Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. 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 destroyed; and he raised up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel did, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served them. He built altars in Yahweh’s house, of which Yahweh said, “I will put my name in Jerusalem.” He built altars for all the army of the sky in the two courts of Yahweh’s house. He made his son to pass through the fire, practiced sorcery, used enchantments, 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 Asherah that he had made in the house of which Yahweh 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 cause the feet of Israel to wander any more out of the land which I gave their fathers, if only they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them.” But they didn’t listen, and Manasseh seduced them to do that which is evil more than the nations did whom Yahweh destroyed before the children of Israel. Yahweh spoke by his servants the prophets, saying, “Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations, and has done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, who were before him, and has also made Judah to sin with his idols; therefore Yahweh the God of Israel says, ‘Behold, I bring such evil on Jerusalem and Judah that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle. I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of Ahab’s house; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. I will cast off the remnant of my inheritance, and deliver them into the hands of their enemies. They will become a prey and a plunder to all their enemies, because they have done that which is evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.’ ”
Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; in addition to his sin with which he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight. Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and all that he did, and his sin that he sinned, aren’t they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv6, 8, 12, 13, 14, 16 Read 2 Kings 16:3.
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–17 2Ki 21:1 Manasseh [was] twelve years old when he…
2Ki 21:1 Manasseh [was] twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name [was] Hephzibah.
Ver. 1. Manasseh was twelve years old.] He was born three years after his father’s great recovery, {2Ki 20:6} and about twenty-four years after the ruin of the kingdom of Israel, {2Ki 18:2; 2Ki 18:10} till at length Ephraim was utterly broken from being a people; {Isa 7:8 Ezr 4:2; Ezr 4:10} much about the time that Manasseh was taken among the thorns, and carried captive to Babylon. {2Ch 33:11}
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And reigned.] Hence some conclude that he was not long a prisoner, because no reckoning is made of his captivity, but he is said nevertheless to have reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.
Fifty and five years.] This is the longest reign we read of in the holy history. Length of days is no true rule of God’s favour.
And his mother’s name was Hephzibah.] {a} Who was daughter to the prophet Isaiah, say the Hebrews; but that is uncertain. She was a good woman, likely, because Hezekiah’s wife: and therefore Manasseh’s sin was the greater, because he came of so godly parents.
{a} See Isa 62:4.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 Reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem; in which…
Reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem; in which time the years of his imprisonment are comprehended, 2Ch 33:11.
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, 10 How delightful were our meditations on the last reign!…
How delightful were our meditations on the last reign! How many pleasing views had we of Sion in its glory (that is, in its purity and in its triumphs), of the king in his beauty! (for Isa 33:17 refers to Hezekiah), and (as it follows there, Kg2 21:20) Jerusalem was a quiet habitation because a city of righteousness, Isa 1:26. But now we have melancholy work upon our hands, unpleasant ground to travel, and cannot but drive heavily. How has the gold become dim and the most fine gold changed! The beauty of Jerusalem is stained, and all her glory, all her joy, sunk and gone. These verses give such an account of this reign as make it, in all respects, the reverse of the last, and, in a manner, the ruin of it.
I. Manasseh began young. He was but twelve years old when he began to reign (Kg2 21:1), born when his father was about forty-two years old, three years after his sickness. If he had sons before, either they were dead, or set by as unpromising. As yet they knew of nothing bad in him, and they hoped he would prove good; but he proved very bad, and perhaps his coming to the crown so young might help to make it so, which yet will by no means excuse him, for his grandson Josiah came to it younger than he and yet acted well. But being young, 1. He was puffed up with his honour and proud of it; and thinking himself very wise, because he was very great, valued himself upon his undoing what his father had done. It is too common for novices to be lifted up with pride, and so to fall into the condemnation of the devil. 2. He was easily wrought upon and drawn aside by seducers, that lay in wait to deceive. Those that were enemies to Hezekiah's reformation, and retained an affection for the old idolatries, flattered him, and so gained his ear, and used his power at their pleasure. Many have been undone by coming too soon to their honours and estates.
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II. He reigned long, longest of any of the kings of Judah, fifty-five years. This was the only very bad reign that was a long one; Joram's was but eight years, and Ahaz's sixteen; as for Manasseh's, we hope that in the beginning of his reign for some time affairs continued to move in the course that his father left them in, and that in the latter end of his reign, after his repentance, religion got head again; and, no doubt, when things were at the worst God had his remnant that kept their integrity. Though he reigned long, yet some of this time he was a prisoner in Babylon, which may well be looked upon as a drawback from these years, though they are reckoned in the number because then he repented and began to reform.
III. He reigned very ill.
1. In general, (1.) He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and which, having been well educated, he could not but know was so (Kg2 21:2): He wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord, as if on purpose to provoke him to anger, Kg2 21:6. (2.) He did after the abominations of the heathen (Kg2 21:2) and as did Ahab (Kg2 21:3), not taking warning by the destruction both of the nations of Canaan and the house of Ahab for their idolatry; nay (Kg2 21:9), he did more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed. When the holy seed degenerate, they are commonly worse than the worst of the profane.
2. More particularly, (1.) He rebuilt the high places which his father had destroyed, Kg2 21:3. Thus did he trample upon the dust, and affront the memory, of his worthy father, though he knew how much he was favoured of God and honoured of men. He concurred, it is probable, with Rabshakeh's sentiments (Kg2 18:22), that Hezekiah had done ill in destroying those high places, and pretended the honour of God, and the edification and convenience of the people, in rebuilding them. This he began with, but proceeded to that which was much worse; for, (2.) He set up other gods, Baal and Ashtaroth (which we translate a grove), and all the host of heaven, the sun and moon, the other planets, and the constellations; these he worshipped and served (Kg2 21:3), gave their names to the images he made, and then did homage to them and prayed for help from them. To these he built altars (Kg2 21:5), and offered sacrifices, no doubt, on these altars. (3.) He made his son pass through the fire, by which he dedicated him a votary to Moloch, in contempt of the seal of circumcision by which he had been dedicated to God. (4.) He made the devil his oracle, and, in contempt both of urim and prophecy, he used enchantments and dealt with familiar spirits (Kg2 21:6) like Saul. Conjurers and fortune-tellers (who pretended, by the stars or the clouds, lucky and unlucky days, good and bad omens, the flight of birds, or the entrails of beasts, to foretel things to come) were great men with him, his intimates, his confidants; their arts pleased his fancy, and gained his belief, and his counsels were under their direction. (5.) We find afterwards (Kg2 21:16) that he shed innocent blood very much in gratification of his own passion and revenge; some perhaps were secretly murdered, others taken off by colour of law. Probably much of the blood he shed was theirs that opposed idolatry and witnessed against it, that would not bow the knee to Baal. The blood of the prophets is, in a particular manner, charged upon Jerusalem, and it is probable that he put to death many of them. The tradition of the Jews is that he caused the prophet Isaiah to be sawn asunder; and many think the apostle refers to this in Heb 11:37, where he speaks of those that had so suffered.
3. Three things are here mentioned as aggravations of Manasseh's idolatry: - (1.) That he set up his images and altars in the house of the Lord (Kg2 21:4), in the two courts of the temple (Kg2 21:5), in the very house of which God had said to Solomon, Here will I put my name, Kg2 21:7. Thus he defied God to his face, and impudently affronted him with his rivals immediately under his eye, as one that was neither afraid of God's wrath nor ashamed of his own folly and wickedness. Thus he desecrated what had been consecrated to God, and did, in effect, turn God out of his own house and put the rebels in possession of it. Thus, when the faithful worshippers of God came to the place he had appointed for the performance of their duty to him, they found, to their great grief and terror, other gods ready to receive their offerings. God had said that here he would record his name, here he would put it for ever, and here it was accordingly preserved, while the idolatrous altars were kept at a distance; but Manasseh, by bringing them into God's house, did what he could to alter the property, and to make the name of the God of Israel to be no more in remembrance. (2.) That hereby he put a great slight upon the word of God, and his covenant with Israel. Observe the favour he had shown to that people in putting his name among them, - the kindness he intended them, never to make them move out of that good land, - and the reasonableness of his expectations from them, only if they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, Kg2 21:7, Kg2 21:8. Upon these good terms did Israel stand with God, and had as fair a prospect of being happy as any people could have; but they hearkened not, Kg2 21:9. They would not be kept close to God either by his precepts or by his promises; both were cast behind their back. (3.) That hereby he seduced the people of God, debauched them, and drew them into idolatry, Kg2 21:9. He caused Judah to sin (Kg2 21:11), as Jeroboam had caused Israel to sin. His very example was enough to corrupt the generality of unthinking people, who would do as their king did, right or wrong. All that aimed at preferment would do as the court did; and others thought it safest to comply, for fear of making their king their enemy. Thus, one way or other, the holy city became a harlot, and Manasseh made her so. Those will have a great deal to answer for that not only are wicked themselves, but help to make others so.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–17 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to…
Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign,.... So that he was born three years after Hezekiah's recovery from his sickness, and in the seventeenth year of his reign:
and reigned fifty five years in Jerusalem: among which must be reckoned the time of his captivity in Babylon; his reign was the longest of any of the kings of Judah: and his mother's name was Hephzibah; the name the church goes by, and signifies, "my delight or pleasure is in her", Isa 62:4, no doubt she was a good woman, or Hezekiah would not have made choice of her for a wife; it is a tradition of the Jews (a), that she was the daughter of Isaiah, whose name, they say, is not mentioned, because so wicked a king was unworthy of such a grandfather.
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(a) Hieron. Trad. Heb. in lib. Paralipom. fol. 86. F.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 13, 15, 16 The wicked reign of Manasseh, ver. 1-9. Judgment denounced…
The wicked reign of Manasseh, ver. 1-9. Judgment denounced against him and Jerusalem, ver. 10-16. His death, ver. 17, 18. The wicked reign of Amon, ver. 19-22. He is slain, and succeeded by Josiah, ver. 23-26.
Reigned - In which time the years of his imprisonment are comprehended.
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, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17 Manasseh succeeds his father Hezekiah, reigns fifty-five years,
CHAPTER XXI
Manasseh succeeds his father Hezekiah, reigns fifty-five years,
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and fills Jerusalem and the whole land with abominable idolatry
and murder, 1-9.
God denounces the heaviest judgments against him and the land,
10-15.
Manasseh's acts and death, 16-18.
Amon his son succeeds him, and reigns two years; is equally
profligate with his father; is slain by his servants, and
buried in the garden of Uzza; and Josiah his son reigns in his
stead, 19-26.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXI
Verse 1. Manasseh was twelve years old] He was born about three years after his father's miraculous cure; he was carried captive to Babylon, repented, was restored to his kingdom, put down idolatry, and died at the age of sixty-seven years. See 2Ch 33:1-20.
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, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16 2Ki 21:1. Manasseh reigned fifty and five years —…
2Ki 21:1. Manasseh reigned fifty and five years — In which time the years, wherein he was a captive in Babylon, are comprehended. He must, according to his age mentioned here, have been born three years after Hezekiah was miraculously restored, and had his life lengthened.
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, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 16, 17 Manasseh was twelve years old - Manasseh, therefore, was…
Manasseh was twelve years old - Manasseh, therefore, was not born at the time of Hezekiah’s dangerous illness; and it is probable that Hezekiah had at that time no son to succeed him. According to Josephus, this was the principal cause of his grief.
Hephzibah - Jewish tradition makes Hephzibah, Hezekiah’s wife, the daughter of Isaiah; but this is scarcely probable. She was, however, no doubt, known to the prophet, and it may well have been in special compliment to her that Isaiah introduced her name Isa 62:4 as one that Jerusalem would bear after her restoration to God’s favor. The name means, “My delight (is) in her.”
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 vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17 Twelve. Being born three years after his father’s recovery.…
Twelve. Being born three years after his father’s recovery. --- Fifty. Including the years of captivity.
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 The Monarchy Under Manasseh, Amon, And Josiah
SECOND SECTION
The Monarchy Under Manasseh, Amon, And Josiah
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(2Ki_21:1 to 2Ki_23:30)
A.—The Reigns of Manasseh and Amon
2Ki_21:1-26. (2 Chronicles 33)
1Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hephzi-bah. 2And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel. 3For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove [an Astarte-image], as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them. 4And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which1 the Lord said, In Jerusalem will I put my name. 5And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts 6of the house of the Lord. And [omit And] he [He also] made his son pass through the fire, and observed times [practised sooth-saying], and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards [patronized necromancers and wizards]2 Kings 2 : he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.3 7And he set a graven image [copy] of the grove [Astarte-image] that he had made in the house, of which the Lord 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 forever: 8Neither will I make the feet of Israel move [wander] any more out of the land which I gave their fathers; [,] only [omit only] if they will [only]4 observe [take care] to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them.5 9But they hearkened not: and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel.
10And the Lord spake by his servants the prophets, saying, Because Manasseh 11king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols: 12Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth or it,6 both his ears shall tingle. 13And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe [out] Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down [—he wipeth it and turneth it upside down].7 14And I will forsake [throw away] the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies; 15Because they have done that which was evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day.
16Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; besides his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.
17Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and all that he did, and his sin that he sinned, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah? 18And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza: and Amon his son reigned in his stead.
19Amon was twenty and two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah. 20And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh did. 21And he walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshipped them: 22And he forsook the Lord God of his fathers, and walked not in the way of the Lord. 23And the servants of Amon conspired against him, and slew the king in his own house. 24And the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against king Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead. 25Now the rest of the acts of Amon which he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah ? 26And he was buried [they buried him] in his sepulchre in the garden of Uzza: and Josiah his son reigned in his stead.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
2Ki_21:1. Manasseh was twelve years old. It is uncertain whether he was the eldest son of Hezekiah, and whether he had brothers; perhaps his elder brothers had died. “Perhaps a Gebirah (queen-mother) (1Ki_15:13) assumed authority until he attained to years of discretion” (Thenius). At any rate there is no hint of a regency. The name חֶפְצִי־בָהּ, My-delight-is-in-her, is applied symbolically to Mount Zion in Isa_62:4.—From 2Ki_21:2 we see that the idol-worship which Manasseh introduced was, in the first place, that of Canaan (1Ki_14:24; 2Ki_17:8; 2Ki_16:3).—Luther translates וַיָּשָׁב וַיִּבֶן, in 2Ki_21:3, after the Vulg. (conversusque est et œdificavit), and the Sept. (καὶ ἐπέστρεψε καὶ ᾠκοδόμησε): “und verkehrte sich und bauete” [went astray and built]. The two words, however, form one notion by an idiomatic use: he built again the high places which Hezekiah had removed. For the rest, see 1Ki_16:32 sq. Ahab was the one who first introduced the worship of Baal and Astarte into Israel [see bracketed notes under Exeg. on 2Ki_16:3 and 2Ki_17:16.] אֲשֵׁרָה here refers no doubt to the Astarte-statue mentioned in 2Ki_21:7. In Chronicles we find the plural בְּעָלִים and אֲשֵׁרוֹת. The cause of this may be that each divinity, the male and the female, incorporated several attributes, each of which was separately worshipped. Manasseh introduced also, besides these two chief divinities, the Assyrio-Chaldean star-worship, the adoration of All the host of heaven (see 2Ki_23:5; 2Ki_23:11). [See Exeg. on 2Ki_17:16. Also 2Ki_23:12 shows that the astral worship, although extended and cultivated by Manasseh, was first introduced by Ahaz.] “This does not imply that the divinities of the Canaanites had no relation to the heavenly bodies, but this relation was subordinate in them” (Movers). From the star-worship arose sooth-saying and magic. Men saw in the stars the originators of all growth and all decay, and adored in them the controllers and directors of all sublunary affairs.
2Ki_21:4-7 contain a climax. The idolatrous (2Ki_21:2-3) Manasseh built idol-altars even in the house of the Lord (2Ki_21:4), and altars also for all the host of heaven, as well in the inner as in the outer court (2Ki_21:5, וַיִּבֶן resumes בָּנָה in 2Ki_21:4), nay, he even went so far that he set up the image of Astarte (2Ki_21:7) inside of the temple, perhaps in the holy place. On the formula: “I will put my name” (2Ki_21:7) see Exeg. on 1Ki_14:21. On הֶעֱבִיר בָּאֵשׁ see notes on 2Ki_16:3. Sooth-saying and magic are here united with this idolatrous ceremony as they are in 2Ki_17:17 (cf. Lev_19:26). So also in Deu_18:10-11, where the necromancers and augurs are also mentioned. Manasseh gave to these persons official position (עשׂה is used as in 1Ki_12:31). On כָּעַם see 1Ki_14:1-20, Hist. § 3. On 2Ki_21:7 see 1Ki_8:16; 1Ki_9:3. The house of Jehovah could not be so utterly desecrated in any otherway as by setting up an idol in the very sanctuary, the “dwelling,” הֵיכַל קָדְשְׁךָ (Psa_5:8; Psa_79:1). The selection of Israel to be God’s peculiar people was thereby rejected.—The words in 2Ki_21:8 are explained by 2Sa_7:10, and are added in order to make more apparent the greatness of the sin. Jehovah had, at first, only a dwelling in a tent in the midst of His people; afterwards He caused a house to be built for His dwelling, as a physical sign of His covenant with Israel (see the Introd. § 3, and 1 Kings 6, Hist. § 3, b.); and now in this house Manasseh set up an idol.—More evil than did the nations, &c. (2Ki_21:9). Not because the Canaanitish nations did not keep the law of Moses, but because they only worshipped their own national deities, while the Israelites adopted, not only the gods of the Canaanites, but also those of the Assyrians and Babylonians, and forsook their own God.
2Ki_21:10. And the Lord spake by His servants, &c. It is impossible to tell which prophets are meant, for no one of those whose writings we possess can be assigned with certainty to the reign of Manasseh. It is not certain that even Isaiah lived during any part of Manasseh’s reign; still less is it certain that Habakkuk did so (though Keil supposes that Hab_1:5 refers to this reign), for it is probable that he first appeared under Josiah (Winer, Delitsch), or under Jehoiakim (Knobel). The Amorites (2Ki_21:11) stand for Canaanites in general; see notes on 1Ki_21:26; cf. Eze_16:3; Amo_2:9. The expression: both his ears shall tingle, 2Ki_21:12, also occurs in 1Sa_3:11 and Jer_19:3. As a sharp, discordant note pains one’s ears, so the news of this harsh-punishment shall give pain to all who hear of it.
2Ki_21:13. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria. According to Grotius this means: eadem mensura earn metiar, qua Samariam mensus sum. So also Thenius: “Measuring line and plummet are here only symbols for testing by a standard,” for, he says, a building is built with measuring line and plummet, but not torn down with them. However in Isa_34:11 we read: He shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion (devastation) and the stones of emptiness [“plummet of desolation,” Bähr], cf. also Lam_2:8. Now in the text before us, also, the reference is to devastation. The two implements of construction are employed where there is an empty space of ground, whether it be that no building has ever stood upon it, or that one which stood there has been torn down. “We have to understand here a state of things symbolized by the latter of” these cases. The metaphor therefore means: I will make Jerusalem even with the ground, like Samaria, so that a measuring line can be drawn over it, and its houses (families) shall perish like the family of Ahab. [Why is a measuring line or a plummet applied to a bare space of ground? Only as a preliminary to building, or re-building, upon it. There is no great applicability, therefore, in the metaphor as Bähr interprets it.—It means that God will come and apply severe standards of judgment to Jerusalem as He had to Samaria; that He will insist that it shall satisfy these standards; and that He will punish inexorably all shortcomings. Samaria had been thus tested, found wanting, and swept from the face of the earth,—so also should it be with Jerusalem.—W. G. S.] The following figure of the dish is parallel and similar, but stronger if anything. צַלָּחָה means really something hollowed out, hence, a dish (2Ch_35:13; Pro_19:24), not a wax-tablet (Calmet). Thenius thinks that “the lower city, by its configuration, might well suggest the figure of a dish.” However the fact may be in regard to that, we have not to understand that it was what suggested this figure. Neither is the metaphor that of “a hungry man who empties a dish and turns it wrong side up” (Ewald), but that of a person who, when he no longer wants to use a dish, wipes it out, and turns it over, that not a drop may remain in it. Kimchi expressly states that this was the usage of the Jews with dishes. The figure therefore “implies the complete overthrow and destruction of Jerusalem with all its inhabitants” (Keil). The comparison with a dish also involves some contempt פָּנֵיהָ is the “upper side, as it were the face, in distinction from the back” (Thenius).
2Ki_21:14. The remnant of my possession is the two tribes which composed the kingdom of Judah, ten having been led into captivity. נָטַשׁ, i.e., to abandon, but with the accessory notion of throwing away (1Ki_8:57; Jdg_6:13; Eze_29:5). The nation, when abandoned by Jehovah, necessarily becomes a spoil for its enemies (Isa_42:22).
2Ki_21:16. Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood. This verse is not a “continuation of the extract from the annals which was broken off at 2Ki_21:9” (Thenius). It is closely connected with what is read in 2Ki_21:10-15, and forms in a certain sense the crisis of what is narrated of Manasseh. This king not only introduced all sorts of idolatrous worship (2Ki_21:1-9), but also, when Jehovah rebuked and warned him by His prophets (10–15), he not only did not profit by it, but filled the city with their blood and that of all the innocent persons who sided with them, and opposed his godlessness. פֶּה לָפֶה as in 2Ki_10:21 “from one edge to the other.” Josephus (Antiq. x. 3, 1) affirms: πάντας ὠμῶς τοὺς δικαίους τοὺς ἐν τοῖς ‘Εβραίοις ἀπέκτεινεν, ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ τῶν προφητῶν ἔσχε φειδώ· καὶ τούτων δέ τινας καθ’ ἡμέραν ἀπέσφαξεν. The latter statement does not, of course, apply to the whole duration of his reign; but there may have been a time during which innocent blood was daily shed. According to the Jewish tradition (Guemara Jebam. iv. 13; cf. Sanhedr. f. 103), which was taken up by the church fathers (Tertul. De Patientia 14. August. De Civit. Dei xviii. 24), Isaiah was put to death under Manasseh. It is said that he was sawed in two while fastened in a cedar tree in which he had taken refuge, cf. Heb_11:37. [For the details of the legend see Stanley, II. p. 544.] But it is doubtful whether he lived under Manasseh Isa_1:1 does not say that he lived so long. He must, at any rate, have been very old. It is possible that he may have suffered a martyr’s death, though not in the form asserted (cf. Winer, R.-W.-B. I. s. 554. Umbreit in Herzog’s Encyc. IV. s. 508 sq.).
2Ki_21:17. sq. Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, &c. Some further and very important facts in regard to Manasseh are recorded in 2Ch_33:11-20. The historical truth and credibility of what is there recorded has indeed been denied (Gramberg, Winer, Hitzig, and others). On the other hand, Ewald, Thenius, Hävernick, Keil, and Bertheau, have, with justice, maintained the historical truth of those statements. The Chronicler appeals to the “annals of the, kings of Israel,” and to the דִּבְרֵי חוֹזָי as his authorities, and the entire Jewish tradition is built upon the facts which he records. “It is not astonishing that we do not find any reference to those facts in the book of Kings, when we consider the brevity of the narrative there given, a brevity which is to be explained by the fact that the author passes as curtly as possible-by all periods of misfortune” (Bertheau). The apparent contradiction between 2Ch_33:15 and 2Ki_23:12 disappears, if we suppose (what is very possible) that Amon set up again the idols which Manasseh had removed, and that Josiah was the first who entirely did away with them (cf. E. Gerlach in the Studien und Kritiken, 1861, III.).
2Ki_21:18. In the garden of his own house. “בֵּיתוֹ cannot be the royal palace built by Solomon, because the garden belonging to it is called that of Uzzah, evidently referring to its former owner. בֵּיחוֹ must, therefore, refer to a pleasure-house belonging to Manasseh” (Keil). Thenius thinks that the “garden of Uzzah” (the name occurs several times: 2Sa_6:8; 1Ch_8:7; Ezr_2:49; Neh_7:51) was situated “in the Tyropœon, at the foot of the spur of Ophel.” Robinson finds it on Mt. Zion. See further the notes on 2Ki_20:21.
2Ki_21:19. Amon was twenty and two years old when he began to reign. The assertion that this king reigned twelve instead of two years (Ebrard in Stud. und Kritik. 1847, III. s. 644 sq.) rests upon very weak evidence, as Thenius has shown.—The city of Jotbah, from which his mother, Meshullemeth (that is, Friend, sc. of God, = Pia) came, was situated, according to Jerome, in Judah.
2Ki_21:23. The servants of Amon were unquestionably his court attendants. We have to understand, therefore, that it was a conspiracy in the palace. We cannot determine what causes led to this conspiracy.—By the people of the land (2Ki_21:24) Thenius understands, here as in 2Ki_11:14, the military forces of the nation, and he infers that Amon had made himself popular with the troops, and that Josiah had inspired some such hopes as Uzziah once did (2Ki_14:21). There is no more reason to think of the army here than in 2Ki_11:14. The murder of the king, who had only ruled for such a short time, by the attendants in the palace, may have embittered the people of Jerusalem so that they took revenge upon the murderers. Religious differences can scarcely have had anything to do with the matter, for the immediate attendants of the idolatrous king certainly did not belong to the persecuted Jehovah-party, and, if the king’s idolatry had been displeasing to the people, they would not have put his murderers to death.
—
[Supplementary Note on contemporaneous history, with further information as to Manasseh from Assyrian sources. As we approach the catastrophe of the history of Judah it is necessary to pay attention to those movements among neighboring nations which (humanly speaking) caused it, and determined its form.
We saw in the Supp. Note on chap. 20 that Sennacherib, having finally reduced Babylon to submission in 682, put his son Esarhaddon on the throne of that city as viceroy; also that Sennacherib was assassinated by two other of his sons in 681. The assassins were obliged to fly; Esarhaddon hastened to Nineveh and ascended the throne. He reigned from 681 to 667. Extensive records of his reign exist in the British Museum, only part of which have, as yet, been published or read (Lenormant). His first campaign was in Syria and Phœnicia (see Supp. Note on chap. 17). He conquered and plundered Phœnicia, and deported the inhabitants of Syria. He repopulated the country with Chaldeans and Elamites.
During this campaign he attacked Judah; took Manasseh captive, confined him in Babylon for a time, but then set him at liberty and restored him to the throne as a vassal (2Ch_33:11). Manasseh is mentioned on one of his inscriptions as tributary. Esarhaddon became attached to Babylon from his early residence there, and made it his home. That is probably the reason why he took Manasseh there, and not to Nineveh.
Esarhaddon’s reign was spent in extensive and successful wars in Asia Minor, Arabia, Egypt (which he conquered), in suppressing stubborn revolts in Chaldea, and in punishing the Elamites and Susianians who assisted in them. We are not here interested in these wars further than this, that the Assyrian power was, during his reign, at its height, but that Babylon kept up a continual resistance.
Very much the same state of things continued under his successor. Esarhaddon abdicated in 668 in favor of his son, Asshurbanipal, who reigned until 647. He was warlike and able. Babylon was ruled by his brother, Shamulshamugin, as viceroy, but he revolted and headed an insurrection which included nearly all the tributary provinces. Egypt was permanently lost, Psammetichus becoming king. The remainder of the revolt, however, was speedily suppressed, though it took years to follow up and punish all the parties to it.
His successor was his son, Asshuredililani, who reigned from 647 to 625. Under him the Assyrian power declined (Lenormant). See Supp. Note on p. 285.
The explanation of the incessant revolts of Babylon is, that that city had a sacred character as the “home of the gods.” It was so regarded by the Assyrians themselves, who knew how ancient it was, and revered it as their own place of origin. This veneration for Babylon served to keep the Babylonians continually restive under the supremacy of Assyria, and also to stay the hands of the conquerors whenever they were ready to destroy the city as a punishment for rebellion.
At the point which we have now reached (640), the time of Amon’s death and Josiah’s accession, the Assyrian power had barely begun to decline. The Median empire had been founded by Phraortes in 657. It had secured independence, and had made important conquests in Central Asia. Just about this time Phraortes thought himself strong enough to attack Assyria, but he was totally defeated in 635 (Lenormant). In Egypt, Psammetichus became independent of Assyria, and put an end to the “Dodekarchy,” about 650. Babylon was, for the time being, crushed, but it was only recovering strength for another revolt.—W. G. S.]
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL
1. King Manasseh’s reign lasted longer than that of any other king in either kingdom, but we have relatively the very briefest account of it. The author restricts himself to a statement of Manasseh’s disposition towards Jehovah and the Jehovah-worship. The explanation of this may be that, in general, “the Old Testament historians pass more hastily over periods which it is sad for them to recall” (Ewald). This shows, however, at the same time, that the disposition towards Jehovah is the main point of interest to the author in the history of each reign, and that everything else is subordinate to this, inasmuch as nothing else touches the soteriological development in the history. Manasseh’s reign forms an epoch in that development, for, under him, the apostasy reached its height. If David was the model king, then Manasseh was his inverted image. It is true that many of his ancestors had tolerated idolatry, and practised it themselves. His grandfather, Ahaz, had even removed the ancient altar of burnt-offering and set up in its place another one which he had himself caused to be made on a heathen pattern, and had also sacrificed his son to Moloch (chap. 16); but Manasseh went so far as even to establish a special place of sacrifice for this god in the valley of Hinnom (2Ki_23:10; Jer_7:31; Jer_19:6). Moreover he set up an idol in the temple itself, and that, too, an image of that goddess whose worship was connected with licentious rites and practices. In fact he made Jerusalem, the city which Jehovah had chosen for His own abode, the place for collecting and practising all forms of idolatry. He was a violent enemy of the Jehovah-worship, which he sought to abolish. He formally introduced all sorts of idolatrous abominations, and he compelled his people to practise them. This had never been done even in the kingdom of the ten tribes, “but now, there arose in Judah, the only remaining support of the true religion, the most open and violent hostility to its most sacred principles, on the part of the king himself! … The heart of the ancient religion had never before been so sharply and violently smitten” (Ewald). The “sin of Manasseh,” in which apostasy reached its culmination, became typical (2Ki_21:16; 2Ki_23:26; 2Ki_24:3; 2Ch_33:9; Jer_15:4), just like the “sin of Jeroboam,” who made Israel to sin by introducing the worship of the calves (1Ki_12:28 sq.; 2Ki_14:16; 2Ki_15:26; 2Ki_15:30, &c.), and the “way of Ahab,” who first introduced the worship of Baal (1Ki_16:30 sq.; 1Ki_22:53; 1Ki_8:27). “With his reign, therefore, began a new epoch in the history of the kingdom of Judah, during which it moved on steadily towards its fall” (Von Gerlach). Under his rule the kingdom became the very contrary of that which, according to its original plan, it was intended to be (Deu_17:20).
2. A great change seems to have taken place under Manasseh in the circumstances of the people, when we compare the status under him with that under Hezekiah. No king since David had labored, as Hezekiah did during his reign of twenty-nine years, for the pure and legitimate Jehovah-worship. The people had approved of and participated in his efforts, and had come together from all sides to the passover festival which he instituted (2Ch_30:12-13). The reformation seemed to be thorough and complete; idolatry was forever uprooted. Immediately after his death there was a complete change. The new king made idolatry, with all its abominations, the established religion of the kingdom, and was violent against the national worship and law, and against all who supported them. The people made no opposition to this, but joined in it for a half century. It had indeed come to pass before this time, that the people had fallen into idolatry which was favored by the rulers, as, for instance, under Athaliah and Ahaz, but such a general and complete change, especially after the saving power of Jehovah had just been so clearly and startlingly manifested, has no parallel in history. Yet this remarkable fact is explained, although no explanation of it is offered in the historical books, when we take into consideration the descriptions of the state of things at that time which are offered by the prophets. There had been for a long time, at least since the reign of Ahaz, a party in Judah which sought support for the little kingdom from one of the two great world-monarchies of the time—either from Egypt or Assyria. The persons of rank, and office, and wealth, and influence especially belonged to this party. They had adopted heathen notions, and had fallen into immoral and licentious modes of life. Isaiah says of the people, even before Manasseh’s accession: “The whole head is sick and the-whole heart faint,” &c. (Isa_1:4-6). King Hezekiah had held this party in restraint, and had therefore been supported by the prophet Isaiah. After the death of the pious king and the great prophet, the opposition made a strenuous effort to control the policy of the nation. It was not difficult to insnare and seduce the king, a boy of twelve years, especially as he appears to have been inclined by nature to sensual enjoyments. When he was once caught he became the seducer of his people, while he himself sank lower and lower. It appears, therefore, that Hezekiah’s reformation was one accomplished by external pressure. It did not spring naturally from a religious need which was deeply felt in the popular heart. It had, therefore, no firm ground, and the cultus continued to be only an external ceremony. On the other hand, the luxurious and sensuous idol-worship was far better adapted to please the people than the austere Jehovah-worship. We have-still further to take into consideration the inconsistent character of the people (Deu_9:12-13; Deu_31:20; Deu_32:6; Isa_1:2-3, &c.), at one moment obstinate, at the next fickle and capricious. If we take all this into consideration, the sudden change under Manasseh is not so astonishing, but is satisfactorily explained by the circumstances. Duncker’s conception of the course of the development of the national religion (Gesch. des Alterthums, I. s. 502) is entirely false. He asserts that for the first two centuries after the settlement of the Hebrews in Palestine the worship of Jehovah and that of Syrian divinities existed side by side; that the first Hebrew prophets opposed with the most violent zeal and fanaticism the introduction of the Baal-worship; that then the later prophets opposed the deepened and sharpened conception of the national. God to the renewed attempt of idolatry to find a foothold and succeeded in keeping it out; and that now, under Manasseh, these two hostile tendencies once more appeared in open conflict. This conception, which overturns the entire soteriological development, rests upon the assumption that, in Israel, monotheism and polytheism stood originally side by side in equal honor. It cannot be established unless we strike Moses out of history, throw aside the Israelitish law—the constitution of the nation, deny the calling of the nation in human history, and make of the prophets fanatical disturbers of the public peace. Ewald has explained the changed circumstances under Manasseh somewhat differently (Gesch. III. 666 [third Ed. 716 sq.]). He says: “He [Manasseh] sought to become acquainted with all foreign heathen religions, and to introduce them into Judab. He therefore sent to the most distant lands wherever a celebrated worship was practised, and spared no pains to acquire it. Every new religion brought not only a new form of oracle, or of sensuous indulgence and lust, but also its own form of wisdom, and the desire for ‘wisdom’ had grown so much since the time of Solomon, that it is not strange if the desire awoke to learn the secrets of all religions, and so to acquire a wealth of wisdom which the simple Jehovah religion did not seem to offer. Then, too, Manasseh sought to make all these religions accessible and agreeable to the people.” It would appear then, on this showing, that the abominable and unheard-of apostasy of Manasseh and his people, the cultus of licentiousness and child-sacrifice, the cultivation of augury and sooth-saying, the patronage of necromancers and augurs, and all the rest of his senseless, superstition, arose from a desire for wisdom, and a wish to penetrate into all secrets, and become acquainted with all knowledge. No proof is needed to show that this conception contradicts the Scriptures flatly. There is no hint in them that Manasseh sent into foreign lands to import heathen religions. “Isa_57:5-10; Jer_2:10-13,” from which this is said to be evident, does not contain a word about it. Manasseh did not, for instance, borrow anything from Egypt. He introduced especially the cultus of the “nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel” (2Ki_21:9), that is of the Canaanites. Neither is there any proof that he tried to make the heathen religions acceptable to the people; on the contrary, he used violence and shed innocent blood, so that Jerusalem was filled with it from one end to the other (2Ki_21:16).
[The Scriptures contain no explanation of the facility with which the people followed and acquiesced in the different attitudes of different kings toward the Jehovah religion, whether they were enthusiastically faithful or fanatically hostile. It does not seem worth while, therefore, to wage a polemic against an hypothesis like this of Ewald, which certainly has as much, if not more, in its favor than the one offered by the author. Ewald’s theory does not “flatly contradict” Scripture, because Scripture makes no statement in regard to the matter. The passages quoted from Isaiah and Jeremiah bear very strong testimony to such a disposition on the part of the people to follow strange gods, to go to a distance to seek strange forms of worship, and to take up with any foreign novelty or device rather than to adhere to their own religion. The “wisdom” of the ancients was almost always bound up in religion. It was the “mystery” at the heart of a cultus. It was esoteric and select, only imparted to the chosen few. It had the fascination, therefore, of an acquisition in knowledge and of the discovery of a secret closely kept by an elect few. It was at once a sign of the truth of the Jehovah-religion and a reason why the Hebrews were so easily led to despise it in comparison with the religions of the heathen, that it was simple and open. No doubt also it seemed to them hard and cold and austere. The heathen religions were warm, voluptuous, and æsthetic. The latter, therefore, had all the weaknesses of human nature on their side of the balance. Still further, it is very-probable that Manasseh did introduce Egyptian novelties. The name of his son Amon is the strongest testimony to a familiarity with and taste for Egyptian religion. 2Ki_21:9 does not say that he introduced Canaanitish gods, but that he made the Jews sin worse than the Canaanites, probably by practising still more foreign and abominable rites. See Exegetical notes on that verse. Moreover the idols which are enumerated in 2Ki_23:13 as having been destroyed by Josiah bear witness to the fact that Manasseh had sought out and introduced numerous foreign divinities of various kinds. Finally, the shedding of innocent blood does not prove that he did not try to make heathenism acceptable to his people. Persecution always has the aim to recommend the rival of the persecuted religion, strange and unwise as the attempt may be. There are, therefore, suggestions in this theory of Ewald which are well worth attention from any one who desires to understand the phenomenon in question, and the counter-considerations above adduced have little if any force.—W. G. S.]
3. The reign of Manasseh was, to say the least, the saddest period in Jewish history since the time of David. We hear of no important events, of no victory over enemies, of no extension of the frontier, of no new beneficent institutions, during his time. The only event recorded is that an Assyrian army took Manasseh prisoner and carried him away in chains to Babylon (2Ch_33:11). The nation had never before sunk so low, religiously and morally, as at this time. “In the national life the most terrible decay extended continually farther and farther.” A “deep and deadly corruption” had affected the nation (Eisenlohr, Das Volk Isr. II. s. 310). The wildest superstition and the coarsest unbelief went hand in hand. The corruption had pervaded all ranks. “Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!” cries the prophet Zephaniah. “She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the Lord; she drew not near to her God. Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones until the morrow [they spare not for the morrow]. Her prophets are light and treacherous persons; her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law” (Zep_3:1-4; cf. Mic_3:11). The origin of many important parts of the Old Testament canon has recently been ascribed to this time of corruption, decay, moral disease, and death. First of all, the book of Deuteronomy is said to have been written at this time (Ewald, Riehm, Bleek), also the book of Job, an entire series of the most noble Psalms, part of the Proverbs, and detached fragments of the book of Isaiah, especially Isa_52:13 to Isa_53:12 (Ewald and Eisenlohr). It is said: “The deeper the corruption became and the farther it spread the more decidedly did the genuine spirit of prophecy rise up, with all the divine force with which it was endowed, in opposition to it.” This is not the place to enter into a critical investigation of the time when these books were written. We have to do here only with the time of Manasseh, but in regard to it the test applies: “Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?” It is true that faithful servants and prophets of Jehovah were not wanting at this time (2Ki_21:10), but not a single great prophet, not one of those whose writings we still possess, was active during Manasseh’s reign. Isaiah’s life closed soon after his accession, if not indeed still earlier. Zephaniah’s first appearance was in Josiah’s reign, and Jeremiah’s still later. How could a time of “deep corruption,” which ran through all ranks of society, be a time of great literary activity and produce works of the intellect which are only possible in the midst of the richest and most active intellectual life? It has been justly said that this was a time in which “bloody persecution raged.” Blood flowed in streams. Of course this persecution fell first of all upon the prophets, and especially upon the most prominent amongst them. The number of the faithful must, therefore, have been small, and we know of not a single prominent person amongst them. It may be that in this small circle hymns of affliction and persecution arose, but it is inconceivable that such persons should have produced the book of Job, that “model of religious reflection, and of the literary art which proceeds in its creations according to the most definite plan,” and which marks the “Chokmah-literature” of the Hebrews (Delitsch). Still less can the book of Deuteronomy have been written at this time of oppression and misery, a book which is described as marked by “a tranquil fulness of detail,” “an extraordinarily light and flowing style,” as well as by “breadth and fluency” (Vaihinger). In its long repetition and development of the Mosaic Law there is not a sign of lamentation, nor a sound of affliction. It might be asserted with far more justice that there was no period in Hebrew history less capable of producing the book of Deuteronomy than the degenerate times of Manasseh.
4. The brief reign of king Amon was in every respect a continuation of the wicked and untheocratic reign of his father, Manasseh. It was distinguished by no fact or event. From the words, 2Ch_33:23 [see Supp. Note after the Exeg. section above]: “And humbled not himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself, but Amon trespassed more and more,” we infer that he was even worse than Manasseh. The description of the moral and religious status which is given by the prophet Zephaniah, who made his appearance under the next following king, Josiah (Zep_1:1; Zep_1:4 sq.; 12; 2Ki_3:1 to 2Ki_5:11), shows that no improvement had taken place. This also appears from the description in 2Ki_23:4 sq. of all the steps which Josiah had to take in order to restore the state of things prescribed by the Law. The statement of the Chronicler (l. c.) in regard to Manasseh’s reformation must, therefore, be understood as referring to his own person, for it had no effect upon the mass of the people, else it would have been impossible to say that Amon had surpassed his father’s guilt. [The meaning of that passage is that Manasseh, in spite of all his wickedness, humbled himself and repented, but Amon never did so. He persisted in his wickedness. He went on from trespass to trespass without interruption. Hence he was worse than his father.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
2Ki_21:1-16. The Kingdom of Judah under Manasseh. (a) King and People (return to heathenism and the cause thereof, 2Ki_21:1-9). (b) The Prophets (their courageous opposition and their testimony against the general corruption in spite of persecution, 2Ki_21:10-16). 2Ki_21:1-9. Manasseh the seduced and the seducer.—Even God-fearing parents often have perverse children without any fault of their own. So much the greater is the guilt of those who lead infant children astray, after the death of their parents, instead of giving them care and good training. It is especially important that princes should be guided in their youth by good counsellors and governors. God is not confined with His word to any land or people. If His word is not received with love and gratitude, and if it is not feared, then He will come soon and remove the candlestick from its place (Rev_2:5), so that men may go astray and become a prey to terrible errors. As Judah, which the Lord had chosen to be His people and to bear His name before the heathen, and before kings, and before the children of Israel, committed more terrible abominations than any of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out, so now also, a people, although it has the word of God and the means of grace, may fall lower than another which has never heard of His word (e.g., the horrors of the French revolution).—To fall is easier than to rise. If the infection comes from above it spreads with greater celerity. Where God punishes a people he gives them bad rulers (Isa_3:4; Ecc_10:16).—When the evil spirit is cast out and then returns, he brings with him seven others worse than himself. It is so with individuals, and it is so with families; they become worse and worse from generation to generation (Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh), Mat_12:43 sq.—Würt. Summ.: There are nowadays Evangelical Christians who are in many respects worse than Papists, or even than Jews and Turks, for they curse and blaspheme, they drink and commit adultery, and do other things which Turks and Jews avoid. How will such Christians stand before God’s judgment-seat when Jews and Turks are placed by their side?—Cramer: Those who are ungrateful towards God, and blind to the clear light of truth, are given over to the dominion of error, so that they give their faith to falsehoods (2Th_2:11).
2Ki_21:6. The Scriptures place sooth-saying and augury by the side of sacrifices to Moloch. They belong properly to the darkest times of heathenism. Nevertheless they are found in the midst of modern Christendom. Those who believe in them and practise them have become heathen.
2Ki_21:7. Calw. Bibel: Ahaz had once closed the temple and built altars in the city. Manasseh set up idols in the temple itself. Thus Antichrist shall advance (2Th_2:3-4).—Manasseh set up an image of the goddess of licentiousness in the temple of the living God. “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy” (1Co_3:17). Those houses of God are desecrated in which, instead of the living God who revealed Himself to us in Christ, a God of man’s invention is preached.
2Ki_21:8. Starke: Men are such that they hold fast the covenant of God’s rich promises, but will not remember the other covenant of the obedience which He requires.
2Ki_21:10. Even in the worst times God takes care (since He does not desire that any one should perish, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live, Eze_18:23) that faithful persons shall not be wanting to warn the wicked, to exhort them to repentance, and to make known to them the coming judgment of God.
2Ki_21:12-13. Würt. Summ.: The just God threatens the idolatrous city, Jerusalem, with the line and plummet of Samaria;—like sins deserve like punishment (Luk_23:41).—The Lord is “good” and “ready to forgive” (Psa_86:5), but He does not cease to be a just God, who causes every individual as well as whole cities and peoples to reap that which they have sown, for “righteousness and judgment are the habitation [foundation] of his throne” (Psa_97:2). This generation wants to hear only of a God who is nothing but love, but it will not hear, in spite of its apostasy, of a God who is also a consuming fire (Heb_12:29). Whose ears tingle nowadays when he hears of the judgments of God? (Heb_10:26-27).—Berleb. Bibel: A dish is turned over when there is nothing more in it. That is the hardest punishment which God can inflict on a soul which turns away from Him. There is then no longer a drop to be found in it of that which was in it before.
2Ki_21:16. Starke: Idolatry and tyranny are closely allied.—Osiander: Those whom Satan has in his toils he leads from one sin to another. Enmity to the word of God is not merely a different opinion or contradiction in regard to religious matters, but a devilish power which impels even to the shedding of innocent blood. It is possible to kill the preachers of truth, but not the truth itself. He who was the truth was nailed to the cross, but His words remain, though heaven and earth pass away. The blood of the martyrs only fertilized the soil of the Church, so that it has borne richer and more abundant fruit.—All innocent blood cries to heaven as that of Abel did. He who dwells in heaven answers: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.”
2Ki_21:19-26. How wretchedly a king appears of whom history has nothing more to record than his godlessness.—Würt. Summ.: When men will not heed either good words or bad, and will not be induced to repent by warning or example, then God comes with His punishment and recompenses wickedness as it deserves. Let men take heed and repent, let them become wise by the sight of others’ calamities, that they be not overtaken in their sins by death before they have repented. As is the king so are his officers; as is the governor so are the citizens; a depraved king ruins his country (Sir_10:2-3).—Würt. Summ.: Unfaithfulness is punished by unfaithfulness. Amon was not faithful to God; unfaithfulness was his punishment. He was murdered by his own servants, and these in their turn were punished by their own sin—they also were murdered. (See Mat_26:52; Luk_6:28.) Therefore be faithful both to God and man and do good, then thou shalt be rewarded with good both in time and eternity. Tumult and murder, perpetrated now by the authorities, now by the people, those are the natural fruits which are produced in a land which has abandoned God, and in which His word is no longer respected.
Footnotes:
[1]2Ki_21:4. [אשׁר accus. after a verb of speaking, denoting that in respect to which. Cf. 2Ki_21:7 and Gen_22:14 (Ew. § 282, a. 2).
[2]2Ki_21:6. [That is, he trained men by special education for this work and then gave them official position.
[3]2Ki_21:6. [The flow of the narrative is arrested in this verse in order to enumerate Manasseh’s faults. Hence the use of the perf. consec. Ew. § 342, 6, 1.
[4]2Ki_21:8. [רַק אִם, if only, cf. Deu_15:5; 1Ki_8:25.
[5]2Ki_21:8. [וּלְכָל וגו.—”That which I commanded” and “the law which Moses commanded” are not two different things. וּלְכָל serves to gather up and recapitulate, so that it is equivalent to “namely” or “I mean,” cf. Gen_9:10; Gen_23:10; 1Ch_13:1; 1Ch_28:1 : 2Ch_7:21 (לְ is wanting in 1Ki_9:8); Ezr_1:5; Jer_19:13 (Ew. 310, a).
[6]2Ki_21:12. [The chetib presents an irregularity of gender, the masc. suff. referring to רעה. The keri corrects this.
[7]2Ki_21:13. [“The perf. מָחָה is very noticeable, especially in view of the accents. We should expect מָחֹה and that it would be connected with what follows” (Ew. s. 833, nt. 2).—W. G. S.]
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 vv5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16 the two courts of the house of the Lord--the…
the two courts of the house of the Lord--the court of the priests, and the large court of the people.
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 vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17 REIGN OF MANASSEH, 2Ki_21:1-18.
REIGN OF MANASSEH, 2Ki_21:1-18.
1. Manasseh… twelve — Hence it appears by comparison with 2Ki_20:6, that he must have been born three years after Hezekiah’s severe illness. See, also, note on 2Ki_20:3. Perhaps he was the only son, or perhaps his older brothers had died. Though only twelve years old, he seems to have taken the kingdom into his own hand at that early age, and this fact may largely account for the wickedness of his reign. On the early maturity of persons in the East, see note on 2Ki_18:2.
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Fifty and five years — The longest reign of any Jewish king.
Hephzibah — The name means, my delight is in her; but notwithstanding this amiable name, and the piety of her husband, she seems to have illy trained her son.
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 vv1–17 Chap. 2Ki_21:1-9. Accession of Manasseh king of Judah. His…
Chap. 2Ki_21:1-9. Accession of Manasseh king of Judah. His excessive idolatries (2Ch_33:1-9)
1. Manasseh was twelve years old] ‘At last, some three years after his recovery, Hezekiah hath a son: but such a one, as, if he could have foreseen, orbity had been a blessing’ (Bp Hall).
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fifty and five years] A reign longer than his father’s whole life, in spite of the addition of fifteen years; and longer than the reign of any other king of Judah or Israel.
Hephzi-bah] The mother’s name is not mentioned in Chronicles, it is the name which Isaiah in his prophecy (Isa_62:4) gives to the restored Zion, ‘my delight is in her’.
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 vv1–17 (1) Manasseh.—This king was a tributary to Esar-haddon and…
(1) Manasseh.—This king was a tributary to Esar-haddon and Assurbanipal successively. (See Schrader, Keilinschr., pp. 354-357, who says: M The conclusion is imperative that during the last period of the reign of Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, certainly during the first period of the latter, Manasseh was tributary to the great king of Assyria.” (See the Notes on 2Ch_33:11.) His name, like that of his successor Amon, suggests Egyptian influence. We know that combinations with Egypt against Assyria were popular during this epoch.
Twelve years old.—This early accession to power may help to explain his deviation from the religious policy of his father. It is not necessary to assume (with Thenius) that the queen-mother swayed the government until he reached a riper age. Manasseh may have been older than his years. According to the datum of the text, he was born a year or two after the Assyrian invasion. Whether he was Hezekiah’s firstborn son or not cannot be ascertained.
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Hephzi-bah.—Isa_62:4, as a title of Mount Zion. It means “my delight is in her.”
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 vv1–17 Vers. 1-26. THE REIGNS OF MANASSEH AND AMON.
Vers. 1-26. THE REIGNS OF MANASSEH AND AMON.
Vers. 1-18. THE REIGN OF MANASSEH. Hezekiah"s good and glorious reign was followed by one of exactly the opposite character. His son and successor, Manasseh, reversed Hezekiah"s entire religious policy, and returned to the wicked practices of his grandfather Ahaz. In vers. 3-9 and ver. 16 his various abominations are enumerated, while in vers. 10-15 God"s sentence is pronounced upon them. The account of his reign terminates with a brief summary (vers. 17, 18).
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Manasaeh was twelve years old. Manasseh was thus not born till three years after Hezekiah"s dangerous illness, or till the year B.C. 710. Hezekiah may have given him the name in the spirit in which Joseph gave it to his firstborn, (Gen_41:51) because God, in at last blessing him with a son, had "made him forget" his dangerous illness, with the griefs and regrets that accompanied it. "Manasseh" means "Forgetting." When he began to reign in B.C. 698 or 697, the seventh or eighth year of Sennacheriband reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. So the author of Chronicles (2Ch_33:1) and Josephus ("Ant. Jud.," 10:3. The reign exceeds in length that of any other King of Judah orIsrael. And his mother"s name was Hephzibah. "Hephzibah" means "My delight is in her." Isaiah gives it as a name of honor to the restored Jerusalem. (Isa_62:4) It has been conjectured that, as queen-mother, Hephzibah was regent during her son"s minority. But there is no trace of her regency either in Kings or Chronicles.
Vers. 1-18. The lesson of Manasseh"s life, that it is far easier to do than to undo evil.
Manasseh, carried away by the impetuosity of youth, and under the advice of evil counselors, threw himself into a movement the direct opposite of that instituted by his father, and in a short time completely changed in all respects the whole religion of the kingdom. His idea, so far as we can trace it, seems to have been a welcoming of heathen and idolatrous creeds and rites of all kinds and from all quarters, together with a stern repression of the religion of Jehovah. The bloody rites of Moloch, the licentious orgies of the Syrian goddess, the Phoenician Baal-worship, the Arabian astrology, the magic and necromancy of Babylon, were all regarded as equally worthy of his patronage, all given a home in his capital; one single cult was disallowed, and its exercise punished with death the worship of "the Holy One of Israel." In all these respects Manasseh found it easy enough to work his will; no one resisted him; the awful child-sacrifices suited well with one side of the national temperament, the wild sensualism of Syrian and Phoenician orgies harmonized with another. Manasseh easily "seduced" the mass of the people to do as he would have them; and, when he met with recalcitrants, had a "short and easy method" with them the method of instant execution. All went smoothly and satisfactorily with him, probably for near thirty years of his reign, when by some act we know not what-he displeased his Assyrian suzerain, was carried captive to Babylon, and there, in the bitterness of confinement, brought to see the error of his ways. Restored to his throne, he thought to undo his evil work as easily and completely as he had done it. Again, outwardly no one resisted his will. The external changes were made. "The strange gods" were "put away"; (2Ch_33:15) the idols cleared out of the house of the Lord; the idolatrous altars banished; the formal worship of Jehovah reintroduced; the brazen altar of Solomon "repaired" (2Ch_33:16) and used for sacrifice; Judah commanded to serve Jehovah, the God of Israel. But the spirit of true and pure religion could not be brought back. Thirty years of idolatry had debauched the heart of the nation. Jehovah"s faithful followers had been martyred. The rest of the people could only give to Jehovah a lip-service. And thus no sooner was Manasseh dead than everything reverted into its former condition. The idols were restored the altars to the host of heaven replaced in the temple courts the flames of Tophet relighted the filthy rites of the Dea Syria re-established. When Josiah came to the throne, the state of things was as bad as it had ever been, even in the worst years of Manasseh. Baal was the god chiefly worshipped in Jerusalem; (Zep_1:4) altars to the host of heaven covered the housetops; men commonly swore by Moloch; the whole nation had "turned back from Jehovah", (Zep_1:6) and the city was filled with "violence and deceit". (Zep_1:9) Not even could all Josiah"s efforts remedy the evil which Manasseh had brought about. The corruption was too deep-seated; and it was Manasseh"s evil-doing, which he could not undo, that caused the final destruction of the kingdom. (2Ki_23:26, 27 24:3, 4)
HOMILIES BY C.H. IRWIN. Vers. 1-16. Manasseh"s wicked reign.
Two thoughts are brought before us by the reign of Manasseh. They are a striking contrast to one another.
I THE POWER OF SIN.
1. We see how sin perpetuates itself. The deeds of Manasseh were just a repetition of the worst deeds of his predecessors. "He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, after the abominations of the heathen." He built up again the high places. He made altars for Baal. He worshipped all the host of heaven. He made his son pass through the fire to Moloch. (What we have already said on these sins applies here.)
2. We see also the progressive power of sin. There is a progress in sin from bad to worse. Manasseh imitated the sins of his predecessors. But he went further than any of them. "He built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord" (ver. 5). Worse than all, he set up a carved image, the idol that he had made, in the very temple of the living God. It is also stated that he shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem with blood from one end to the other (ver. 16). Let us beware of the beginnings of evil.
3. We see also the power of sin to harden men"s hearts. We read in 2 Chronicles that "God spake to Manasseh and his people; but they would not hearken." How often God still speaks to men by his Word, by his providences, and yet sin has so hardened their hearts, that they pay no attention to his warnings, remonstrances, and appeals!
II THE POWER OF PRAYER. There is no reference in this account of Manasseh to any prayer of his. And yet, strange though it may seem, prayer played an important part in Manasseh"s history. When we turn to the summary of his life which is given in 2Ch 33., we read (vers. 18, 19), "Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer unto his God, and the words of the seers that spake unto him in the name of the Lord God of Israel, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel. His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him, and all his sins, and his trespass... before he was humbled: behold, they are written among the sayings of the seers." Now, what was this prayer of Manasseh? It was simply a prayer for pardon. Observe how Manasseh learned to pray. For all his wickedness the Lord brought judgments upon him (vers. 10-15). He brought upon him and his people "the captains of the host of the King of Assyria, which took Manasseh prisoner, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon." It was then, in his extremity and calamity, that Manasseh learned to pray. "And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him: and he was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God". (2Ch_33:12, 2Ch_33:13) Often it is affliction and trial that first teach men to pray, to turn to God. We see here the power of penitent prayer. We see here that no one is too great a sinner to pray to God for mercy. Your past life may have been given up to sin. So was Manasseh"s. You may have dishonored and disobeyed God. So did Manasseh. Yet he obtained mercy. The greatest, guiltiest sinner may get pardon at the cross. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. C.H.I.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS
Vers. 1-18. Manasseh; or, the material and moral in human life.
"Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother"s name was Hephzibah. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord," etc. "Manasseh" says Keil, "having begun to reign at an early age, did not choose his father"s ways, but set up the idolatry of his grandfather Ahaz again, since the godless party in the nation, all whose chief priests, and (false) prophets stood, and who would not hearken to the Law of the Lord, and in the time of Hezekiah had sought help against Assyria, not from Jehovah, but from the Egyptians, had obtained control of the young and inexperienced king. He built again the high places which Hezekiah had destroyed, erected altars for Baal, and Asherah, like Ahab of Israel." There are two great mistakes prevalent amongst men one is an over-estimation of the secular; the other, a depreciation of the spiritual. Many theoretically hold, and more practically indicate, that man should attend mainly, if not entirely, to his secular interests, as a citizen of time; that the present, the palpable, and the certain should engage a far greater portion of his attention than the future, the unseen, and the probable. It is bad to hold these ideas, but it is worse to practice them. More respect, perhaps, is due to the mistaken men who theoretically adopt them, than to those who denounce in no very measured terms their votaries and yet practically carry them out in their daily life. And yet such characters abound in Christian England, abound in our congregations, and in our clergy too. The religionist who gives more of his thought, energy, and time to the secular than the spiritual, is carrying out in his everyday conduct the principles of those secular and infidel teachers against whom he is ever ready to thunder his condemnation. Far more distressed am I at the practical secularism of the Christian than at the theoretical secularism of the skeptic. The other mistake is overrating the spiritual at the expense of the secular. It is not very uncommon for religious teachers to profess to despise secular interests, and so to enforce the claims of piety as if they required the sacrifice of our corporeal and secular happiness. I have no faith in such representations of moral duty. Man is one, and all his duties and interests are concurrent and harmonious; the end of Christianity is to make man happy, body and soul, here and hereafter. These remarks are suggested by the history of Manasseh. He was the son of Hezekiah; was born upwards of seven hundred years before Christ; began to reign when he was twelve years of age; continued his rulership for fifty-five years, died at the age of sixty-eight, and was buried in a sepulcher which he had prepared for himself in his own garden. (see 2Ch_33:1-20) His inner life or character will appear as we proceed in the illustration of our subject. In his biography we have three instructive views of the secular and spiritual. We have here
I THE ELEVATION OF THE SECULAR AND THE DEGRADATION OF THE SPIRITUAL. "He built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove, as did Ahab King of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them," etc. Here is a man at the height of the secular elevation. He is raised to a throne, called to bear sway over a people the most enlightened, and in a country as fertile and lovely as any 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 his royalty, look within, and what see you? A low, wretched, infamous spirit, a spirit debased almost to the lowest point in morals. Few names in the history of our sinful world stand out with more prominent features of depravity and vice than this of Manasseh. Look at him:
1. Socially. How acted he as a son? His father, Hezekiah, was a man of undoubted piety a monarch of distinguished worth. Many earnest prayers he offered, no doubt, for his son, and many tender counsels on religious subjects had he addressed to him. Yet what was the return for all this? His sire was scarcely cold in his grave before the son commenced undoing in the kingdom all that his pious father had for years endeavored to accomplish. His insane fanaticism in the cause of debased religion was not surpassed even by the king in modern times who most resembled him, Philip II of Spain. 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." History represents the god Moloch, to which this Manasseh presented his children, as a brazen statue, which was ever kept burning hot, with its arms outstretched. Into these outstretched arms the idolatrous parent threw his children, which soon fell down into the raging furnace beneath.
2. Religiously. A dupe of the most stupid imposture. "He observed times, and used enchantments and used witchcraft, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards." He was the maddened votary of the most cruel and monstrous superstition.
3. Politically. Ruining his own 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." The elevation of the secular and the degradation of the spiritual, so manifest, alas! in all times and lands, is not destitute of many grave and startling suggestions.
4. It shows the moral disorganization of the human world. This state of things can never be according to the original plan of the creation. Can it be accordant with the original purpose of the Creator that wickedness should sit on thrones and hold the scepters of the world in its grasp? Can it be that Infinite Parity intended to endow depravity with such worldly wealth and power? Impossible. A terrible convulsion has happened to the human world, a convulsion that has thrown every part into 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 disorganization.
5. It shows the perverting capability of the son. The greater the amount of worldly good a man possesses, the stronger is the appeal of the Creator for his gratitude and devotion. These earthly mercies urge self-consecration. 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. But here, in the case of this monarch, you have, what indeed you find in different degrees everywhere in human life past and present, the soul turning these advantages to the most fiendish iniquity. The perverting capability of the soul within us may well fill us with amazement and alarm. We can darken the light of truth, make the tree of life drop poison, and cause the very breath of God to be pestilential.
6. 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 Mechanician always allow the human engine thus to ply its wondrous energies in confusion? Will the great Lord allow his stewards to misappropriate his substance, and never call them to account? It cannot be! There must come a day for balancing long-standing accounts; a day for making all that has been irregular in human history chime harmoniously with the original law of the universe.
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 can make no effectual resistance. He is seized, bound in chains, transported to Babylon, and then cast into prison. Here is secular degradation. Here, away in exile, chains, and prison, like the prodigal, he began to think. His guilty conduct passed under sad review memory brought past crimes and abused mercies in awful and startlingforms before him, and his heart is smitten with contrition. He prays; his prayer is heard; and here, bereft of every vestige of secular greatness, he begins to rise spiritually, to become an intellectual and moral man. (2Ch_33:12) We may learn from this:
1. That man"s 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; that afflictions have often broken the moral slumber of the soul, and led the careless to consider his ways. 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, when the mind is not necessarily pressed with anxieties about the means of worldly subsistence, when leisure and facilities for religious reflection and effort are at command, that men are in the best position to discipline themselves into a godly life. But here we find a man in the most unfavorable position, away from religious institutions and friends and books, an imprisoned 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 the excitement and bustle of commercial life says, "Were I in a more retired situation, in some rural 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." Whilst on the contrary, and with greater reason, the tenant of these quiet scenes says, "Were I distant from this eternal monotony, amidst scenes of mental stimulus and social excitement, I should be roused from the apathy, which oppresses me, and I would be a religious man." The fact, after all, is that circumstances are no necessary hindrances or helps to a religious life.
2. That Heavens mercy is greater than mans iniquities. When conscience-stricken with the enormity of his wickedness, this one of the chief of human sinners betakes himself to his knees in humble prayer "before the God of his fathers," how is he treated? Is he scathed with a flash of retributive displeasure? Who would have wondered if he had been so? But no. Is he upbraided for his past wickedness? Who would have been surprised if he had been stunned with thunders of reproof? But no. Is he received with cold indifference? No. "He was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom." What a confirmation is here of that promise, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon!" "Abundantly!" This is a glorious word, a word that, like the boundless heavens of God, towers and expands over a universe of sin.
III THE CONCURRENT ELEVATION BOTH OF THE SPIRITUAL AND THE SECULAR. The Almighty hears his prayer. He is emancipated from 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; that he who got a throne would do so because of the moral nobility of his nature, and that in all cases secular circumstances, whether elevated, affluent, or otherwise, would ever be the effects and exponents of spiritual character. Manasseh"s restoration to the throne, and the work of reformation to which he sets himself, suggest two subjects of thought.
1. 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 condition, improve the latter, and you improve the former. As the world gets spiritually holier, it will get secularly happier. Godliness is material as well as moral "gain." The system that best promotes godliness is the system that best promotes man"s temporal well-being. And that system is the gospel Hence, let philanthropists adopt this as their grand instrument. When Christianity shall have won its triumph over all souls, men"s bodies will be restored to their lost inheritance of health, elasticity, force, and plenty, as Manasseh was now restored to his lost throne. There is a physical millennium for the world as well as a spiritual; the former will grow out of and reveal the latter, as trees and flowers their hidden life.
2. The tendency of penitence to make retribution; 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, and compassed about Ophel, and raised it up a very great height, and put captains of war in all the fenced cities of Judah. And he took away the strange gods," etc. Here is restitution, and an earnest endeavor to undo the mischief which he had wrought. Thus Zacchaeus acted, and thus all true penitents have ever acted and will ever act. True penitence has a restitutionary instinct. But how little, alas I of the mischief done can ever be undone! What can we do? We cannot destroy the fact of wrong. That fact will never be erased from the moral annals of the universe; it is chronicled with unfading ink on an imperishable substance. What can we do? We cannot destroy the influence of our wrong. The wrong that is gone out from us will roll its pestilential streams down through the ages. What can we do? We can "cease to do evil;" and, thank God! we can do more we can make some compensation for the injury we have done the creation. We can, by Heaven"s grace, open up within us a fountain for the washing away of sin and uncleanness a fountain whose streams will bless with life and beauty many generations yet to come. D.T.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR Vers. 1-9, 16. The reaction under Manasseh.
Light and dark alternate strangely in the later history of Judah. Overlooking the brief reign of Amon, Hezekiah alternates with Ahaz, and Josiah with Manasseh. The good kings are very good, the bad kings very bad. The climax of wickedness is reached in Manasseh. He had a good father, as Hezekiah had a wicked one, yet he outstripped in daring ungodliness all the kings before and after him.
I HIS PRECOCITY IN EVIL.
1. His tendencies were evil. Manasseh"s tender years when he became king do not wholly explain the strong bent he showed towards evil He became king, it is true, when he was but twelve, a mere boy, with character unformed, and open to the seductions of wicked courtiers; but Josiah, his grandson, was only eight when he ascended the throne, and he showed a disposition the very opposite. Nor does environment explain everything. Josiah had far fewer advantages than Manasseh. Evil influences were round the young prince, but there were good ones also. Hezekiah his father would give him the best of training; his mother, Hephzibah, if it was she that suggested the prophet"s allusion in Isa_62:5, seems to have left a fragrant memory behind her; Isaiah was still living to be his instructor, if he had been willing to be guided as Josiah was; (2Ki_12:2) there were also the remarkable mercies God had shown to his father and to the nation but a few years before. Contrast Josiah"s position, with Amon for a father, and the country in the state to which it was reduced after half a century of heathenism. There is no accounting for these differences through heredity, environment, or in any other way which ignores personality. While as a rule the children of the good turn out well, and the children of the wicked badly, there are startling exceptions on either side. Some from their childhood seem to be the subjects of an innate, virulent depravity, which only needs opportunity to break out into violent forms of evil.
2. His environment was evil. At the same time, it is to be admitted that the circumstances in which he was placed only afforded too much encouragement to the development of Manasseh"s ungodly tendencies. It was undeniably a disadvantage to be so early deprived of a father"s guidance, and saddled with the responsibilities of a throne. The courtly aristocratic party had never been in real sympathy with Hezekiah"s reforms, and they doubtless eagerly embraced the opportunity afforded by the accession of a young king of influencing him to a different line of conduct. Throughout the country also Hezekiah"s reformation had been largely external, and people were tired of the restraints which it imposed. The reaction which ensued has been compared to that of queen Mary"s reign after the death of Edward VI, or of the Restoration after the Puritan strictness of the Commonwealth. The upper and aristocratic classes of a country have seldom been marked by their fondness for earnest religion. The way of the world and fashion are far more ruling influences with them, and as at this time "Nineveh was to Western Asia what the Paris of Louis XIV was to Europe," it can easily be understood that "not to imitate itwas to be provincial and vulgar" (Geikie). The moment the heathen spirit got the upper hand, and secured the countenance of the king, it was sure to prevail. The earnest followers of Jehovah shrank down into an inconsiderable minority.
II HIS EXCESSES IN IDOLATRY. The account given of Manasseh"s doings shows to what lengths he went in undoing the arrangements of his father. He seems, in fact, to have aimed at nothing less than a complete suppression of the worship of Jehovah, and the reorganization of the religious cult of the nation upon foreign models.
1. He rebuilt the high places. These Hezekiah had pulled down a point of attainment to conformity with God"s Law not reached by any previous king. Manasseh now reversed that action of his father, and rebuilt the shrines. The centralization of worship in Jerusalem may have been felt to be irksome; perhaps, too, the bad character of many of the priests added to its unpopularity. Manasseh may have claimed to he going back to old custom, with the end of making religion more free, popular, and joyous in its character. In this he had the mass of the people, and most of the official classes with him, as "in England the bulk of the nation and of the clergy returned at once to Romanism, when restored by Mary, after the death of Edward VI" It is a sad thing to see a nation going back from any high point of attainment Reformation or other as, again, it is a sad thing to see one individual building again the things which he destroyed. (Gal_2:18)
2. His wholesale importation of idolatries.
(1) Foreign idolatries. Manasseh exceeded even Ahaz in the zeal with which he imported idolatries of every kind from foreign nations. Baal and Astarte worship, of course, was introduced after the pattern of Ahab, and the Asherah symbol again reared itself in public view in Jerusalem. The taste of Ahaz for new altars was more than surpassed under the auspices of his successor. There was imported also, in grander style than ever, the worship of the sun and moon and heavenly bodies the white horses and chariots of the sun being now one of the institutions of the temple. (2Ki_23:10, 2Ki_23:11) "Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods?" asks a prophet; (Jer_2:11) but Judah had changed her God for senseless idols. A policy of this kind is bound to end in the dissolution of a nation. The deepest bond of nationality is religion, and when a people renounces its traditional faith, and becomes a mere receptacle for a chaos of foreign religious ideas, it is sure, ere long, to fall to pieces. The Roman Empire was in this condition before its fall.
(2) The worst idolatries. It was not merely foreign idolatries which Manasseh introduced, but the worst, the vilest, and the most cruel of these idolatries. In particular, license was given to the practice of the worst and vilest rites of the Astarte-worship, and that close by the very house of the; (2Ki_23:6, 2Ki_23:7) while the fearful worship of Moloch, with its human sacrifices, was revived, and the king himself gave sanction to it by devoting at least one of his sons to the fire. These were the abominations for which God had cast out the original inhabitants of the land, and now they were reintroduced in full force.
(3) The attendant superstitions of idolatry. Idolatry here, as elsewhere, brought in its train a host of other baleful superstitions. Those who forsake God have ever been prone to fall a prey to the most childish delusions and impostures. The worship of the heavenly bodies brought with it the practice of astrology; the craving for communion with the unseen world led to necromancy, witchcraft, and enchantments; boasting a false freedom, the mind fell into an abject slavery to demonism (cf. the development of spiritualism in our own day). The movers in this new introduction of idolatry would no doubt claim the praise due to minds enlightened and emancipated from the narrow ideas in which the people of Judah hitherto had been bound. They were bringing in a new era of toleration, culture, breadth of view and sentiment, and the result was to be a great improvement in the state of the nation. In reality they were loosening all religious and social bonds, and opening the floodgates to corruption.
3. His desecration of the temple. The tale of Manasseh"s iniquities is not yet ended. Not content with bringing new idolatries into vogue, Manasseh set to work systematically to overthrow the worship of Jehovah, and put his foreign gods in the place devoted to Jehovah"s honor. Neither Athaliah nor Ahaz had ventured to introduce idolatry into the temple, but Manasseh took this step beyond either of them. He set up his numerous altars in the house of the Lord. Specially he erected altars for the worship of the host of heaven in the two courts of the temple. Then, to cap all, he introduced into the very building itself an image of the Asherah he had made, replete as that was with vile associations. Insult to Jehovah could go no further. In that very place of which Jehovah had said, "In Jerusalem will I put my Name there;" "In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel, will I put my Name forever; even there, in the very dwelling-place of the holy God among men, this impure symbol was erected. The Asharah-image in the temple was, as it were, the summing-up in symbol of the whole apostasy of the people, the formal token of their breach of the covenant, on fidelity to which depended their possession of the land, and as such, the desecration is frequently alluded to. (Jer_7:30 Jer_19:3-5)
4. His shedding of innocent blood. This is the final and culminating charge against Manasseh, "Be shed innocent blood very much, Sill he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another." The words speak to a deliberate and organized persecution of Jehovah"s servants perhaps a massacre such as that of St. Bartholomew in France, a determined attempt to crush out in blood all dissent from and opposition to the king"s measures. This is the persecution in which it is said that Isaiah perished. It is the shedding of innocent blood which, we are told further, "the Lord would not pardon". (2Ki_24:4) "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints". (Psa_116:15) We see from this example what the spirit of false toleration, of spurious culture, of the breadth of view which confounds truth and error, leads to; what real intolerance and hatred of God underlie it. Rights of conscience will meet with scant recognition under any system which denies the true God.
III HIS LATE REPENTANCE. It is a valuable appendix to this history which we find in the Book of Chronicles. There we are told what we should not have suspected from the narrative before us, that Manasseh late in life repented of his sin, and obtained mercy from God. (2Ch_33:11-17) We have had instances of kings reigning well through the greater parts of their lives and failing at the close; this is the first and only case of a Jewish king reigning ill and finally repenting. We are taught by the story of Manasseh"s repentance:
1. The seeds of early instruction may blossom after many days. Who can doubt but that it was the impressions received in early days which at last revived, and brought Manasseh back to Jehovah.
2. There is hope for the worst sinners. After Manasseh, surely any one. Nor did his conversion take place till his course was nearly run. We should despair of none. Miracles of grace as great as this have perhaps rarely been witnessed, but they have been witnessed.
3. God subdues men to himself by affliction. It was while a prisoner in Babylon taken there by the captains of the King of Assyria that Manasseh found the Lord.
4. Repentance does not always secure the reversal of the temporal effects of sin. The wickedness of Manasseh through a long reign wrought out its effects independently of him. His conversion came too late to undo them. The blood he had shed "the Lord would not pardon." The nation was inculpated as well as he, and though he repented, it did not. It is an awful thought that no after-repentance can obliterate the effects of words spoken and deeds done while sin still had dominion over us. Nor can the effects of sin on our own health, characters, usefulness, etc., ever be completely recalled. J.O.
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 v1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to…
2Ki_21:1-16
Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign.
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Manasseh
The narratives of the Old Testament are not to be read as mere matters of history, but as records of the providential dispensations of God in the concerns of mankind, and as fraught with lessons of the most valuable moral and religious instruction. In this light we are to consider the account handed down to us of Manasseh. King of Judah. An uninspired historian could only have informed us of his evil life, his affliction, his repentance, his restoration to prosperity, and his subsequent good conduct; but the sacred writer exhibits to us the manner in which the hand of God was visible throughout these events. It was not a matter of chance that Manasseh fell into adversity; for it was a scourge expressly sent upon him for his transgressions: nor was it by chance that he was restored to his kingdom, but by the unseen interposition of the all-wise Disposer of events, and in consequence of his deep humiliation and humble prayer. It is thus that the Scriptures teach us maxims of heavenly wisdom, not only in their direct exhortations and promises, but in the narratives which they record, all being written so as to display the conduct of God towards His creatures; His wisdom and righteousness, His justice and His mercy, His anger against the transgressor, His favour to the humble penitent, His infinite patience and forbearance towards all. We see embodied in actual facts our own circumstances, our sins and our mercies; what we have to hope or to fear; what our Creator requires of us; how He will act towards us. The chief particulars are the aggravated transgressions of Manasseh; the consequent affliction which befell him; his repentance in his affliction; his deliverance from it, and his future obedience to God.
1. The chapter before us details the transgressions of Manasseh. His sins were of a very heinous character, and were committed under circumstances which greatly aggravated their enormity. The narrative mentions several particulars, which show the fearful extent of his offences.
(1) He sinned immediately against God. Every sin is indeed a transgression of the commands of our Creator; but some sins seem as it were to show a more than ordinary contempt for His Infinite Majesty: they imply a direct denial of His presence; they urge him to vindicate the honour of his name; they practically speak the language of the fool who says in his heart, There is no God. Of this kind was the sin of idolatry which Manasseh so flagrantly committed: for he reared up altars for an idol or false god, called Baalim; and made groves for the cruel and licentious rites of heathen superstition: he worshipped the host of heaven, the sun, the moon, and the stars, and served them; instead of serving Him who made them, and rules them in their courses. He even carried his profaneness and provocation against God to so great an extent, that he built altars for these pagan idols in the courts of the house of the Lord, and set up for worship a carved image in the temple itself, of which God had said to David, and to Solomon his son, In this house will I put my name for ever.
(2) But not only did Manasseh work much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger, but his sins against God were followed by sins against his neighbour. Having cast off the fear of his Creator, he became dangerous to all around him. His heart was so greatly hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, that it is said, he shed innocent blood very much till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; and he even caused his own children to pass through the fire, in the valley of the son of Hinnom.
(3) To aggravate still more his offences, he not only sinned himself, but he delighted in causing others to sin also; for it is said that he made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen. The ungodly add fearfully to their-own offences, by seducing others to offend. If a ruler hearken to lies, says Solomon, all his servants are wicked; and even in the most humble sphere of life evil communications in like manner corrupt good manners; and this not only by the natural effect of bad example, but by the positive efforts which sinners employ to lead others into temptation.
(4) Another aggravation of the sinful conduct of Manasseh was, his ingratitude for the benefits which he had received from that all-merciful Being whom he so daringly offended. This is particularly mentioned in the chapter before us; where, in the account given of his sinfulness in introducing idolatry into the city and temple of Jerusalem, mention is made of the special favours which Jehovah had bestowed upon the people of Israel, and his promise not to remove them out of the land which he had appointed for their fathers, provided they would take heed to do all that he had commanded them.
(5) To mention but one aggravation more, of the sins of Manasseh, and that which greatly added to their enormity, they were committed deliberately against knowledge and warning, against the secret checks of conscience, and against the early instructions of a pious education. For Manasseh was the son of King Hezekiah, of whom it is recorded that throughout all Judah, and more especially doubtless in his own family, he wrought that which was good, and right, and truth before the Lord his God. And though, unhappily for Manasseh, he died when that prince was but twelve years old, he doubtless both instructed him himself in the ways of God, as long as he lived, and appointed others to assist his endeavours and to perpetuate them after his decease. Under all these circumstances, highly aggravated was his guilt; and equally aggravated and eternal would have been his punishment, had not the subsequent part of his history presented a very different aspect to that which we have been contemplating. The succeeding stages of his life remain to be briefly noticed.
2. To consider the affliction which in consequence befell him. Happy was it for him that he was not suffered to proceed in his iniquities unchecked. Sorrow, we are told, springs not out of the ground: it does not occur by chance, or without meaning. All affliction is the consequence of sin; and it is well when our troubles in this life are made the instruments of leading us to God, that we may not suffer that eternal punishment which our iniquities merit in the world to come. In the case of Manasseh, the hand of God was clearly visible in His punishment. It is said that the Lord brought upon him and his people--for both he and his people had sinned--the host of the king of Assyria, and they took Manasseh, among the thorns; that is, in some thicket to which he had retreated for safety; and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. A greater temporal calamity than this could scarcely befall a man like Manasseh.
3. Our text notices his repentance in his affliction. His captivity gave him leisure for serious reflection; and by the blessing of God he was led to avail himself of it. Multitudes of persons never begin to think of their sins, or their need of salvation, till the hour of pain or sickness, of bereavement or death. Thus Manasseh in his prosperity had forgotten his Creator; but in his adversity he could find no other refuge. His false gods could not assist him; and therefore, like the prodigal son, his only refuge was to turn to the merciful Father whom he had forsaken.
4. We are told of his deliverance from his affliction. The Lord, it is said, heard his supplication, and brought him back again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. The following verses allude to his future prosperity; for, by the dispensation under which Manasseh lived, it pleased the Almighty often to bestow temporal blessings as a mark of his special mercy; and as the afflictions which first led Manasseh to repentance and prayer had been of a worldly kind, so, when it pleased God to restore him to his favour, he gave him also worldly blessings, life and liberty, and a successful issue in the affairs of his kingdom. But far above all these outward blessings was the forgiveness of his sins. Worldly prosperity may be either a benefit or a curse to its possessor; but to be pardoned and justified--this is indeed a blessing of unspeakable value, and should constrain us with earnest gratitude to devote ourselves to the service of our God and Saviour. This leads us to remark,
5. The subsequent obedience of Manasseh. The narrative is brief; but it particularly mentions his future obedience to God, and his zeal for his glory. His heart being renewed, his course of life changed with it. It is said, that he now knew that the Lord He was God. He had discovered this both in His power to afflict him and in His power to restore him; and now, knowing Him to be the only true God, he resolved to worship Him as such. He had repented, and he brought forth fruits meet for repentance. Much was forgiven him, and he loved much. First, he turned from his former sins; for he took away the strange gods and the idol out of the house of, the Lord: not only this, but he began to practise his long neglected duties; he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed thereon peace offerings, and thank-offerings, and commanded his people to serve the Lord God of Israel. As his transgressions had been public, he wished his contrition for them to be equally so; and as he had led others astray by his authority and example, he was now urgent to bring them back to the right path. To follow his example in this respect is the most important application which we can make. We have not indeed shed blood, or literally sacrificed to idols, as he did; neither have we had any inducement to do so, or the opportunity of doing so. But, on the other hand, we have not been exposed to the temptations which he must have met with, left defenceless at the early age of twelve years, amidst the seductions of the world, as a sovereign prince, with every facility for the indulgence of his will and his passions, and meeting perhaps with few to control, and many to foster his evil propensities. But shall we therefore say that, according to our circumstances and temptations, we have not also grievously offended God? Let us then earnestly seek this inestimable blessing; let us neither slight it on the one hand nor despair of obtaining it on the other. It is to be obtained, if only we seek it, and seek it aright, and seek it before the opportunity for procuring it is for ever lost. (Christian Observer.)
Saints made only of unfavourable material
At a crowded meeting in Edinburgh, one Sunday night, Professor Drummond stood on the platform with a letter in his hand. That letter, he said, had come to him from a young man then in the meeting, who, knowing Drummond was to speak that night, had written his history in the hope that some word of Christian counsel might be spoken which would give him hope. The letter was from a medical student who had been piously trained, but had been drawn down to drunkenness and vice. He feared he had fallen too low ever to rise. Did Professor Drummond think there was any hope for such a man? For answer the professor said, As I walked through the city this morning I noticed a cloud like a pure white bank of snow resting over the slums. Whence came it? The great sun had sent down its beams into the city slums, and the beams had gone among the puddles and drawn out of them what they sought, and had taken it aloft and purified it; and there it was resting above the city, a cloud as white as snow. And God can make His saints out of material equally unfavourable. He can make a white cloud out of a puddle. What Christ did for Mary Magdalene He could and would do for any one who went to Him for help now.
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
MANASSEH
B.C. 686-641
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2Ki_21:1-16
"Shall the throne of wickedness have fellowship with Thee,
That frameth mischief by statute?
They gather themselves in troops against the soul of the righteous,
And condemn the innocent blood."
Psa_94:20-21
"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small:
Though with patience long He waiteth, with exactness grinds He all."
MANASSEH was born after Hezekiahs recovery from his terrible illness. He was but twelve years old when he began to reign. Of his mother Hephzibah we know nothing, nor of the Zechariah who was her father; but perhaps Isaiah in one passage {Isa_62:4} may refer to her name, "My delight is in her." The son of Hezekiah and Hephzibah was the worst of all the kings of Judah and had the longest reign. The tender age of Manasseh when he came to the throne may account for the fact that the "forgetfulness" which his name implied was not a forgetting of other sorrows, but of all that was noble and righteous in the attempted reformation which had been the main religious work of his fathers life. In Judah, as in England, a king was not supposed to be of age until he was eighteen. {2Ch_34:1-3} For six years Manasseh must have been to a great extent under the influence of his regents and counselors. There always existed in Jerusalem, even in the best times, a heathenizing party, and it was, unfortunately, composed of princes and aristocrats who could bring strong influence to bear upon the king. They did not deny Jehovah, but they did not recognize Him as the sole or the supreme God of heaven and earth. To them He was the local deity of Israel and Judah. But there were other gods, the gods of the nations, and their aim always was to recognize the existence of these deities and to pay homage to their power. If their favor could not be purchased except by their immediate votaries, at least their anger might be averted. These politicians advocated a fatal and incongruous syncretism, or at least an unlimited tolerance for heathen idols, for which they could, unhappily, quote the precepts and example of the Wise King, Solomon. If any one questioned their views as a dangerous idolatry, and an insult to
"Jehovah thundering out of Zion, throned
Between the cherubim,"
they had but to point from the walls of Jerusalem to the confronting summit of Olivet, where still remained the shrines which the son of David had erected three centuries earlier to Chemosh, and Milcom, and Ashtoreth, who, since his day, had always found, even in Jerusalem, some worshippers, open or secret, to acknowledge their divinity.
And these worldlings, in their tolerance for the intolerable, could always appeal to two powerful instincts of mans fallen nature-sensuality and fear-"lust hard by hate." There was something in the worship of Baal-Peor and of Moloch which appealed to the undying ape and tiger in the unregenerate human heart.
The true worship of Jehovah is exactly that form of religion which man finds it least easy to render to Him-the religion of pure morality. Services, rites, functions look like religious diligence, and readily secure a reverent outward devotion. Even self-maceration, fasts, and flagellation are a cheap way of escaping the "endless torments" which always loom so hugely in terrifying superstition.
Such superstitions are children of the fear and faithlessness which hath torment. They are the corruptions with which every form of false religion, and with which also a corrupt and perverted Christianity, are always tainted. And they demanded the easy expiation of physical ritual. But all the best and most spiritual teachers of Scripture-alike the Hebrew Prophets and. the Christian Apostles-are at one with the Lord Christ in perpetual insistence on the truth that "mercy is better than sacrifice," and that true religion consists in that good mind and good life which are the sole proof of genuine sincerity.
If Jehovah would but be contented with gifts, men would gladly offer Him thousands of rams and tens of thousands of rivers of oil. But the prophets taught that He was above all mean bribes, and that such offerings never could be anything to One whose were all the beasts of the forests and the cattle upon a thousand hills. It was not easy, then, to bribe such a God, or to make Him a respecter of persons.
How easy, again, would it be, if He would even accept human sacrifices. A child was but a child. How easy to kill a child, and place it in the brazen arms which sloped over the fiery cistern! Moloch and Chemosh were supremely to be won by such holocausts; and surely Moloch and Chemosh must be lords of power! But here again the prophets of Jehovah stepped in, and said it was of no avail with the High, the Holy, the Merciful, to give even our firstborn for our transgressions, or the fruit of the body for the sin of the soul.
Asceticism, then occasional fasting, severe self-deprivations- surely the gods would accept these? And they were as nothing compared to the burden of sin and the agony of conscience! Baal and Asherah could command agonized devotees, and could approve of them. By Jehovah and His prophets such bodily service is discouraged and forbidden.
Pleasure, then?-the consecration of the natural impulses, the devotion in religious cultus of the passions and appetites of the flesh-why should that be so abhorrent to Jehovah? Other deities exulted in licentiousness. Was not the temple of Astarte full of her women-worshippers and of her eunuchs? Was there no fascination in the voluptuous allurements, the orgiastic dances, the stolen waters, the bread eaten in secret, when not only was the conscience lulled by the removal therefrom of all sense of guilt and degradation, but such orgies were even crowned with merit, as part of an acceptable worship? After all, there was "a fascination of corruption" in these idols of gold and jewels, of lust and blood!
How stern, how cold, how bare, by comparison, was the moral law which only said, "Thou shalt not," and emphasized its prohibition with the unalterable sanctions, "This do, and thou shalt live"; "Do it not, and thou shalt die"! What could they make of a religion which was so eloquently silent as to the meritoriousness of ritual?
And how chill and simple and dreary was that which-according to Micah - Jehovah had shown to be good, and which He required of every man, - which was nothing more than to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God!
And what right had the prophets-so asked these apostates-to lord it over Gods heritage in this way? Solomon was the greatest king of Israel and Judah; and Solomon had never been so exclusive in his religionism, though he had built the Temple of the Lord; nor Rehoboam; nor the great Phoenician Queen Athaliah; nor the cultivated and aesthetic Ahaz; nor, in the kingdom of Israel, the lordly warrior Ahab; nor the splendid and. longlived victor Jeroboam II. Had not Manasseh plenty of examples of religious syncretism, to which he might appeal in the joy of his youthful age?
Not impossibly there lay in the background another reason why the young king might be inclined to listen to these evil counselors. Micah may still have been living; but of Isaiah we hear no more. Probably he was dead. It is not recorded that he delivered any prophecy during the reign of Manasseh, not: is it certain that he outlived the former king. Tradition, indeed, in later days, asserted that he had confronted Manasseh, and been doomed to death; that he had taken refuge in a cedar tree, and in that cedar had been sawn asunder; but the tradition is wholly without a vestige of authority. One of Micahs sternest oracles was perhaps uttered in the days of Manasseh. {Mic_7:1-20} But Micah was only a provincial prophet of Moresheth-Gath. He never moved in the midst of princes as Isaiah had done, or possessed a tithe of the authority which had rested for so many years on the shoulders of his mighty contemporary.
Moreover-so the heathen party might suggest-had not Isaiahs prophecies been falsified by the result? Had he not distinctly promised and pledged his credit to two things? and had not both turned out to be unworthy of reliance?
i. Surely he had prophesied the utter downfall of the Assyrians. And it was true that after his disaster on the confines of Egypt, Sennacherib had fled in haste to Nineveh, and his occupations with rebels on his own frontiers had left Judah unmolested, and he had been murdered by his sons. But, on the other hand, in no sense of the word had Assyria fallen. On the contrary, she had never been more powerful. Not one of his predecessors had seemed more irresistible than Esarhaddon. He was undisputed king of Babylon and of Nineveh. There would be no more embassies from Merodach-Baladan, or any revolted viceroy! And rumor would early begin to narrate that Esarhaddon had not forgotten the catastrophe at Pelusium, but intended to avenge it, and to teach Egypt the forgotten lessons of Raphia (B.C. 720) and Altaqu (B.C. 701).
ii. And as for Judah, where was the golden Messianic age which Isaiah had promised? Where did they see the Divine Prince whom he had foretold, or the lion lying down with the lamb, and the child laying his hand on the cockatrices den?
All this, they would argue, had greatly shaken Isaiahs prophetic authority. Judah was a mere vassal-safe only in so far as she remained a vassal, and did not join Tyre or any other rebellious power, but abode safe under the shadow of Assyrias mighty wings.
Was it not, then, as well to look facts in the face? To accept things as they were? And-so they would argue, with false plausibility-since the triumph, after all, had remained with the gods of the nations, might it not be as well to dethrone Jehovah from His exclusive dominion, and at least to propitiate the potent and less exacting deities, the charming Di faciles who smiled at lewd aberrations, and even flung over them the glamour of devotion?
With these bolder renegades would be the whole body of the priests of the bamoth. Those old sanctuaries had been repressed by Hezekiah without any compensation; for in those days life-interests were little, or not at all, regarded. Multitudes of priests and Levites must have been flung out of employment and reduced to poverty by the recent religious revolution. It is not likely that they bore without a murmur the obliteration of forms of worship sanctioned by immemorial custom, or that they made no efforts to procure the re-establishment of what the people loved.
Thus a vast weight of evil influence was brought to bear upon the boy-king; and it was also the more powerful because repeated indications exist that, while the king was nominally a despot, and was surrounded with external observance, the real control of affairs was, to a large extent, in the hands of an aristocracy of priests and princes, except when the king was a man of great personal force.
Manasseh went over to these retrogressionists heart and soul, and he contentedly remained a tributary of Assyria. Even when Esarhaddons forces marched to the chastisement of Egypt, he felt secure in his allegiance to the dominant tyrant of Babylon and Nineveh, whose interest it would be not to disturb a faithful subject.
There followed a reaction, an absolute rebound from the old monotheistic strictness and righteousness. The nation emancipated itself from the moral law as with a shout of relief, and plunged into superstition and licentiousness. The reign of Manasseh resembled at once the recrudescence of Popery in the reign of Mary Tudor, with its rekindling of the fires of Smithfield, and the foul orgies of debauchery at the Restoration of 1600, when human nature, loving degraded license better than strenuous liberty, flung away the noble freedom of Puritanism for the loathly mysteries of Cotytto. The age of Manasseh resembled that of Charles II, in the famous description of Lord Macaulay. "Then came days never to be recalled without a blush, the days of servitude without loyalty, and sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. In every high place worship was paid to Belial and Moloch, and England propitiated these obscene and cruel idols with the blood of her best and bravest children." Sensuous intoxication is in all cases closely connected with fiendish cruelty, and the introducer of voluptuous idolatries naturally became the first persecutor of the true religion.
1. The first step of the king, and probably the one which the people welcomed most, was the restoration of the chapelries under the trees and on the hills, which, more strenuously than any of his predecessors, Hezekiah had at least attempted to put down. For this step Manasseh might have pleaded the sanction of ages to which the Book of Deuteronomy had either been wholly unknown, or during which its laws had become as utterly forgotten as though they had never existed. To many worshippers these old shrines had become extremely precious. They felt it to be either an actual impossibility, or at the best intolerably burdensome, to make their way by long, dreary, and difficult journeys to Jerusalem, when they desired to pay the most ordinary rites of worship They knew no reason, and had never known of any reason, why Jehovah should be worshipped in one Temple only. All their religious instincts led them the other way. They could point to the example of all the highly honored saints who had worshipped God at Gilgal, Shechem, Bethel, Hebron, Beersheba, Kedesh, Gibeah, and many another shrine; and of all the saintly kings who had not dreamt of interfering with such free worship. Why should Jerusalem monopolize all sanctity? It might be a politic view for kings to maintain, and highly profitable for priests to establish; but none of their great prophets, not even the princely Isaiah, had said one syllable against the innocent high places of Jehovah. In those days there were no synagogues. The extinction of the high places doubtless seemed to many of the people an extinction of religion in daily life, and they were more than half disposed to agree with the Rabshakeh that Jehovah was offended by what they regarded as a burdensome, unwise, and sweeping innovation. If it be necessary to answer arguments which might have seemed natural, against a custom which might have seemed innocent, it must suffice to say that it was the chief mission of Israel to keep alive among the nations of the world the knowledge of the One True God, and that, amid the constant temptations to accept the gods of the heathen as they were adored in groves and on high places, the faith of Israel could no longer be kept pure except by the Deuteronomic institution of one central and exclusive shrine
2. But Manasseh did far worse than rehabilitate the worship at the high places which his father had discouraged. "He reared up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as did Ahab, King of Israel." This was the first bad element of the new cosmopolitan eclecticism. It involved the acceptance of the Phoenician nature-worship with its manifold abominations. The people had grown familiar with it under Athaliah, {2Ki_11:18} and under Ahaz 2Ch_28:2; but Manasseh, as we infer from the account given of Josiahs reformation, had gone further than either. He had actually ventured to introduce the image of Baal into the Temple, and to set up the Asherah-pillar in front of it. {2Ki_23:4} Worse even than this, he had erected in the very Temple houses devoted to the execrable Qedeshim (Vulg., effeminati), in which also the women wove broidered hangings to adorn the shrines of the idol image, as in the worship of the Assyrian Mylitta. He, at the same time, displaced the altar and removed the Ark. To the latter circumstances is perhaps due the Rabbinic legend that Hezekiah hid the Ark till the coming of the Messiah.
3. To this Phoenician worship he added Sabaism, the worship of the stars, "all the host of heaven, whom he served." This was an entirely new phase of idolatry, unknown to the Hebrews till they came in contact with Assyria. It came rapidly into vogue, and exercised over their imaginations the spell of a seductive novelty, as we see from the strong testimony of the prophet Jeremiah. {Jer_7:18; Jer_8:21; Jer_9:13; Zep_1:5} This is why it is so emphatically forbidden in the book of Deuteronomy. {See Deu_4:19; Deu_17:3} The king built altars to the stars of the Zodiac (Mazzaroth), both in the outer court of the Temple, and in the court of the priests, and on these altars incense or victims were continually burned. He also introduced or encouraged the introduction into the Temple precincts of the horses and chariots dedicated to the sun. {2Ki_23:11-12}
When we read of the actual invasion of the Temple-precincts in this as in preceding and subsequent reigns, we cannot but ask, Were these atrocities committed with the sanction or with the connivance of the priests? We are not told. Yet how can it have been otherwise? If the high priest Azariah could muster eighty priests to oppose King Uzziah, when he merely wished to burn incense in the Temple, as Solomon had done before him, and as Ahaz did after him-if Jehoiada could, according to the Chronicler, muster a perfect army of priests and Levites to dethrone Athaliah, and could so stir up the people that they rose en masse to tear down the temple of Baal, and slay Mattan, his high priest, -how was it possible for Manasseh to perpetrate these flagrant acts of idolatrous apostasy, if the priests were all ranged in opposition to his power? Was their authority suddenly paralysed? Did their influence with the people shrivel into nothing when Hezekiah had been carried to his tomb? Or did these priests follow the easy and profitable course which they seem to have followed throughout the whole history of the kings without an exception?-did they-simply answer the kings according to their idols?
4. Another, and the most hideous, element of the new mixture of cults was the reintroduction of the ancient Canaanite worship of Moloch with its human sacrifices. Manasseh, like Ahaz, made his son-or, according to the Chronicler and the Septuagint, "his sons"-pass through the fire to this grim Ammonite idol in Tophet of the Valley of Hinnom, so as to leave no chance untried. And herein he was far more inexcusable than his grandfather; for Ahaz had at least been driven by desperate extremity, to this last expedient, but Manasseh was living, if not in prosperity, at least in unbroken peace. Moreover, he not only did this himself, but did his utmost to make a popular institution of children sacrifice, so that many practiced it in the dreadful valley and amid the rocks outside Jerusalem. {See Jer_7:31-32; Jer_19:2-6; Jer_32:35 Psa_106:37-38}
5. Even this did not suffice him. To these Assyrian, Phoenician, and Canaanite elements of idolatry he added Babylonian novelties. He practiced augury, and used enchantments, and he dealt with familiar spirits and wizards, as though without Egyptian necromancy and Mesopotamian shamanism his eclectic worship would be incomplete.
6. Thus "he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger." He placed a graven image of his Asherah inside the Temple, and utterly profaned the sacred house, and seduced his people "to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel."
Whatever was the conduct of the priests, the prophets were not silent. They denounced Manasseh for having done worse than even the ancient Amorites, and declared that, in consequence of his crimes, God would bring upon Jerusalem such evil as would cause both the ears of him that heard it to tingle, {1Sa_3:11 Jer_19:3} that He would stretch over Jerusalem for ruin the line and the level of Ahab; He would cast off even the remnant, and deliver them to their enemies; that He would wipe out Jerusalem "as a man wipeth a dish, wiping and turning it upside down."
The finest oracles of Micah {Mic_6:1-16; Mic_7:1-7} were probably uttered in the reign of Manasseh, and give the simplest and purest expression to the supremacy of morality as the one true end and test of religion. Micah is as indifferent as the Decalogue to all claims of rites, ceremonies, and outward worship. "Jehovah demands nothing for Himself; all that He asks is for man: this is the fundamental law of the theocracy."
The apostasies of the king and the denunciation of the prophets thus came into fierce collision, and led naturally to persecution and bloodshed. Perhaps in Mic_7:1-7 we catch the echoes of the Reign of Terror. The king resorted to violence, using, no doubt, the tyrants devilish plea of necessity. He made blood run like water in the streets of Jerusalem from end to end, and, in the exaggerated phrase of Josephus, was daily slaying the prophets. It was during this persecution, according to Rabbinic tradition, that Isaiah received the martyrs crown.
And no miracles were wrought to save the martyrs. Elijah and Elisha had been surrounded with a blaze of miracles, but in Judah no prophet arose who could so wield the power of Heaven.
At this point the narrative of the historian about Manasseh ends. If he shared the current opinion of his day, which connected individual and national prosperity with well-doing, and regarded length of days as a sign of the favor of Heaven, while, on the other hand, misfortune and misery invariably resulted from the wrath of Jehovah, he could not have been otherwise than surprised, and perhaps even pained, to have to relate that Manasseh reigned fifty-five years. Not only was his reign longer than that of any other king of Israel or Judah; not only did he attain a greater age than any of them; but, further, no calamity seems to have marked his rule. A contented and protected vassal of Esarhaddon, secure from his attacks, and also, unmolested by the weakened and subjugated nations around him, he would seem, in the story of the Kings, to have enjoyed an enviable external lot, and to have presided over a people who were happy, in that, during his rule, they had no history. But whatever the writer may have felt, he tells us no more, and lets us see Manasseh sink peacefully into his grave "in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza," and leave to his son Amon a peaceful realm and an undisputed crown. Such a career would undoubtedly perplex and confound all the preconceived opinions of Jewish orthodoxy. The prosperity of Manasseh would have presented as great a problem to them as the miseries of Job. They looked to temporal prosperity as the reward of righteousness, and to acute misery as the retribution of apostasy and sin. They had little or no conception of a future which should redress the balance of apparent earthly inequalities. Alike the sight of Manassehs long reign and Josiahs undeserved death in battle would give a powerful shock to their fixed convictions.
Far different is the end of the story in the Book of Chronicles. The records of Esarhaddon tell us that in 680 he made an expedition into Palestine to restore the shaken influence of his father, and about 647 he mentions among his submissive tributaries the kings of Tyre, Edom, Moab, Gaza, Ekron, Askelon, Gebal, Ammon, Ashdod, and Manasseh, King of Judah ("Minasi-sar-Yahudi"), as well as ten princes of Cyprus. Whether the King of Judah rebelled later on, and intrigued with Tirhakah, we do not know; 2Ch_33:11 we read that Esarhaddon sent his generals to Jerusalem, took Manasseh by stratagem, drove rings through his lips, bound him in chains, and brought him to Babylon, where Esarhaddon was holding his court. We find from the "Eponym Canon" that Tyre revolted from Assyria in the tenth year of Esarhaddon, and Manasseh may have been drawn away to join in the revolt; or he may have joined Shamash-shum-ukin, the Viceroy of Babylon, in his revolt against his brother Assurbanipal. As a rule, the lot of a conquered vassal at the Assyrian Court was horrible, and in his utter misery Manasseh repented, humbled himself, and prayed. His prayer was heard. The despots of Nineveh were capricious alike in their insults and in their favors, and Esarhaddon not only pardoned Manasseh, but sent him back to Jerusalem, thinking that he would be more useful to him there than in a Babylonian dungeon. After this reprieve he lived like a penitent and a patriot. Esarhaddon was preparing for his expedition against Tirhakah, and would not attack a king who was now bound to him by gratitude as well as fear. But the times were very troublous. Manasseh prepared for eventualities by building an outer wall on the west of the city of David, unto Gihon in the Valley, by surrounding Ophel with a high wall, and by garrisoning the fenced cities. All this was necessary and patriotic work, considering that Judah might be attacked by other enemies as well as the Assyrians. She was like a grain of corn amid the grinding mills of the nations. Media and Lydia were rising into strong kingdoms. Babylon was becoming daily more formidable. Dim rumors reached the East of movements among vast hosts of Cimmerian and Scythian barbarians. Jerusalem had no human strength for war. She could only rely upon her battlements, on the natural strength of her position, and on the protection of her God. Almost in the last year of Manasseh, the powerful Psammetichus I, king of a now united Egypt, made an assault on Ashdod; but he did not venture on the difficult task of besieging Jerusalem.
The religious reformation of Manasseh attested the sincerity of his amendment. He flung out the Asherah from the Temple, put away the strange gods, destroyed the altars, burnt sacrifices to God, and used all his power to restore the worship of Jehovah. He did not, however, destroy the high places. For this story the Chronicler refers to "the words of Chozai," according to the present text, which some suppose to have meant "the story of the Seers." He also refers to a prayer of Manasseh, which cannot of course be the Greek forgery of the second or third century which goes by that name in the Apocrypha. His repentance doubtless secured his own salvation. "Whoso saith Manasseh hath no part in the world to come," said Rabbi Johanan, "discourageth the penitent"; but the partial reformation was too late to save his land.
Is this a literal history, or an edifying Haggadah? The non-historical character of the story is maintained by De Wette, Graf, Noldeke, and many others. Both views have been taken. This we can, at any rate, assert-that there seems to be nothing in the story which is inconsistent with probability. The Chronicler may have derived it from genuine documents or traditions, though it is difficult to account for the silence of the elder and more trustworthy historian. Nor is it only his silence for which we have to account; it is the continuance of his positive statements. It would be, in any case, a strange conception of history which, after narrating a mans crimes, omitted alike the retribution which befell him on account of them, the heartfelt penitence for the sake of which they were forgiven, and the seriously earnest endeavor to undo at least something of the evil which he had done. Not only does the historian make these omissions, but in no subsequent allusion to Manasseh does he so much as indicate that he is aware of his amendment. {2Ki_23:12} He says that Amon "did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh did." {2Ki_21:20}
He speaks of the altars to the hosts of heaven which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the Temple as still standing in the reign of Josiah, though the Chronicler tells us that Manasseh had cast them all out of the city. {2Ch_33:15} He says that, notwithstanding all that Josiah did, "the Lord turned not from the fierceness of His great wrath, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal," {2Ki_23:26} and that on this account God cast off Jerusalem. Never, even by the most distant allusions, does he refer to Manassehs captivity, his prayer, his penitence, or his counter-efforts. Had he been aware of these, his silence would have been neither generous nor just. Nay, he even leaves apparent facts at conflict with the Chroniclers story, for he makes Josiah do all that the Chronicler tells us that Manasseh himself had done in the removal of his worst abominations.
Even now we have not exhausted the historic difficulties which surround the repentance of Manasseh. During his reign Jeremiah received his call, and while still a young boy began his work. Neither he, nor Zephaniah, nor Habakkuk drop the slightest hint that the wicked, idolatrous king had ever turned over a new leaf. Jeremiahs silence is specially difficult to account for. He, too, records Jehovahs final and irrevocable decree, that He would give up Judah to death, to exile, and to famine, to the sword to slay, to the dogs to tear, to the fowls of the heaven and the beasts of the earth to devour and to destroy. {Jer_15:1-9} And the cause of the pitiless doom pronounced by a Judge weary of repenting is "because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, King of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem."
The judgment was not long delayed.
It was the vast movement of the Scythians in Media and Western Asia, and the rumors of it, which gave to Manasseh and Amon such respite as they had; and even this respite was full of misery and fear.
AMON
B.C. 641-639
2Ki_21:19-26
THE brief reign of Amon is only a sort of unimportant and miserable annex to that of his father. As he was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, he must have witnessed the repentance and reforming zeal of his father, if, in spite of all difficulties, we assume that narrative to be historical. In that case, however, the young man was wholly untouched by the latter phase of Manassehs life, and flung himself headlong into the career of the kings earlier idolatries. "He walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshipped them"-which was the more extraordinary if Manassehs last acts had been to dethrone and destroy these strange gods. He even "multiplied trespass," so that in his sons reign we find every form of abomination as triumphant as though Manasseh had never attempted to check the tide of evil. We know nothing more of Amon. Apparently he only reigned two years. He is the only Jewish king who bears the name of a foreign-an Egyptian-deity.
For pictures of the state of things in this reign we may look to the prophets Zephaniah and Jeremiah, and they are forced to use the darkest colors.
This is Zephaniahs picture:-
"Woe to her that is rebellious and polluted, to the oppressing city!
She obeyed not the voice: she received not instruction;
She trusted not in the Lord; she drew not near to her God.
Her princes in the midst of her are roaring lions;
Her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones on the morrow
Her prophets are light and treacherous persons:-
Her priests have profaned the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law."
He tells us that Baal and his black-robed chemarim are still prevalent-that men worshipped on their housetops the host of heaven, and swore by "Moloch their king." Therefore would God search Jerusalem with candles, and would visit the men who had sunk, like thick wine on the lees, and who said-in their infidel hearts, "Jehovah will not do good, neither will He do evil" He is an Epicurean God, a cypher, a fainéant. "Men make all kinds of fine calculations," says Luther, "but the Lord God says to them, For whom, then, do you hold Me? For a cypher? Do I sit here in vain, and to no purpose? You shall know that I will turn their accounts about finely, and make them all false reckonings."
Not less dark is the view of Jeremiah. Like Diogenes in Athens, Jeremiah in vain searches Jerusalem for a faithful man. Among the poor he finds brutish obstinacy, among the rich insolent defiance. They are like fed horses in the morning-lecherous and unruly. They are slanderers, adulterers, corrupters, murderers. They worship Baal and strange gods. "They set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. They are waxen fat, they shine; yea, they overpass in deeds of wickedness." "An astonishment and horror is done in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means: and My people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?" {Jer_5:30-31} "From the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. They have treated also the hurt of My people lightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace. Were they ashamed- when they had committed abominations? Nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall." {Jer_6:13-15}
The wretched reign ended wretchedly. Amon met the fate of Amaziah and of Joash. He was murdered by conspirators-by some of his own courtiers-in his own palace. He was not the victim of any general rebellion. The people of the land were apparently content with the existent idolatry, which left them free for lives of lust and luxury, of greed and gain. They resented the disorder introduced by an intrigue of eunuchs or court officials. They rose and slew the whole band of conspirators. Amon was buried with his father in the new burial-place of the Kings in the garden of Uzza, and the people placed his son Josiah-a child of eight years old-upon the throne.
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 2Ki_21:1. Manasseh was twelve years old, &c.—Born, therefore, three…
MANASSEH: THE REIGN OF TERROR IN JERUSALEM
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
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2Ki_21:1. Manasseh was twelve years old, &c.—Born, therefore, three years after his father’s recovery. His reign was the longest of any king in either kingdom.
2Ki_21:2. He did evil … after the abominations of the heathen—His minority was passed under Court influences wholly alien from Hezekiah’s aspirations; for there was a powerful party in the realm who revolted in heart from all the religious reforms which king Hezekiah introduced into the kingdom; “scornful men, who ruled the people in Jerusalem” (Isa_28:14); “rebellious and lying children, that would not hear the word of the Lord” (Isa_30:9-12).
2Ki_21:3. Altars for Baal, and made a grove—i.e., an image of Astarte. Ahab introduced these idolatries into Israel (see 2Ki_16:3-4). And worshipped all the hosts of heaven (comp. Notes on 2Ki_17:16)—From this worship of the heavenly bodies-sun, moon, planets, zodiacal constellations (cap. 2Ki_23:5)—arose the Chaldean system of astrology; and this being introduced among the people, led to the multiplication of astrologers, soothsayers, and magicians; and these became the nation’s oracle in place of Jehovah.
2Ki_21:5. Altars for all the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord—This was the most advanced stage of profanation which had yet been reached. “Iniquity added unto iniquity:” impiety becomes more blasphemous as it proceeds.
2Ki_21:6. Observed times and used enchantments—Impostors, whose trade was in occult arts, poured into Israel from Chaldea, and Manasseh became their patron, and found delight in becoming himself an adept in the black craft. The word נִחֵשׁ comes from נָחָשׁ, a serpent, and means omen ex serpentibus petere, and passes into the meaning of divination in general. He dealt with familiar spirits, i.e., either trained such persons, or practised with them, or partronized them; but the result was that he raised them into an official status in the realm.
2Ki_21:7. Set up a graven image … in the house, &c.—That is, אֲשֵׁרָה, Asheruh or Astarte. Clearly, from 1Ki_8:16; 1Ki_9:3, “the house” was the very sanctuary in which Jehovah Himself had dwelt, not merely in “the courts” (2Ki_21:5). 2Ki_21:8-9. The terms of Israel’s stability—“Only if they observe to do” (2Ki_21:8); “but they hearkened not” (2Ki_21:9). From their first being planted in Canaan this condition was affirmed (2Sa_7:10), but they so completely degenerated from the covenant as to do more impiously than the very Canaanites who were expelled from the land that Israel might inherit it; for the Canaanites were faithful to their deities, but Israel rejected their God, and worshipped base innovations.
2Ki_21:10. The Lord spake by His servants the prophets—These were Hoshea, Joel, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Isaiah. These “words of the seers” were kept in the national annals, along with the records of Manasseh’s deeds (2Ch_33:18).
2Ki_21:13. The line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab—The vanquished, or war prisoners, were measured off with the line (קַר), as marked or separated to slaughter (2Sa_8:2); the use of the plummet implies a levelled and cleared space, suggesting the complete clearance of Ahab’s house.
2Ki_21:16. Moreover, Manasseh shed innocent blood—Of the godly people who would not concur in his impious deeds, and protested against them. A Jewish tradition survived even to the time of the Christian fathers that Isaiah was among the victims of Manasseh’s intolerant persecutions; and it is reported that he was sawn in two while fastened to a cedar tree in which he had secreted himself. 2Ki_21:19-26. Amon’s guilty reign—Following all the evils of Manasseh, he stirred such animosity among his Court attendants (“his servants”) that an intrigue sprang up in the palace, issuing in regicide. “The people of the land” (2Ki_21:24), who avenged the king’s death; suggesting that a popular outburst of indignation ensued, in which the conspirators against Amon were but to the slaughter. These conspiracies may suggest the opposing religious or irreligious conflicts which were struggling for ascendancy; they who slew Amon may have regarded themselves as doing God’s service; the Cromwellian era in English history harmonizing therewith. And “the people” who took vengeance on these “servants” were probably prompted by exasperated attachment to Amon’s idolatry, and thought to re-mstate Amon’s regims when placing; his son on the throne; but they knew not what would be the policy of that chilld’s life. Who can predict what course will be choses by a child as yet but “eight years old”!—W. H. J.
HOMILETICS OF 2Ki_21:1-18
RELIGIOUS ANARCHY
THE reign of Manasseh was the longest and darkest in the history of Judah. The reformation under Hezekiah was superficial. Idolatry had a firm hold upon the nation, and receiving once more the patronage of royalty, rapidly became the predominating power. Being intolerant of any rival, and dreading another reaction, it strove to secure permanent supremacy. A great struggle ensued between the lovers of Jehovah and the zealots for heathenism. As in other similar conflicts in the history of the Church, the stronger party sought to drive the weaker into submission by the terrors of a blood-thirsty persecution. The most faithful and gifted of God’s servants were victims; and according to tradition Isaiah was sawn asunder by the savage emissaries of Manasseh. This paragraph furnishes a gloomy description of the prevalence of Religious Anarchy.
I. Seen in the reckless reversal of the policy of reformation (2Ki_21:3). Manasseh showed little respect for the memory and life-work of his father. He pulled down what his father had painfully toiled for years to build up: it is so much easier to destroy than to construct. It is also a revelation of the fickleness of the people, and the shallowness of the reformation under Hezekiah, that they so readily fell in with the idolatrous policy of Manasseh. Alas! how few are there who clearly comprehend and earnestly maintain great, vital reforming principles! It takes years and generations to thoroughly impregnate the bulk of the people. And yet truth must ultimately triumph over all opposition. Over the principal gate of the city of Konigratz is a bas-relief representation of John Huss, the Bohemian Reformer, in the act of kneeling, before his martyrdom, and underneath are inscribed the words, “The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanseth us from all sin.” A reaction set in. The enemies of Huss triumphed for a time. They sought to destroy every vestige of the Reformer’s work; and, as one means of obliterating his memory, they plastered over this public memorial. But the principles of the Reformation were again in the ascendant, and time crumbled the plaster which had hidden the monument, leaving distinct once more this public reminder of the great Reformer’s work and sufferings. So is it with all honest reforming work. It may be obscured for years; but it will re-appear. Work done for God is immortal. It is vain to struggle against it.
II. Seen in the shameless outrages perpetrated by the votaries of a false religion (4–9). Not content with their liberty to worship idols and with the restoration of the high places and the erection of altars to Baal, the heathen party desecrated the temple of Jehovah by placing in it a carved figure of Asherah. This is regarded by the historian as the most aggravated outrage of the idolatrous king. The worst features of the reigns of Athaliah and Ahaz are outrivalled. No insult offered to Jehovah can be too offensive; no enormity the ingenuity of the heathen priests can devise is too low for the tastes and practices of the debauched king. Little do we know the depths of infamy to which we may be dragged by our sins. Manasseh, beginning life amidst the holiest influences, sank down till he became the execration of history.
III. Seen in the outbreak of a cruel and sanguinary persecution (2Ki_21:16). The heathen party began to feel their power; and they used it mercilessly. Injury is added to insult. When they had once tasted blood they were insatiable. Every opponent, every Nonconformist, shall cease to breathe. The attempts of any future reforming kings shall be made impossible; they have had enough of that. The noblest patriots and choicest teachers were victims; among them, as is supposed, the venerable Isaiah. As in similar eruptions of fanatical cruelty, all classes suffered. It is estimated by Prudhomme that the victims of the first French Revolution numbered 1,022,351; and in the dismal catalogue of the different classes of society, he shows that, while the flower of the nobility was despatched, the humbler orders suffered the most. It is a mad, futile policy to enforce governmental or religious principles by terror and bloodshed. It only provokes reprisals often more savage than those sought to be avenged.
IV. Calls forth the special vengeance of heaven (2Ki_21:10-15). The wickedness of Manasseh was not carried on without protest and warning. The voice of the faithful prophet might be cruelly hushed in death, but the testimony was delivered and heard. Jehovah was not an indifferent spectator of the agonies of His martyred servants; and He will be avenged on the adversary. Before He strikes, He warns. The punishment of degenerate Judah shall terrify all who hear of it. The kingdom shall be shattered, and the people who are not exterminated in war shall be driven into ignominious captivity. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
LESSONS:—
1. Reform, to be permanent, must be thorough.
2. A nation may well mourn when the wicked are in power.
3. The God of the martyrs will not fail to take vengeance on His enemies and theirs.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2Ki_21:1-9. Manasseh the seduced and the seducer. Even God-fearing parents often have perverse children without any fault of their own. So much greater is the guilt of those who lead infant children astray after the death of their parents, instead of giving them care and good training. It is especially important that princes should be guided in their youth by good counsellors and governors. God is not confined with His word to any land or people. If His word is not received with love and gratitude, and if it is not feared, then He will come soon and remove the candlestick from its place, so that men may go astray and become a prey to terrible errors. To fall is easier than to rise. If the infection comes from above, it spreads with greater celerity.—Lange.
—The one subject of the only collection of Hebrew books we possess is—God. How different with the literature of every other people! It is necessary to remember this striking characteristic, if we would rightly estimate the religious enthusiasm under Hezekiah, or the mortal struggle against heathenism under his son Manasseh. The national party, zealous for the worship of Jehovah, the God of their fathers, looked back to a golden age under David; but since his day had seen the rise and occasional triumph of foreign heathenism, countenanced by a number of their kings and by the court and upper classes. But as in all communities, in every age, it was only a minority who cherished, with a full and intelligent conviction, the great principles which thus for a time were triumphant. The mass of the people now, as always, passively yielded themselves to the spirit of the day; ready to follow Hezekiah’s reforms in the excitement of the hour, but no less so to pass over to the heathen party, should it again get the ascendancy. Two forces contended for supremacy: the national party, or Jehovah-worshippers—under the prophets—and the patrician party, who sighed for the glitter of foreign manners and the fancied security of foreign alliances, and, to secure both, were eager to adopt the heathenism of the neighbouring monarchies.—Geikie’s Hours with the Bible.
2Ki_21:1. Kingship.
1. Involves great cares and responsibilities.
2. Is too heavy and cumbrous for inexperienced youth.
3. Presents an opportunity for working out great good or great evil.
—Manasseh’s minority, spent under the influence of guardians who were hostile to the religious principles and reforming policy of his father, may account in part for the anti-theocratic principles of his reign. The work of religious reformation which Hezekiah had zealously carried on was but partially accomplished. There was little appearance of its influence on the heart and manners of the people at large. On the contrary, the true fear of God had vanished from the mass of the people, corruption and vice increased, and were openly practised by the degenerate leaders who, having got the young prince Manasseh into their power, directed his education, trained him up in their views, and seduced him into the open patronage of idolatry.—Jamieson.
—Manasseh and Josiah.
1. Both began to reign in early life.
2. Both were powerfully influenced by their mothers.
3. Both had widely different careers—the reign of Manasseh was the darkest, and of Josiah the brightest period of the later history of Judah.
2Ki_21:2-9. Unexampled wickedness—Evidenced.
1. In the contemptuous manner in which the example of a good father is regarded.
2. In the irreverent and insulting treatment of God’s own house.
3. In the way in which the worst abominations of the heathen are outrivalled.
4. In enforcing idolatry upon the people, and utterly ignoring the existence of Jehovah.
5. The more reprehensible in those who have been taught the knowledge of the true God.
2Ki_21:6. The rule of superstition.
1. Depends upon the extent of popular ignorance.
2. Maintained by sleight of hand and a parade of Wisdom
3. Is dissipated by the advance of true science.
—A great influx of these impostors had, at various times, poured from Chaldea into the land of Israel to pursue their gainful occupations, especially during the reigns of the latter kings; and Manasseh was not only their liberal patron, but zealous to appear himself an adept in the arts. He raised them into an influential class at his court, as they were in that of Assyria and Babylon, where nothing was done till they had ascertained the lucky hour and promised a happy issue.—Jamieson.
2Ki_21:7-8. Idolatrous intrusion into the Temple.
1. Outrages the majesty and supremacy of Jehovah.
2. Insults the Divine purity.
3. Indicates the loss of all respect for the Divine commands and promises.
2Ki_21:9. There was a gradation in the apostacy of Judah similar to that of Israel. Ahaz abandoned the worship of Jehovah, but did not seduce the generality of his subjects; whereas the height and front of Manasseh’s offending was that his pernicious influence carried the whole nation along with him into idolatry.—Jamieson.
—What havoc does this wicked son of Hezekiah make in the church of God. As if he had been born to ruin religion; as if his only felicity had been to untwist or tear in one day that holy web which his father had been weaving nine and twenty years; to set up that offensive pile which had been above three hundred years in pulling down: so long had the high places stood. The zeal of Hezekiah in demolishing them honoured him above all his predecessors; and now the first act of this green head was their re-edifying. That mischief may be done in a day, which many ages cannot redress.—Bp. Hall.
2Ki_21:10-15. Unexampled punishment.
1. Shall be of such a character as to appal all who hear of it (2Ki_21:12).
2. Shall be a complete and humiliating national overthrow (2Ki_21:13).
3. Shall abandon the victims to the cruel ravages of the enemy.
4. Merited by lengthened provocation.
2Ki_21:10. This doom of utter and universal extermination, which was threatened against Judah, was averted by repentance, at least to a certain extent, inasmuch as a large portion of Judah was restored from the Babylonish captivity. But it was executed on the kingdom of Israel, which, as the sin of its people had been over a longer duration and of a more aggravated character, was more severely punished.—Jamieson.
2Ki_21:12. We are sensible of the least touch of our own miseries; how rarely are we affected with other men’s calamities! Yet this evil shall be such as that the rumour of it shall beat no ear that shall not glow with an astonishing commiseration.—Bp. Hall.
2Ki_21:13. The standard of Divine judgment.
1. Is based on unchanging principles of justice.
2. Takes into account the circumstances under which the offence is committed.
3. Necessitates the most thorough punishment of unrepented wrong-doing.
—A dish is turned over when there is nothing more in it. That is the hardest punishment which God can inflict on a soul which turns away from Him. There is then no longer a drop to be found in it of that which was in it before.
2Ki_21:16. The persecuting spirit.
1. Riots in cruelty and bloodshed.
2. Makes no distinction between the innocent and guilty.
3. Is most vindictive towards those who have the courage to expose its wickedness.
4. Is limited only by its power and opportunities.
—Idolatry and tyranny are closely allied. Those whom Satan has in his toils he leads from one sin to another. Enmity to the word of God is not merely a different opinion or contradiction in regard to religious matters, but a devilish power which impels even to the shedding of innocent blood. It is possible to kill the preachers of truth, but not the truth itself. He who was the Truth was nailed to the Cross, but His words remain, though heaven and earth pass away. The blood of the martyrs only fertilized the soil of the Church, so that it has borne richer and more abundant fruit. All innocent blood cries to heaven as that of Abel did.—Lange.
2Ki_21:17-18. The variations respecting the fate of Manasseh are complicated. In the Jewish Church his name was stamped with peculiar infamy. If a noble name had to be replaced by an odious one, that of Manasseh was substituted. His life in the book of Kings closes without any relieving trait. It was considered as the turning-point of Judah’s sins. The doom was pronounced irreversible by any subsequent reforms.—Stanley.
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.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Reigns of Manasseh and Amon
The Reigns of Manasseh and Amon
3. The high places, etc.] Manasseh not only restored the country sanctuaries which had been destroyed by Hezekiah as seats of corruption (see 2Ki_18:4, 2Ki_18:22), and renewed the Baal worship practised by the house of Ahab (see 2Ki_11:18, and cp. 1Ki_16:31-32), but also introduced star worship, a form of religion previously unknown in Judah. The host of heaven] The worship of the stars, which was probably introduced from Assyria, was conducted on the flat roofs of the houses: see Jer_19:13; Zep_1:5, and cp. 2Ki_23:11, 2Ki_23:12.
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5. In the two courts] If the view expressed in the note on 1Ki_7:12 be correct, the two courts may be the inner (or upper) court immediately surrounding the Temple, and the court enclosing the Palace.
6. Pass through the fire] see on 2Ki_16:3. For his son 2Ch_33:6 has 'his children.' Observed times] RV 'practised augury': by the observation of the clouds, etc. Familiar spirits] RV 'them that had familiar spirits': such persons were believed to be animated by, or to have intercourse with, the spirits of the dead: cp. 1Sa_28:7. One of the devices employed by them was probably ventriloquism, the spirit appearing to speak from the ground (Isa_8:19; Isa_29:4).
7. A graven image of the grove] better, 'a carved Asherah.' This was placed in the Temple itself, whence it was removed by Josiah (2Ki_23:6).
9. Manasseh seduced them] The evil example of Manasseh and his court had a worse effect upon the people at large than that of any previous Judæan king, so that at a much later date the prophet Jeremiah declared that it was for what Manasseh did that the judgment announced by him was to come upon the nation (Jer_15:4).
11. The Amorites] The inhabitants of Canaan had been destroyed for the very iniquities which Manasseh was now surpassing: cp. Deu_9:5.
13. The line of Samaria] The judgment denounced against Judah would be carried out with the same precision and exactness as the judgment that overtook the northern kingdom and the dynasty of Ahab. As a man wipeth a dish] i.e. Jerusalem would be finished and done with.
14. The remnant] see 2Ki_19:3. Jerusalem had survived the calamities that had been inflicted on the rest of Judah by the Assyrians (2Ki_18:13), but it would not be delivered from the enemies that awaited it in the future.
17. The rest of the acts] see 2Ch_33:12-19, where it is related that Manasseh was taken captive by the king of Assyria to Babylon, repented there of his sins, was restored to his kingdom, and instituted a religious reformation.
19. Jotbah] cp. Deu_10:7; Num_33:33.
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 4. Manasseh and Amon
4. Manasseh and Amon
CHAPTER 21
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1. Manasseh’s reign of wickedness (2Ki 21:1-9; 2Ch 33:1-9)
2. The word of the LORD against it (2Ki 21:10-15)
3. Manasseh’s end (2Ki 21:16-18; 2Ch 33:18-20)
4. Reign and death of Amon (2Ki 21:19-26; 2Ch 33:20-25)
Hezekiah had a wicked father and his son Manasseh did not follow the example of his father, but became even more wicked than Ahaz, his grandfather. Manasseh means “forgetting.” No doubt Hezekiah named him thus because the LORD had delivered him and thus made him forget his troubles and trials. He was born three years after Hezekiah’s recovery from sickness. And now Manasseh forgot all the goodness and mercy of the LORD and plunged headlong into the worst apostasy. All the vile practices of the Canaanites and the Sodomites were revived by him. The Moloch-worship flourished, sorcery and the practice of demonism as well. The corruption was more vile than the corruption of Samaria. It was even worse than the corruption of the Canaanites. “Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the children of Israel.” And still more evil is recorded of this king. “Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another” (verse 16). Josephus declares that he killed all the righteous in Jerusalem and it is not unlikely that the tradition of aged Isaiah’s violent death under Manasseh’s reign is correct. Then the LORD sent to him His judgment message, announcing the coming doom of Jerusalem. Of his conversion and subsequent reign nothing is said in Kings. We find the record of these interesting events in Chronicles. His conversion was indeed a miracle of grace.
After his death Amon ruled as king and followed all the wickedness of his father Manasseh. Terrible is the record of this lost soul. “And he humbled not himself before the LORD as Manasseh his father had humbled himself, but Amon trespassed more and more” (2Ch 33:23). He was murdered by his servants.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Manasseh’s Reign
Manasseh’s Reign
v. 1. Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, having been born three years after his father’s severe illness, and reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hephzibah.
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v. 2. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel. It seems that the wicked priests and false prophets had formed a party and insinuated themselves into the favor of the young king, who was hardly more than a boy, persuading him to carry out their designs.
v. 3. For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah, his father, had destroyed, 2Ki 18:4. the places of worship which had always been in use contrary to the Lord’s wish; and he reared up altars for Baal, the chief idol of the Canaanite nations, and made a grove, an Asherah statue consecrated to the female idol Astarte, as did Ahab, king of Israel, distinguished for his idolatry, 1Ki 16:32-33; and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them, this being the star- or planet-worship of the Assyrians.
v. 4. And he built altars, devoted to idolatry, in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord said, In Jerusalem will I put My name, He wanted only His worship in the city which He had chosen, and in the Temple dedicated to his name.
v. 5. And he built altars for all the host of heaven, in the service of his star-worship, in the two courts of the house of the Lord, namely, in the court of the priests and in that of the people.
v. 6. And he made his son pass through the fire, a custom observed by various heathen nations, and observed times, professing to uncover the future by interpreting various signs in nature, and used enchantments, another form of foretelling the future by certain signs connected with sacrifices, and dealt with familiar spirits, such as professed to have the spirit of Prophecy, and wizards, prudent, cunning men, augurs, men versed in all the secret magic of the East. He wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger.
v. 7. And he set a graven image of the grove that he had made, an Asherah idol, in the house, in the very Sanctuary, of which the Lord said to David, and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel, will I put My name forever, 2Sa 7:13;
v. 8. neither will I make the feet of Israel move any more out of the land which I gave their fathers; only if they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the Law that My servant Moses commanded them, this being the condition which the Lord always added to His promise. The Temple of the Lord was thus utterly desecrated by Manasseh, and the worship of Jehovah, if still practiced at all, became a farce.
v. 9. But they hearkened not, namely, to the warning condition of Jehovah. And Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel, they exceeded all these nations in idolatrous wickedness.
v. 10. And the Lord spake by His servants, the prophets, especially by Hosea, Nahum, Micah, Amos, and Isaiah, saying,
v. 11. Because Manasseh, king of Judah, hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, this name standing for all the nations of Canaan, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols,
v. 12. therefore, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, the entire southern nation, which included the small tribe of Benjamin and the remnant of Simeon, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle, ring with the sharp pain caused by the news of the harsh and horrible punishment planned by the Lord.
v. 13. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab, the reference being to a custom by which people standing in line were measured and a certain percentage slain, 2Sa 8:2, the idea of complete annihilation being apparently included here. And I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down, letting not even a drop remain, making a clean sweep of everything, this signifying the complete overthrow and destruction of Jerusalem with all its inhabitants.
v. 14. And I will forsake the remnant of Mine inheritance, abandoning and throwing away also the remaining southern tribes, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies, Cf Isa 42:22,
v. 15. because they have done that which was evil in My sight, and have provoked Me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt even unto this day, the entire historical account being filled with the complaints and admonitions of the Lord regarding the disobedience of the people.
v. 16. Moreover, Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, slaying those who opposed his godlessness, Jewish tradition stating that Isaiah was put to death by being sawed asunder, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; beside his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, the introduction of idolatry in its worst form, in doing that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. It is related, 2Ch 33:11-17, that Manasseh was carried away by the Assyrians and repented of his sins, whereupon he tried to undo the harm which lie had wrought, with only little success, however, so far as the people on the whole were concerned.
v. 17. Now, the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and all that he did, and his sin that he. sinned, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?
v. 18. And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza, so called from the former owner of this summer-home or pleasure-house; and Amon, his son, reigned in his stead. Manasseh is an example of warning to all believers; for there is no greater punishment than that which will strike such as deliberately discard better knowledge and turn to sins of every kind. It is best not to take chances with the mercy of the Lord, for we do not know when His time of grace will expire.
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, 13, 16 The mother of King Manasseh (See: How to Translate…
Hephzibah
The mother of King Manasseh (See: How to Translate Names)
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what was evil in the sight of Yahweh
The sight of Yahweh represents Yahweh's judgment or evaluation. See how you translated this in 2 Kings 3:2. AT: "what was evil in Yahweh's judgment" or "what Yahweh considers to be evil" (See: Metaphor)
like the disgusting things
Another possible meaning is "including the disgusting things."
he rebuilt the high places ... he built altars for Baal, made an Asherah pole
Manasseh would have commanded his workers to do the building for him. AT: "he had the high places rebuilt ... he had altars built for Baal, had an Asherah pole made" or "he had his workers rebuild the high places ... he had them build altars for Baal, make an Asherah pole" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
Manasseh
reign
Jerusalem
evil
Yahweh
nation
cast out
Israel
high place
Hezekiah
altar
Baal
Asherah
Ahab
kingdom of Israel
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, 3, 6, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17 21:1-2 fifty-five years: Manasseh’s long reign (697–642 BC) certainly…
21:1-2 fifty-five years: Manasseh’s long reign (697–642 BC) certainly cannot be attributed to his faithfulness to the Lord but to the Lord’s continued honoring of his covenant promises (see also 8:19; 19:34; 20:6; 2 Sam 7:11-16). External conditions were largely stable. Though the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon (680–669 BC) and Ashurbanipal (668–626 BC) conducted a number of military campaigns, none was directed against Judah until later in Manasseh’s reign, probably around 650–648 BC (see 2 Chr 33:10-13). Ashurbanipal’s attention was on building projects, religious pursuits, and the arts, including a great library. • He did what was evil: Manasseh was the most wicked of Judah’s kings; discussion of his reign focuses on his evil religious practices.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.