded its chief events (ver. 19), whether Isaiah lived into the times of Hezekiah"s son, and whether Habakkuk was one of those who remonstrated with Manasseh, cannot be determined. Their message, however, has been recorded (2Ki_21:12-15) a prediction of impending destruction for Jerusalem because of her sovereign"s and her people"s sins. Yet neither Manasseh nor his people would hearken. "They loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil." They refused to be warned of the perilous career upon which they had entered. "They hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord: they would none of his counsel; they despised all his reproof". (Pro_1:29, Pro_1:30)
(4) He employed against the prophets and professors of the true religion the unhallowed instrument of persecution. "He shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another". (2Ki_21:16) "He barbarously slew all the righteous men that were among the Hebrews; nor would he spare the prophets, for he every day slew some of them, till Jerusalem was overflown with blood" (Josephus, "Ant.," 10:3. 1). Not the first instance in Scripture of a state persecution on account of religion; (1Ki_18:13) unhappily not the last. (2Ch_34:5)
III ITS LONG CONTINUANCE. The worst king had the longest reign fifty-five years. Perhaps:
1. To discover the true character of the nations sin, to reveal the essentially evil nature of idolatry, the inherent wickedness of such apostasy from Jehovah as Manasseh and his subjects had been guilty of. For this reason God bore long with the antediluvian world, and still at times permits wicked men to cumber the ground through long years, while good men, on the other hand, appear to be cut off before their time.
2. To signalize the Divine forbearance, to make known to Manasseh and his subjects the Divine long-suffering, the desire on Jehovah"s part that he and they should repent; as God still, for a like reason, exercises patience with wicked men (1Ti_1:16; 2Pe_3:15) being unwilling that any should perish, but that all should turn unto him and live (Eze_18:23, 32 33:11; 1Ti_2:4; 2Pe_3:9)
3. To vindicate the Divine justice, in ease the threatened judgments against Judah and Jerusalem should come to be fulfilled. After such an exhibition of the hideous character and bitter fruits of idolatry as had been given by Judah"s king and people, and after such a display of patient forbearance on the part of Jehovah, when the stroke of judgment fell upon the apostate land, it would be impossible to say that it was either undeserved or premature; that either Judah"s cup of iniquity was not full, or everything had not been done to secure her recovery from the evil path upon which she had entered. (Isa_4:3-6)
IV ITS PEACEFUL CLOSE.
1. The king was converted. "Manasseh humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers" (ver. 12). "Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God" (ver. 13; see next homily on vers. 11-17).
2. The people were reformed. In part at least a check was given to their idolatry. Though they continued to sacrifice on the high places, they did so "unto the Lord their God only" (ver. 17).
Learn:
1. That early promotion, except in grace, is frequently a grievous misfortune.
2. That piety in parents is no guarantee of piety in children.
3. That the alternation of good and evil rulers in the Church and in the state is not without its uses on the one hand of comfort, on the other hand of trial.
4. That "length of days is no true rule of God"s favour" (Hall).
5. That "we may not measure grace by means" (ibid.).
6. That "that mischief may be done in a day which many ages cannot redress" (ibid.).
7. That no degree of wickedness is beyond the reach of grace to forgive or remove. W.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 12, 18 Manasseh was twelve years old.
2Ch_33:1
Manasseh was twelve years old.
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Manasseh; or, the material and the moral in human life
There are two great mistakes prevalent amongst men, one is an over-estimation of the secular, the other a depreciation of the spiritual. Man is one, and all his duties and interests are concurrent and harmonious; the end of Christianity is to make men happy body and soul, here and hereafter.
I. The elevation of the secular and the degradation of the spiritual. Here is a man at the height of secular elevation. He is raised to a throne, called to sway his sceptre over a people the most enlightened, and in a country the most fertile and lovely on the face of the earth. In the person of this Manasseh, you have secular greatness in its highest altitude and most attractive position. But in connection with this you have spiritual degradation. Penetrate the gaudy trappings of royalty, look within, and what see you? A low, wretched, infamous spirit, a spirit debased almost to the lowest point in morals.
1. Look at him socially. How acted he as a son? His father, Hezekiah, was a man of undoubted piety--a monarch of distinguished worth. His sire was scarcely cold in his grave, before the son commenced undoing in the kingdom all that his pious father had for years endeavoured to accomplish. He built up again the high place which Hezekiah his father had destroyed, etc. How did he act as a parent? Was he anxious for the virtue and happiness of his children? No, he caused his children to pass through the fire of the son of Hinnom.
2. Look at him religiously--dupe of the most stupid imposture. He observed times and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards.
3. Look at him politically ruining his country, provoking the indignation of heaven. So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. This elevation of the secular, and the degradation of the spiritual, so manifest in the life of this monarch, and so manifest, alas, in all times and lands, is not destitute of many grave and startling suggestions. First: It shows the moral disorganisation of the human world. This state of things can never be, according to the original plan of the creation. A terrible convulsion has happened to the human world; a convulsion that has thrown every part in disorder. All the foundations of the earth are out of course. The social world is in a moral chaos. The Bible traces the cause, and propounds the remedy of this terrible disorganisation. Secondly: It shows the perverting capability of the soul. The greater the amount of worldly good a man possesses, the stronger is the appeal of the Creator for his gratitude and devotion. Moreover, the larger the amount of worldly wealth and power, the greater the facilities as well as the obligations to a life of spiritual intelligence, holiness, and piety. The perverting capability of the soul within us, may well fill us with amazement and alarm. Thirdly: It shows the high probability of a judgment. Under the government of a righteous monarch, will vice always have its banquets, its purple, and its crown? Will the great Lord allow His stewards to misappropriate His substance, and never call them to account?
II. The degradation of the secular, and the elevation of the spiritual. The judgment of God, which must ever follow sin, at length overtook the wicked monarch. The Assyrian army, under the direction of Esarhaddon, invaded the country, and carried all before it. The miserable monarch quits his palace and his throne, flies in terror of his life, and conceals himself in a thorn brake. Here he is discovered. He is bound in chains, transported to Babylon, and there cast into prison. Here is secular degradation. First: That mans circumstances are no necessary hindrances to conversion. If the question were asked, What circumstances are the most inimical to the cultivation of piety? I should unhesitatingly answer--Adversity. I am well aware indeed that adversity, as in the case before us, often succeeds in inducing religious thoughtfulness and penitence when prosperity has failed. But, notwithstanding this, I cannot regard adversity itself as the most suited to the cultivation of the religious character. Sufferings are inimical to that grateful feeling and spiritual effort which religious culture requires. It is when the system bounds with health, when Providence smiles on the path, that men are in the best position to discipline themselves into a godly life. But here we find a man in the most unfavourable circumstances--away from religions institutions, and friends, and books, an ironbound exile in a pagan land--beginning to think of his ways, and directing his feet into the paths of holiness. Such a case as this meets all the excuses which men offer for their want of religion. It is often said, Were we in such and such circumstances, we would be religious. The rich man says, Were I in humble life, more free from the anxieties, cares, responsibilities, and associations of my position, I would live a godly life; whilst the poor, on the other hand, says, with far more reason, Were my spirit not pressed down by the crushing forces of poverty; had I sufficient of worldly goods to remove me from all necessary anxiety, I would give my mind to religion, and serve my God. The man in the midst of excitement and bustle of commercial life, says, Were I in a more retired situation, in some moral region away from the eternal din of business--away in quiet fields, and under clear skies, amidst the music of birds and brooks, I would serve my Maker. The fact, after all, is that circumstances are no necessary hindrances or helps to a religious life. Secondly: That heavens mercy is greater than mans iniquities.
III. The concurrent elevation both of the spiritual and the secular. The Almighty hears his prayer. He is emancipated from his bondage, brought back to his own country, and restored to the throne of Israel. There he is now with a true heart, in a noble position--a real great man occupying a great office. This is a rare scene; and yet the only scene in accordance with the real constitution of things and the will of God. It seems to me that if man had remained in innocence, his outward position would always have been the product and type of his inner soul. Manassehs restoration to the throne, and the work of reformation to which he sets himself, suggests two subjects for thought. First: The tendency of godliness to promote mans secular elevation. The monarch comes back in spirit to God, and God brings him back to his throne. As the material condition of men depends upon their moral, improve the latter, and you improve the former. As the world gets spiritually holier, it will get secularly happier. Secondly: The tendency of penitence to make restitution. Concerning Manasseh it is thus written: Now, after this he built a wall without the city of David, on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, even to the entering in at the fish-gate, etc. Here is restitution, and an earnest endeavour to undo the mischief which he had wrought. Thus Zaceheus acted, and thus all true penitents have ever acted and will ever act. True penitence has a restitutionary instinct. But how little, alas! of the mischief done can be undone! (Homilist.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 2 Chronicles 33
MANASSEH: REPENTANCE AND FORGIVENESS
2 Chronicles 33
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In telling the melancholy story of the wickedness of Manasseh in the first period of his reign, the chronicler reproduces the book of Kings, with one or two omissions and other slight alterations. He omits the name of Manassehs mother; she was called Hephzi-bah-"My pleasure is in her." In any case, when the son of a godly father turns out badly, and nothing is known about the mother, uncharitable people might credit her with his wickedness. But the chroniclers readers were familiar with the great influence of the queen-mother in Oriental states. When they read that the son of Hezekiah came to the throne at the age of twelve and afterwards gave himself up to every form of idolatry, they would naturally ascribe his departure from his fathers ways to the suggestions of his mother. The chronicler is not willing that the pious Hezekiah should lie under the imputation of having taken delight in an ungodly woman, and so her name is omitted.
The contents of 2Ki_21:10-16 are also omitted; they consist of a prophetic utterance and further particulars as to the sins of Manasseh; they are virtually replaced by the additional information in Chronicles.
From the point of view of the chronicler, the history of Manasseh in the book of Kings was far from satisfactory. The earlier writer had not only failed to provide materials from which a suitable moral could be deduced, but he had also told the story so that undesirable conclusions might be drawn. Manasseh sinned more wickedly than any other king of Judah: Ahaz merely polluted and closed the Temple, but Manasseh "built altars for all the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the Temple," and set up in it an idol. And yet in the earlier narrative this most wicked king escaped without any personal punishment at all. Moreover, length of days was one of the rewards which Jehovah was wont to bestow upon the righteous; but while Ahaz was cut off at thirty-six, in the prime of manhood, Manasseh survived to the mature age of sixty-seven, and reigned fifty-five years.
However, the history reached the chronicler in a more satisfactory form. Manasseh was duly punished, and his long reign fully accounted for. When, in spite of Divine warning, Manasseh and his people persisted in their sin, Jehovah sent against them "the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh in chains, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon."
The Assyrian invasion referred to here is partially confirmed by the fact that the name of Manasseh occurs amongst the tributaries of Esarhaddon and his successor, Assurbanipal. The mention of Babylon as his place of captivity rather than Nineveh may be accounted for by supposing that Manasseh was taken prisoner in the reign of Esarhaddon. This king of Assyria rebuilt Babylon, and spent much of his time there. He is said to have been of a kindly disposition, and to have exercised towards other royal captives the same clemency which he extended to Manasseh. For the Jewish kings misfortunes led him to repentance: "When he was in trouble, he besought Jehovah his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him." Amongst the Greek Apocrypha is found a "Prayer of Manasses," doubtless intended by its author to represent the prayer referred to in Chronicles. In it Manasseh celebrates the Divine glory, confesses his great wickedness, and asks that his penitence may be accepted and that he may obtain deliverance.
If these were the terms of Manassehs prayers, they were heard and answered; and the captive king returned to Jerusalem a devout worshipper and faithful servant of Jehovah. He at once set to work to undo the evil he had wrought in the former period of his reign. He took away the idol and the heathen altars from the Temple, restored the altar of Jehovah, and reestablished the Temple services. In earlier days he had led the people into idolatry; now he commanded them to serve Jehovah, and the people obediently followed the kings example. Apparently he found it impracticable to interfere with the high places; but they were so far purified from corruption that, though the people still sacrificed at these illegal sanctuaries, they worshipped exclusively Jehovah, the God of Israel.
Like most of the pious kings, his prosperity was partly shown by his extensive building operations. Following in the footsteps of Jotham, he strengthened or repaired the fortifications of Jerusalem, especially about Ophel. He further provided for the safety of his dominions by placing captains, and doubtless also garrisons, in the fenced cities of Judah. The interest taken by the Jews of the second Temple in the history of Manasseh is shown by the fact that the chronicler is able to mention, not only the "Acts of the Kings of Israel," but a second authority: "The History of the Seers." The imagination of the Targumists and other later writers embellished the history of Manassehs captivity and release with many striking and romantic circumstances.
The life of Manasseh practically completes the chroniclers series of object-lessons in the doctrine of retribution; the history of the later kings only provides illustrations similar to those already given. These object-lessons are closely connected with the teaching of Ezekiel. In dealing with the question of heredity in guilt, the prophet is led to set forth the character and fortunes of four different classes of men. First {Eze_18:20} we have two simple cases: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. These have been respectively illustrated by the prosperity of Solomon and Jotham and the misfortunes of Jehoram, Ahaziah, Athaliah, and Ahaz. Again, departing somewhat from the order of Ezekiel-"When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations of the wicked man, shall he live? None of his righteous deeds that he hath done shall be remembered; in his trespass that he hath trespassed and in his sin that he hath sinned he shall die"-here we have the principle that in Chronicles governs the Divine dealings with the kings who began to reign well and then fell away into sin: Asa, Joash, Amaziah, and Uzziah.
We reached this point in our discussion of the doctrine of retribution in connection with Asa. So far the lessons taught were salutary: they might deter from sin; but they were gloomy and depressing: they gave little encouragement to hope for success in the struggle after righteousness, and suggested that few would escape terrible penalties of failure. David and Solomon formed a class by themselves; an ordinary man could not aspire to their almost supernatural virtue. In his later history the chronicler is chiefly bent on illustrating the frailty of man and the wrath of God. The New Testament teaches a similar lesson when it asks, "If the righteous is scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?" {1Pe_4:18} But in Chronicles not even the righteous is saved. Again and again we are told at a kings accession that he "did that which was good and right in the eyes of Jehovah"; and yet before the reign closes he forfeits the Divine favor, and at last dies ruined and disgraced.
But this somber picture is relieved by occasional gleams of light. Ezekiel furnishes a fourth type of religious experience: "If the wicked turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all My statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live; he shall not die. None of his transgressions that he hath committed shall be remembered against him; in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, saith the Lord Jehovah, and not rather that he should return from his way and live?" {Eze_18:21-23} The one striking and complete example of this principle is the history of Manasseh. It is true that Rehoboam also repented, but the chronicler does not make it clear that his repentance was permanent. Manasseh is unique alike in extreme wickedness, sincere penitence, and thorough reformation. The reformation of Julius Caesar or of our Henry V, or, to take a different class of instance, the conversion of St. Paul, was nothing compared to the conversion of Manasseh. It was as though Herod the Great or Caesar Borgia had been checked midway in a career of cruelty and vice, and had thenceforward lived pure and holy lives, glorifying God by ministering to their fellow-men. Such a repentance gives us hope for the most abandoned. In the forgiveness of Manasseh the penitent sinner receives assurance that God will forgive even the most guilty. The account of his closing years shows that even a career of desperate wickedness in the past need not hinder the penitent from rendering acceptable service to God and ending his life in the enjoyment of Divine favor and blessing. Manasseh becomes in the Old Testament what the Prodigal Son is in the New: the one great symbol of the possibilities of human nature and the infinite mercy of God.
The chroniclers theology is as simple and straightforward as that of Ezekiel. Manasseh repents, submits himself, and is forgiven. His captivity apparently had expiated his guilt, as far as expiation was necessary. Neither prophet nor chronicler was conscious of the moral difficulties that have been found in so simple a plan of salvation. The problems of an objective atonement had not yet risen above their horizon.
These incidents afford another illustration of the necessary limitations of ritual. In the great crisis of Manassehs spiritual life, the Levitical ordinances played no part; they moved on a lower level, and ministered to less urgent needs. Probably the worship of Jehovah was still suspended during Manassehs captivity; none the less Manasseh was able to make his peace with God. Even if they were punctually observed, of what use were services at the Temple in Jerusalem to a penitent sinner at Babylon? When Manasseh returned to Jerusalem, he restored the Temple worship, and offered sacrifices of peace-offerings and of thanksgiving; nothing is said about sin-offerings. His sacrifices were not the condition of his pardon, but the seal and token of a reconciliation already effected. The experience of Manasseh anticipated that of the Jews of the Captivity: he discovered the possibility of fellowship with Jehovah, far away from the Holy Land, without temple, priest, or sacrifice. The chronicler, perhaps unconsciously, already foreshadows the coming of the hour when men should worship the Father neither in the holy mountain of Samaria nor yet in Jerusalem.
Before relating the outward acts which testified the sincerity of Manassehs repentance, the chronicler devotes a single sentence to the happy influence of forgiveness and deliverance upon Manasseh himself. When his prayer had been heard, and his exile was at an end, then Manasseh knew and acknowledged that Jehovah was God. Men first begin to know God when they have been forgiven. The alienated and disobedient, if they think of Him at all, merely have glimpses of His vengeance and try to persuade themselves that He is a stern Tyrant. By the penitent not yet assured of the possibility of reconciliation God is chiefly thought of as a righteous Judge. What did the Prodigal Son know about his father when he asked for the portion of goods that fell to him or while he was wasting his substance in riotous living? Even when he came to himself, he thought of the fathers house as a place where there was bread enough and to spare; and he supposed that his father might endure to see him living at home in permanent disgrace, on the footing of a hired servant. When he reached home, after he had been met a great way off with compassion and been welcomed with an embrace, he began for the first time to understand his fathers character. So the knowledge of Gods love dawns upon the soul in the blessed experience of forgiveness; and because love and forgiveness are more strange and unearthly than rebuke and chastisement, the sinner is humbled by pardon far more than by punishment; and his trembling submission to the righteous Judge deepens into profounder reverence and awe for the God who can forgive, who is superior to all vindictiveness, whose infinite resources enable Him to blot out the guilt, to cancel the penalty, and annul the consequences of sin.
"There is forgiveness with Thee, That Thou mayest be feared."
The words that stand in the forefront of the Lords Prayer, "Hallowed be Thy name," are virtually a petition that sinners may repent, and be converted, and obtain forgiveness.
In seeking for a Christian parallel to the doctrine expounded by Ezekiel and illustrated by Chronicles, we have to remember that the permanent elements in primitive doctrine are often to be found by removing the limitations which imperfect faith has imposed on the possibilities of human nature and Divine mercy. We have already suggested that the chroniclers somewhat rigid doctrine of temporal rewards and punishments symbolizes the inevitable influence of conduct on the development of character. The doctrine of Gods attitude towards backsliding and repentance seems somewhat arbitrary as set forth by Ezekiel and Chronicles. A man apparently is not to be judged by his whole life, but only by the moral period that is closed by his death. If his last years be pious, his former transgressions are forgotten; if his last years be evil, his righteous deeds are equally forgotten. While we gratefully accept the forgiveness of sinners, such teaching as to backsliders seems a little cynical; and though, by Gods grace and discipline, a man may be led through and out of sin into righteousness, we are naturally suspicious of a life of "righteous deeds" which towards its close lapses into gross and open sin. "Nemo repente turpissimus fit." We are inclined to believe that the final lapse reveals the true bias of the whole character. But the chronicler suggests more than this: by his history of the almost uniform failure of the pious kings to persevere to the end, he seems to teach that the piety of early and mature life is either unreal or else is unable to survive as body and mind wear out. This doctrine has sometimes, inconsiderately no doubt, been taught from Christian pulpits; and yet the truth of which the doctrine is a misrepresentation supplies a correction of the former principle that a life is to be judged by its close. Putting aside any question of positive sin, a mans closing years sometimes seem cold, narrow, and selfish when once he was full of tender and considerate sympathy; and yet the man is no Asa or Amaziah who has deserted the living God for idols of wood and stone. The man has not changed, only our impression of him. Unconsciously we are influenced by the contrast between his present state and the splendid energy and devotion or self-sacrifice that marked his prime; we forget that inaction is his misfortune, and not his fault; we overrate his ardor in the days when vigorous action was a delight for its own sake; and we overlook the quiet heroism with which remnants of strength are still utilized in the Lords service, and do not consider that moments of fretfulness are due to decay and disease that at once increase the need of patience and diminish the powers of endurance. Muscles and nerves slowly become less and less efficient; they fail to carry to the soul full and clear reports of the outside world; they are no longer satisfactory instruments by which the soul can express its feelings or execute its will. We are less able than ever to estimate the inner life of such by that which we see and hear. While we are thankful for the sweet serenity and loving sympathy which often make the hoary head a crown of glory, we are also entitled to judge some of Gods more militant children by their years of arduous service, and not by their impatience of enforced inactivity.
If our authors statement of these truths seem unsatisfactory, we must remember that his lack of a doctrine of the future life placed him at a serious disadvantage. He wished to exhibit a complete picture of Gods dealings with the characters of his history, so that their lives should furnish exact illustrations of the working of sin and righteousness. He was controlled and hampered by the idea that underlies many discussions in the Old Testament: that Gods righteous judgment upon a mans actions is completely manifested during his earthly life. It may be possible to assert an eternal providence; but conscience and heart have long since revolted against the doctrine that Gods justice, to say nothing of His love, is declared by the misery of lives that might have been innocent, if they had ever had the opportunity of knowing what innocence meant. The chronicler worked on too small a scale for his subject. The entire Divine economy of Him with whom a thousand years are as one day cannot be even outlined for a single soul in the history of its earthly existence. These narratives of Jewish kings are only imperfect symbols of the infinite possibilities of the eternal providence. The moral of Chronicles is very much that of the Greek sage, "Call no man happy till he is dead"; but since Christ has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel, we no longer pass final judgment upon either the man or his happiness by what we know of his life here. The decisive revelation of character, the final judgment upon conduct, the due adjustment of the gifts and discipline of God, are deferred to a future life. When these are completed, and the soul has attained to good or evil beyond all reversal, then we shall feel, with Ezekiel and the chronicler, that there is no further need to remember either the righteous deeds or the transgressions of earlier stages of its history.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 CRITICAL NOTES.] This chapter is parallel with 2 Kings…
CRITICAL NOTES.] This chapter is parallel with 2 Kings 21., yet differs in omitting some things and adding new matter, especially in central part. Impiety of Man. (2Ch_33:1-10); his captivity and repentance (2Ch_33:11-17); his end (2Ch_33:18-20). Amon (2Ch_33:21-25).
2Ch_33:1-10.—Manasseh’s revival of idolatry. Named after a tribe of Israel, born after his father’s recovery. Evil, through influence of those around him. 2Ch_33:3. Built (2Ki_18:4); groves, one in 2Ki_21:3-7, that which was intruded into the temple. 2Ch_33:4. House, i.e., within precincts of temple and in its courts (2Ch_33:5). 2Ch_33:6. Through fire, like Ahaz (2Ch_28:3); observed, bewitched with an evil eye; enchantments, serpent charms; accustomed to all the black arts of the day. 2Ch_33:7. Carved, in Ki. wooden stock of Ashtoreth. 2Ch_33:8. Appointed, fixed. 2Ch_33:9. Err, by example and conduct. 2Ch_33:10. Spake, full account 2Ki_21:10-15.
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2Ch_33:11-17.—Manasseh’s cap. and repentance. Thorns, among which he hid himself for refuge (1Sa_13:6); some “among the living,” i.e., took him alive; others “which took M. cap. with rings.” 2Ch_33:12. Besought, lit. “stroked or smoothed the face of the Lord” (cf. Exo_32:11; 1Sa_13:11; 1Ki_13:6; Dan_9:13). 2Ch_33:14. Wall, rebuilt or repaired. Gihon, 2Ch_32:4; fishgate, near N.E. corner of lower city; went round to Ophel. 2Ch_33:15. Strange (2Ch_33:3-5); idol of 2Ch_33:7. 2Ch_33:16. Repaired, desecrated, or damaged altar. 2Ch_33:17. High places (2Ch_31:1), prohibited that there might be one national altar.
2Ch_33:18-20.—Manasseh’s end. Prayer, preserved in some MSS. of Sept., no claim to be considered the genuine utterance of Jewish king. The composition of an Hellenistio Jew, well acquainted with the Sept., writing at a time probably not much anterior to the Christian Era [Speak. Com.]. 2Ch_33:19. Seers, of Hozai (marg.), a prophet of the time. 2Ch_33:20. House, fuller in 2Ki_21:18. Reason not known.
2Ch_33:21-25.—Amon’s reign and end. A. re-established the idolatries which his father put aside; met the fate of Joash and Amaziah from his servants, at whose death executive government was suspended.
HOMILETICS
MANASSEH’S WICKEDNESS.—2Ch_33:1-9
Hezekiah’s reformation not completed by successors, lost its influence upon manners of people. Corruption and vice increased and openly practiced by degenerate leaders. Young king trained up in idolatry and introduced abominations when he became ruler.
I. Wickedness determined in its spirit. “He wrought much wickedness.” A liberal patron and zealous adept in Chaldean arts and imposture. Multiplied sins privately and publicly. Determined, energetic, and violent in his career. Did wickedness “with both hands earnestly.”
II. Wickedness awful in its extent. Upset his father’s reforms, increased idolatrous customs, raised soothsayers to dignity in his count filled the land with altars of Baal, and outraged all decency by putting an image of Asherah in the very precincts of the temple dedicated to the true worship of God.
III. Wickedness exceptional in its nature. He practised sorcery and necromancy, and restored the fires of Tophet. “He made Judah do worse than the heathen.” He became a cruel persecutor, and his reign a reign of terror. Streets of Jerusalem ran with innocent blood. “His name became in Jewish annals the synonym of infamy” (cf. 2Ki_21:16). Sins terrible in themselves, inexcusable in Manasseh, and most fruitful of evil!
IV. Wickedness unchecked by Divine warnings. “The Lord spake to M. and to his people, but they would not hearken” (2Ch_33:10). God about to destroy, not build and defend the city! “Line and plummet” threatened. Destruction would be entire and unhindered by any destroying angel. People taken away as “a prey and a spoil.” M. himself a captive in chains and carried to Babylon. A punishment deserved, sent in mercy, and brought repentance and restoration.
MANASSEH’S REPENTANCE.—2Ch_33:10-13
Exact time of Manasseh’s confinement in dungeon of Babylon not known, but narrative one of deepest interest, one which reveals the glory of unparalleled mercy. “The hardships, the loneliness, the disgrace of captivity were good for M.”
I. An exception in youthful experience. “The remarkable distinction of his career is that he is the only case clearly recorded in the Scriptures of a youth breaking away from the restraints and example of a religious parentage, who was recovered by the grace of God, and brought to repentance” [A. Phelps, D.D.].
II. It was sincere in its character. The misery and solitude of prison led to calm reflection.
1. His humility was great. The iron entered his soul. He recalled the days of childhood, thought of scenes of blood and cries of the murdered. The stars of heaven, which he had sinfully worshipped, shone in the dark prison to remind him of his guilt. He saw the vileness of his actions and the evil of his heart. “He humbled himself greatly.”
2. His prayer was earnest. He humbly besought God for pardon; implored for opportunity to evince the sincerity of his sorrow. God heard, and restored him; “was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom.”
III. It was permanent in its results. On his return he exerted himself to the uttermost to correct errors of his reign, and establish the worship of God in former purity and splendour.
1. He was concerned for the temporal welfare of the kingdom. Repaired the old walls of the city, added a new one; surrounded and fortified the hill of Ophel; strengthened, garrisoned, and provisioned “the fenced cities of Judah.”
2. He endeavoured to practise and promote religion among the people. In remembrance of former evils, among multitudes who had been former associates, and perhaps amid scoffs and taunts of ignominious capture and disgraceful imprisonment, he purged the land and the temple from idolatry; repaired the altar of Jehovah, and sacrificed peace-offerings upon it, and “commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel.”
IV. It is most encouraging to others. A wonderful display of God’s mercy. A proof “that the Divine mercy,” says Stanley, “far exceeds the Divine vengeance, and that even from the darkest reprobation the free will of man and the grace of God may achieve a deliverance. If Manasseh could be restored, there was no one against whom the door of repentance and restitution was finally closed.”
MANASSEH’S LIFE AND ITS LESSONS
I. That the sins of parents arrested in one generation may appear in another. As diseases pass over some, and reappear in others, so wickedness, thought to be extinct, assumes its virulence, and brings forth its fruit.
II. That when children of godly parents sin they often become worse than others. M. went further, and more guilty of excess, than heathens around him. “M. seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel.”
III. That God exercises providential checks to prevent these sins. Thus far men can only go. The end often distant, but certain, when God designs to restore.
1. To fulfil his covenant.
2. To illustrate his mercy. Paul obtained mercy as a pattern to others, a form sketch to imitate, to be filled up by others (1Ti_1:16).
3. To reveal his nature. “Then M. knew that the Lord he was God.”
IV. That in the conversion of M. we have encouragement to labour and pray for the salvation of sinners. Give none up in despair. God’s power omnipotent, and his grace sufficient. Augustine, Newton, Bunyan, &c. This should be the theme of preaching as it is the doctrine of Scripture. After teaching theology for forty years, the elder Alexander said: “The longer I live, the more I incline to sum up my theology in the single sentence, ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.’ ”
HEZEKIAH AND MANASSEH: A CONTRAST
We have in end of one and beginning of the other a magnificent sunset and a sunrise of quite an opposite description. A good father and king closing life in Hezekiah; a bad son and successor commencing life in Manasseh. I. Consider Hez. and what we learn about him.
1. That genuine goodness shall not want appropriate record and remembrance.
2. God the inspirer of goodness in the hearts of men will not forget it.
3. The beneficiaries of goodness will not be unmindful of their benefactors.
4. Sympathetic imitators will mirror forth their goodness from whom they have derived its idea and impulse. II. Now turn to Man and what the history says about him.
1. A youthful king.
2. A long reign.
3. A life of great wickedness. Application:
1. What may parents learn from the son of such a father? Hez. hoarded up wealth for his son. Did he undervalue the moral element in him?
2. What may subjects learn from the successor of such a king? Not to trust religion to princes who may be alternately reformers and destroyers [J. Spencer Hill].
LESSONS FROM THE LIFE OF THREE KINGS.—2Ch_33:21-25
I. Manasseh. There is no limit to the mercy of God. Sinners chief, welcome to complete forgiveness. If only great saints got into heaven great sinners would lose hope. But when we see M. and men like him going in and getting welcome, there is hope for us. If we follow their steps in repentance, we shall be permitted to join their company in rest.
II. Amon. Beware of turning the riches of God’s grace into a snare. As Manasseh’s case is recorded in the Bible that an aged sinner desiring to turn may not be cast into despair, Amon’s case, recorded beside it, that the young may not delay an hour, lest they perish for ever.
III. None will be lost or saved in consequence of anything in our parents. Amon saw his father born again when old, but the son did not inherit his father’s goodness. Josiah the child of an ungodly parent, yet he became a godly child. Two lessons plainly written in the history—one to make presumptuous humble, the other to give despairing hope:
(1) a converted father cannot secure the safety of an unconverted son;
(2) an unconverted father cannot drag down a child in his fall if that child follows the Lord [W. Arnot, “Fam. Treasury”].
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS.
2Ch_33:1. Reigned fifty-and-five years.
1. For the punishment of people’s sins.
2. That he might have time enough to amend his own life.
3. That in him, as afterwards in Paul, “God might show forth all longsuffering” [Trapp].
2Ch_33:8. Israel fixed in God’s house and in the land.
1. Fixed by God’s appointment, not their own choice or preference.
2. Fixed conditionally. “Only if they will observe, &c.”
3. Ejected by violation of conditional promise.
2Ch_33:9. M. seduced. The power of example. Ahaz. abandoned worship of God, but did not seduce generality of his subjects. Manasseh’s influence carried the whole nation with him into idolatry. Evil examples like pestilential diseases.
2Ch_33:11-13. M.’s conversion.
1. Affliction its occasion. This designed. “They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them.” “When the rod spoke he heard it (Mic_6:9) who would not hear the word (2Ch_5:10). God sent him into the dungeon to repent; as he did David into the depths, and Jonah into the whale’s belly to pray. Adversity hath whipt many a soul into heaven, which otherwise prosperity had coached to hell” [Trapp].
2. Prayer its accompaniment. “He besought the Lord.” “His affections, like Ben-hadad’s best counsellors, sent M. with a cord about his neck, to the merciful King of Israel” [Trapp].
3. Amendment its fruits. Complete reversal of former policy; zeal in destruction of idols, and in worship of God; public example and encouragement to others to do right. “Fruits meet for repentance.”
2Ch_33:17. People did sacrifice. The force of habit, (a) To withstand good example; (b) To resist religious influences; and (c) To despise Divine warnings. Easier to corrupt than to reform men, and difficult to break off evil customs and forsake religious superstitions.
2Ch_33:17-18. A dark day and a bright sunset. Here is an unostentatious, unhonoured, and unepitaphed grave. We have to trace in this case a sunrise of promise, soon obscured with clouds of guilt and crime. These clouds burst in floods of penitence and sorrow. A meridian of sudden brilliancy follows. The sky clears, and the orb of a chequered life sets cloudless and serene on the hills of Judah. Standing by his grave, let us consider—I. Manasseh’s sin. Look at
(1) His early training. Hezekiah would well bring him up;
(2) The baneful influence his creed and example had on his subjects;
(3) His repeated and obdurate rejection of Divine warning. II. His conversion. His dungeon became the gate of heaven. Note here the wonderful power of sanctified affliction. III. His new life. The grand test of the reality of conversion is the regenerated being. The tree is known by its fruits. We read that when God brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom, “then M. knew that the Lord He was God” [Dr. Macduff].
2Ch_33:20. Buried in house, “in the garden of his own house” (2Ki_21:18). The sepulchre in the garden (cf. Joh_19:41).
2Ch_33:21-25. Amon trespassed more and more, lit., multiplied trespasses.
1. He began early. Early in age and in reign. Only twenty-two, only two years in Jerusalem.
2. He did much in the time. To do good much effort, time, and sacrifice required. Easy to do evil, which spreads quickly and makes a harvest in short season. “How then was Manasseh dead? In what sense was Manasseh buried? Here is an active boy who has caught his mantle, and is working with redoubled industry” [Dr. Parker]. “The evil that men do lives after them.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 33
2Ch_33:1-7. Did evil. It was the misfortune of Manasseh to pass the most critical period of his life, the transition from youth to manhood, in an atmosphere so fraught with moral corruption, unfavourable to the formation of manly sentiments, holy purposes, and virtuous habits—a court, the court of a youth, himself the victim of a deadly miasma; the beams of his own glory exhaled under such influences, and the better impressions of earlier teachings were speedily erased; and he emerges into notice a worldling and an idolater, a stain upon his country’s annals, for fifty years a scourge and corrupter, himself at last saved, but only “in the furnace of affliction” and “so as by fire” [Rev. R. Hallam, D.D.].
2Ch_33:11-13. When in affliction. Methinks I hear God say, Take this medicine; it is exactly fitted to the case, prepared and weighed by my own hands. Adam’s (Priv. Thoughts) sin the disease, Christ the physician, pain the medicine [Cecil]. By pain God drives me to prayer, teaches me what prayer is, inclines me to pray [Adams].
“Prayer is a creature’s strength, his very breath and being;
Prayer is the golden key that can open the wicket of mercy.”
2Ch_33:21-24. Did evil. M. might repent and reform—ay, and be accepted by God; but could he undo the consequences—the effects upon others—of his life and wickedness? May as well expect to prevent the appearance of disease after having used every effort to spread infection. The father may turn to God in true sorrow, but the son he begat shall follow in his parent’s course of evil and never turn from it. Oh. how fearful a thing is sin! If we put our hands to it, we know not what we do. The thought of the irrevocable, irremediable consequences of sin should help to keep us from sinning [M. J.].
“How many, all weak and withered of their force,
Wait on the verge of dark eternity,
Like stranded wrecks!”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 2Ch 33:12-13
2Ch 33:12-13
I. It deserves to be noticed that the fall of Manasseh was an exception to the general law respecting the history of children of a godly parentage. It is a fact which children in Christian households should ponder seriously that if they do break loose from the restraints of their religious training, they become exceptional cases of sin against exceptional privilege.
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II. This is confirmed by the fact, which the early manhood of Manasseh also illustrates, that when the children of the good become vicious, they do become worse than the average of wicked men. Manasseh fell back to the disgraceful level of his grandfather Ahaz.
III. The fall of Manasseh proves that the virus of an evil parentage when arrested in one generation may pass over and reappear in the generation following.
IV. The fall of Manasseh illustrates the power of high station and worldly prosperity to counteract the influence of a religious education.
V. The misfortunes which followed the apostasy of Manasseh illustrate the faithfulness of God to His covenant with godly parents.
VI. The salvation of the penitent prince should be both an encouragement and a warning to those sons of Christian parents who have lost the paths of virtue.
A. Phelps, The Old Testament a Living Book, p. 124.
References: 2Ch 33:11.—E. H. Plumptre, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. iv., pp. 450,452. 2Ch 33:13.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii., No. 105.
2Ch 33:20-25
Notice the chief lessons which lie in the life of these three kings.
I. Manasseh. There is no limit to the mercy of God. Sinners the chief are welcome to complete forgiveness. If only great saints got into heaven, we who are great sinners would lose hope. But when we see Manasseh and men like him going in and getting welcome, there is hope for us. If we follow their steps in repentance, we shall be permitted to join their company in rest.
II. Amon. Beware of turning the riches of God’s grace into a snare. As Manasseh’s case is recorded in the Bible that an aged sinner desiring to turn may not be cast into despair, Amon’s case is recorded beside it that the young may not delay an hour, lest they perish for ever.
III. None of us will be saved or lost in consequence of anything in our parents. Amon saw his father born again when he was old, but the son did not inherit his father’s goodness. Josiah was the child of an ungodly parent, and yet he became a godly child. These two lessons are plainly written in the history, the one to make the presumptuous humble, the other to give the despairing hope: (1) a converted father cannot secure the safety of an unconverted son, and (2) an unconverted father cannot drag down a child in his fall if that child follows the Lord.
W. Arnot, Family Treasury, 1861, p. 353.
Reference: 2Ch 34:1.—Sermons for Boys and Girls, p. 188.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v9 2 Chronicles
2 Chronicles
MANASSEH’S SIN AND REPENTANCE
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2Ch 33:9 - 2Ch 33:16.
The story of Manasseh’s sin and repentance may stand as a typical example. Its historical authenticity is denied on the ground that it appears only in this Book of Chronicles. I must leave others to discuss that matter; my purpose is to bring out the teaching contained in the story.
The first point in it is the stern indictment against Manasseh and his people. The experience which has saddened many a humbler home was repeated in the royal house, where a Hezekiah was followed by a Manasseh, who scorned all that his father had worshipped, and worshipped all that his father had loathed. Happily the father’s eyes were closed long before the idolatrous bias of his son could have disclosed itself. Succeeding to the throne at twelve years of age, he could not have begun his evil ways at once, and probably would have been preserved from them if his father had lived long enough to mould his character. A child of twelve, flung on to a throne, was likely to catch the infection of any sin that was in the atmosphere. The narrative specifies two points in which, as he matured in years, and was confirmed in his course of conduct, he went wrong: first, in his idolatry; and second, in his contempt of remonstrances and warnings. As to the former, the preceding context gives a terrible picture. He was smitten with a very delirium of idolatry, and wallowed in any and every sort of false worship. No matter what strange god was presented, there were hospitality, an altar, and an offering for him. Baal, Moloch, ‘the host of heaven,’ wizards, enchanters, anybody who pretended to have any sort of black art, all were welcome, and the more the better. No doubt, this eager acceptance of a miscellaneous multitude of deities was partly reaction from the monotheism of the former reign, but also it was the natural result of being surrounded by the worshippers of these various gods; and it was an unconscious confession of the insufficiency of each and all of them to fill the void in the heart, and satisfy the needs of the spirit. There are ‘gods many, and lords many,’ because they are insufficient; ‘the Lord our God is one Lord,’ because He, in His single Self, is more than all these, and is enough for any and every man.
We may note, too, that at the beginning of the chapter Manasseh is said to have done ‘like unto the abominations of the heathen,’ while in 2Ch 33:9 he is said to have done ‘evil more than did the nations.’ When a worshipper of Jehovah does like the heathen, he does worse than they. An apostate Christian is more guilty than one who has never ‘tasted the good word of God,’ and is likely to push his sins to a more flagrant wickedness. ‘The corruption of the best is the worst.’ We cannot do what the world does without being more deeply guilty than they.
The narrative lays stress on the fact that the king’s inclination to idolatry was agreeable to the people. The kings, who fought against it, had to resist the popular current, but at the least encouragement from those in high places the nation was ready to slide back. Rulers who wish to lower the standard of morality or religion have an easy task; but the people who follow their lead are not free from guilt, though they can plead that they only followed. The second count in the indictment is the refusal of king and people to listen to God’s remonstrances. 2Ki 21:1 - 2Ki 21:26, gives the prophets’ warnings at greater length. ‘They would not hearken’-can anything madder and sadder be said of any of us than that? Is it not the very sin of sins, and the climax of suicidal folly, that God should call and men stop their ears? And yet how many of us pay no more regard to His voice, in His providences, in our own consciences, in history, in Scripture, and, most penetrating and beseeching of all, in Christ, than to idle wind whistling through an archway! Our own evil deeds stop our ears, and the stopped ears make further evil deeds more easy.
The second step in this typical story is merciful chastisement, meant to secure a hearing for God’s voice. 2 Kings tells the threat, but not the fulfilment; Chronicles tells the fulfilment, but not the threat. We note how emphatically God’s hand is recognised behind the political complications which brought the Assyrians to Jerusalem, and how particularly it is stated that the invasion was not headed by Esarhaddon, but by his generals. The place of Manasseh’s captivity also is specified, not as Nineveh, as might have been expected, but as Babylon. These details, especially the last, look like genuine history. It is history which carries a lesson. Here is one conspicuous instance of the divine method, which is working to-day as it did then. God’s hand is behind the secondary causes of events. Our sorrows and ‘misfortunes’ are sent to us by Him, not hurled at us by human hands only, or occurring by the working of impersonal laws. They are meant to make us bethink ourselves, and drop evil things from our hands and hearts. It is best to be guided by His eye, and not need ‘bit and bridle’; but if we make ourselves stubborn as ‘the mule, which has no understanding,’ it is second best that we should taste the whip, that it may bring us to run in harness on the road which He wills. If we habitually looked at calamities as His loving chastisement, intended to draw us to Himself, we should not have to stand perplexed so often at what we call the mysteries of His providence.
The next step in the story is the yielding of the sinful heart when smitten. The worst affliction is an affliction wasted, which does us no good. And God has often to lament, ‘In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction.’ Sorrow has in itself no power to effect the purpose for which it is sent; but all depends on how we take it. It sometimes makes us hard, bitter, obstinate in clinging to evil. A heart that has been disciplined by it, and still is undisciplined, is like iron hammered on an anvil, and made the more close-grained thereby. But this king took his chastisement wisely. An accepted sorrow is an angel in disguise, and nothing which drives us to God is a calamity. Manasseh praying was freer in his chains than ever he had been in his prosperity. Manasseh humbling himself greatly before God was higher than when, in the pride of his heart, he shut God out from it.
Affliction should clear our sight, that we may see ourselves as we are; and, if we do, there will be an end of high looks, and we shall ‘take the lowest room.’ Thus humbled, we shall pray as the self-confident and outwardly prosperous cannot do. Sorrow has done its best on us when, like some strong hand on our shoulders, it has brought us to our knees. No affliction has yielded its full blessing to us unless it has thus set us by Manasseh’s side.
The next step in the story is the loving answer to the humbled heart, and the restoration to the kingdom. ‘He was entreated of him.’ No doubt, political circumstances brought about Manasseh’s reinstatement, as they had brought about his captivity, but it was God that ‘brought him again to his kingdom.’ We may not receive again lost good things, but we may be quite sure that God never fails to hear the cry of the humble, and that, if there is one voice that more surely reaches His ear and moves His heart than another, it is the voice of His chastened children, who cry to Him out of the depths, and there have learned their own sin and sore need. He will be entreated of them, and, whether He gives back lost good or not, He will give Himself, in whom all good is comprehended. Manasseh’s experience may be repeated in us.
And the best part of it was, not that he received back his kingdom, but that ‘then Manasseh knew that the Lord He was God.’ The name had been but a name to him, but now it had become a reality. Our traditional, second-hand belief in God is superficial and largely unreal till it is deepened and vivified by experience. If we have cried to Him, and been lightened, then we have a ground of conviction that cannot be shaken. Formerly we could at most say, ‘I believe in God,’ or, ‘I think there is a God,’ but now we can say, ‘I know,’ and no criticism nor contradiction can shake that. Such knowledge is not the knowledge won by the understanding alone, but it is acquaintance with a living Person, like the knowledge which loving souls have of each other; and he who has that knowledge as the issue of his own experience may smile at doubts and questionings, and say with the Apostle of Love, ‘We know that we are of God, . . . and we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true.’ Then, if we have that knowledge, we shall listen to the same Apostle’s commandment, ‘Keep yourselves from idols,’ even as the issue of Manasseh’s knowledge of God was that ‘he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Reign of Manasseh
The Reign of Manasseh
This chapter repeats, with certain omissions, 2 Kings 21 but the section 2Ch_33:11-17, relating the captivity in Babylon, repentance, and release of Manasseh, is supplementary to the account in 2 Ki.
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6. Observed times] RV 'practised augury': perhaps, as the original suggests, by watching the motions of clouds.
8. So that] RV 'if only': God's promises to Israel were conditional upon its obedience.
11. Among the thorns] RM 'with hooks': a monument still exists which shows the Assyrian king Esarhaddon leading two captives by hooks or rings put through their lips.
To Babylon] This city was for the most part subject to Assyria until the overthrow of the Assyrian power in 607 b.c. Shortly before 648 the brother of Asshurbanipal (who is probably the king of Assyria alluded to in this v.) revolted, and received support from some of the Palestinian states; but the insurrection was suppressed, and if Manasseh had been among those who aided the insurgents, he may well have been punished in consequence. The Assyrian inscriptions, though they mention that Manasseh was a vassal of Assyria, do not refer to the events here related.
13. Brought him again, etc.] i.e. by prompting the Assyrian king to restore him to his throne. Such leniency on the part of Asshurbanipal finds a parallel in his conduct towards Necho, an Egyptian feudatory prince, who was taken captive for intriguing against his suzerain, but was subsequently restored to his country.
14. A wall without.. David] RV 'an outer wall to the city of David.' The fish gate] This was in the N. wall of the city; through it fish is supposed to have entered from Tyre.
16. Commanded.. to serve the Lord] In spite of Manasseh's reformation here related, Jeremiah subsequently declared that his sins had not been expiated, and that the nation was doomed to destruction in consequence: Jer_15:4.
18. His prayer] What purports to be Manasseh's prayer is preserved in the Apocrypha, but is not considered genuine.
19. The sayings of the seers] This follows the LXX. The Heb. has 'the sayings of Hozai.'
20. In his own house] LXX has 'in the garden' (or 'park') 'of his own house': cp. 2Ki_21:18.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 7. Decline and Apostasy under Manasseh and Amon
7. Decline and Apostasy under Manasseh and Amon
CHAPTER 33
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1. Manasseh’s wicked reign (2Ch 33:1-10)
2. Manasseh’s imprisonment and restoration (2Ch 33:11-13)
3. His reign after restoration and his death (2Ch 33:14-20)
4. The reign of Amon (2Ch 33:21-25)
Manasseh, the twelve year old son of Hezekiah, did not follow the ways of his father, but did evil in the sight of the LORD. He had no godly Jehoiada, like Joash, to stand by him and guide him. He was surrounded, no doubt, by counsellors, but they were evil counsellors. Instead of following the example of his father, he followed that of his wicked grandfather Ahaz. In reading the record of his evil doings we get the impression that he hasted in undoing all his father had done. The corrupt worship on the heights was restored by him, and he added at the same time the Phoenician rites of Baal and Asherah, the Chaldean worship of the host of heaven (the sun and the stars). The altars for this wicked worship were placed in the outer and inner courts of the house of the LORD. More than that, he set a carved image in the house of God. This was an image of an idol; the vilest, unnameable practices were introduced into the place which was to be holy. “And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of Hinnom.” As we saw in Second Kings, his grandfather Ahaz was the first one to introduce this horrible Canaanitish custom in Judah. The sins of the Sodomites were openly practiced.
“Alike the extent and the shameless immorality of the idolatry now prevalent, may be inferred from the account of the later reformation by Josiah (2Ki 23:4-8). For, whatever practices may have been introduced by previous kings, the location, probably in the outer court of the temple, of a class of priests, who, in their unnaturalness of vice, combined a species of madness with deepest moral degradation, and by their side, and in fellowship with them, that of priestesses of Astarte, must have been the work of Manasseh” (A. Edersheim).
Then there were enchantments, witchcraft and wizards, and he dealt also with a familiar spirit. This was demon-power manifested as it is today in spiritualism and similar cults. So wicked was his work that he made Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel (verse 9). “Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much till he filled Jerusalem from one end to another” (2Ki 21:16). “And the LORD spake to Manasseh, and to his people, but they hearkened not” (verse 10). God’s prophets bore faithful witness against these awful deeds. Isaiah, Jewish tradition claims, suffered martyrdom under Manasseh’s reign. But though the LORD sent His messages, they did not hear. In 2Ki 21:10-15, we have preserved the message which the LORD sent by His servants the prophets. But Second Kings has nothing to say of the conversion and restoration of this wicked man, one of the greatest miracles of grace on record. The king of Assyria came and bound Manasseh in fetters and carried him to Babylon. A certain class of higher critics, a number of years ago, used to sneer at this record, and denied its historicity because it is entirely missing in the book of Kings.
“It was called in question for this reason, that there was not ground for believing that the Assyrians exercised supremacy in Judah--far less that there had been a hostile expedition against Manasseh; and because, since the residence of the Assyrian kings was in Nineveh, the reported transportation of Manasseh to Babylon (verse 11) must be unhistorical. To these were added, as secondary objections, that the unlikely account of a king transported in iron bonds and fetters was proved to be untrustworthy by the still more incredible notice that such a captive had been again restored to his kingdom.”
But these objections have been completely refuted by an Assyrian monument. On this monument the Assyrian king is pictured leading two captives with hooks and rings. The inscription runs as follows: “I transported to Assyria men and women ... innumerable.” Among other names given is the name “Minasi sar matir Jaudi” which means “Manasseh, King of Judah.” Then carried away, no doubt much disgrace and suffering put upon him, his conscience awakened. He humbled himself and prayed and found mercy. What a manifestation of divine mercy! Jewish tradition often refers to Manasseh’s conversion as the greatest encouragement to repentant sinners. Such mercy will yet be shown to the remnant of Israel, when they turn unto the LORD “whose mercy endureth forever.” And the evidences of the genuineness of the conversion of Manasseh are not lacking. He acted faithfully after his return and repaired the altar and commanded Judah to serve the LORD God.
The utter corruption of human nature is seen in the case of his son Amon. With the awful experience of his father before him, and no doubt exhorted by Manasseh to serve the LORD and be true to Him, he followed deliberately the bad example of his father’s idolatry. He trespassed more and more and did not repent like his father Manasseh, but died in his sins. Under his reign the wickedness reached a higher mark than under any previous king.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 11, 20 Manasseh’s Wickedness
Manasseh’s Wickedness
v. 1. Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem, including the time of his captivity;
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v. 2. but did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, like unto the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. Cf 2Ki 21:1-16.
v. 3. For he built again the high places which Hezekiah, his father, had broken down, his purpose being to make them sanctuaries of idolatry; and he reared up altars for Baalim, a great many of them, and made groves, erected the wooden pillars consecrated to the goddess Astarte, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them, thus introducing also the idolatry of the Chaldeans in addition to that of the Canaanites.
v. 4. Also, he built altars in the house of the Lord, whereof the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall My name be forever. So he replaced the worship of Jehovah in the very house dedicated to His name with the abominations of idolatry.
v. 5. And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord, thus openly worshiping the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars.
v. 6. And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, the Valley Ben-hinnom, southwest of Jerusalem, thus becoming guilty of the abominable practise of the Moabites. Also, he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, he made use of every form of sorcery and divination, even of that connected with the evil eye and with muttered and whispered charms, and dealt with a familiar spirit and with wizards, he actually appointed conjurors and soothsayers. He wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger.
v. 7. And he set a carved image, the idol which he had made, probably an Asherah-pillar, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon, his son, In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put My name forever, Psa 132:14;
v. 8. neither will I any more remove the foot of Israel from out of the land which I have appointed for your fathers, 2Sa 7:10, so that they will take heed to do all that I have commanded them, literally, "only that they observe," for that was the condition under which the Lord would keep them in that land, according to the whole Law and the statutes and the ordinances by the hand of Moses.
v. 9. So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, in leaving the right way which they had walked under pious Rezekiah, and to do worse than the heathen whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.
v. 10. And the Lord spake to Manasseh and to his people, namely, by the mouth of His faithful prophets, 2Ki 21:11-16; but they would not hearken, idolatry had quickly and effectively hardened their hearts once more. The same thing happens today when people who have been Christians deny the better knowledge and turn to the abominations of the children of the world. There are no greater enemies of Christianity than such as have denied its truths.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 7, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 what was evil in the sight of Yahweh
what was evil in the sight of Yahweh
Here Yahweh's "sight" refers to how he judges or decides on the value of something. See how you translated a similar phrase in 2 Chronicles 14:2. AT: "things that Yahweh said were evil" or "the things that Yahweh considers evil" (See: Metaphor)
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like the disgusting things
Another possible meaning is "including the disgusting things."
he rebuilt the high places ... he built altars ... he made Asherah poles
Manasseh would have commanded his workers to do the building for him. AT: "he had the high places rebuilt ... he had altars built ... he had Asherah poles made" or "he had his workers rebuild the high places ... he had them build altars ... he had them make Asherah poles" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
Manasseh
reign
Jerusalem
evil
Yahweh
nation
Hezekiah
altar
Baal
Asherah
bow
heaven
worship
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19 33:1-20 Manasseh ruled fifty-five years (697–642 BC), longer than…
33:1-20 Manasseh ruled fifty-five years (697–642 BC), longer than any other king in Judah. The years of his reign included a co-regency with his father, Hezekiah, from 697 to 686 BC. Such a long reign was usually a sign of blessing, even though Manasseh did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. So the Chronicler tells of his humiliation, repentance, and restoration of worship in Judah.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.