Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign; and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.
Hezekiah has just died, and the throne passes to a twelve-year-old boy. He would hold it longer than any king of Judah or Israel. The numbers raise two questions: where did this son come from, and how did fifty-five years in Jerusalem produce so little good?
Count back twelve years from the day Hezekiah died. You land inside the fifteen extra years God gave him after his illness.
Manasseh was only 12 years old at the time of his father's death, therefore he was born during the extra fifteen years that God had allowed Hezekiah. Manasseh was given 55 years to reign over Judah, but he was the most wicked king Judah ever had. During his first twelve years, did his father not give him the help he needed to keep him from evil? This teaches us that God knew better what was good for Hezekiah than Hezekiah did. We should learn to bow to God's will at all times, whatever we may think about it.
One writer turns this into a warning about our own prayers.
Let us learn from this. We may beg God for something we count a favour, and He may give it to us. Yet later we may find that the "favour" we demanded brought with it consequences that were not favourable at all.
Hezekiah chose the boy's name. One writer links its meaning to the pride that came in after his father's recovery.
First of all pride came in. Then after three years a little son arrived, and he called his name Manasseh — 'Forgetting'. From 2 Chronicles 32:25 you would almost think Hezekiah had forgotten "the benefit done to him." And when the fifteen years added to his father's life ended, this little son was still only twelve years old.
What shocks in this record is not the evil alone, but whose son did it. A boy of twelve takes the throne, and the men around him shape him.
Manasseh, the twelve year old son of Hezekiah, did not follow the ways of his father, but did evil in the sight of the LORD. He had no godly Jehoiada, like Joash, to stand by him and guide him. He was surrounded, no doubt, by counsellors, but they were evil counsellors. Instead of following the example of his father, he followed that of his wicked grandfather Ahaz. In reading the record of his evil doings we get the impression that he hurried to undo all his father had done.
One writer states the principle behind that shock.
It was the worst of all corruptions — the corruption of the best. The higher the fall, the deeper the plunge.
The longest reign in the record belongs to the worst king. That fact dismantles a popular way of reading people's lives.
The reign of Manasseh overflowed with idolatry. Yet it is the longest reign recorded in the history of the kings of Judah and of Israel. You cannot judge a man's condition by how severe or how gentle God's dealings with him look. This was the exact error of Job's friends. They judged his character by his troubles, and their arguments assumed that a man with fewer troubles must be more righteous.
A long reign is no shield either. The delay only deepens what is coming.
Even though Manasseh reigned for 55 years, that made no difference to the certainty of God's judgment. People too often mistake God's patience for indulgence or indifference. Yet the longer He shows patience, the more awesome and terrible we can expect His judgment to be.
Scripture tells this reign twice, and the two accounts stop in different places.
The book of Kings stops once it has noted the king's responsibility. Chronicles shows us grace acting through judgments to restore him. What a blessed thought, that the hearts of the most hardened may become the objects of grace!
So this opening verse begins a chapter that ends where no reader would predict. The worst king in Judah's story becomes an example of how far grace can reach.
- Given. Manasseh was born in the fifteen years God added to Hezekiah's life. It was an answered prayer that carried consequences no one asked for.
- Named. His name means "Forgetting," and his father had forgotten the benefit shown to him before the boy was ever born.
- Shaped. A twelve-year-old with no godly guide followed evil counsellors, and copied his grandfather Ahaz rather than his father.
- Measured. Fifty-five years on the throne proved nothing about God's favour. Long patience is not indulgence, and it did not cancel the judgment.
- Reached. Kings records the responsibility, Chronicles the grace. The hardest heart in Judah's history became proof that no heart is beyond mercy.
And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, like the abominations of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed from before the children of Israel.
Manasseh came to the throne right after his godly father Hezekiah, yet this verse measures the son against the nations God drove out of the land. Why does a godly home not guarantee a godly child, and how low can a privileged people sink?
A father's faith does not pass down by birth. One writer states it plainly:
Here we see how truly a pious father may be followed by an impious son. Manasseh, young as he was, did not only begin to reign, but "did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the abominations of the nations..."
The principle also runs the other way, so no one's case is hopeless:
If piety is not transmitted from father to son, grace can work in the heart and direct the steps of one who had the most wicked father. This was the case with the son of Ahaz. The way Hezekiah sought the glory of his God shows remarkable faith and energy.
Manasseh's name was chosen out of thanks for God's mercy:
Manasseh means "forgetting." No doubt Hezekiah named him this because the LORD had delivered him. That deliverance 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 turning away from God. He revived all the vile practices of the Canaanites and of Sodom. Moloch-worship flourished, and so did sorcery and the practice of demonism. The corruption was more vile than the corruption of Samaria. It was even worse than the corruption of the Canaanites.
The verse measures Manasseh against the nations God drove out of the land. One writer feels the shock of that:
It is a terrible portrait to paint of any man; but of a king of Judah, and a son of Hezekiah the Good, it seems almost incredible. It makes the heart turn sick to read the list of his abominations... It was the worst of all corruptions — the corruption of the best. The higher the fall, the deeper the plunge.
Manasseh's age at the start of his reign points back to his father's illness:
His son Manasseh, who followed him, was only twelve years old when he began to reign. So he was born after Hezekiah's recovery, in the fifteen extra years of life his father gained. And this Manasseh reigned for fifty-five years. He did such evil in and with the nation that the Babylonian captivity had to fall on them... Let us learn from this. We may beg God earnestly for something we regard as a favour, and He may grant it. Yet we may later find that the "favour" we demanded carried consequences that were by no means favourable.
Manasseh's reign was the longest in Judah's history. One writer warns us not to misread that:
Often a period of revival is followed by a faster slide down the pathway of decline. And the record does not say that God marks this state of things out by His judgments. The reign of Manasseh, marked by a real overflow of idolatry, is the longest reign recorded in the history of the kings of Judah and of Israel. One cannot judge men's condition by the greater or lesser severity of God's ways toward them... God judges men's deeds by what they are in relation to Himself, not by how they behave toward the world around them.
The record does not stay dark. The king who outdid the nations in evil became an example of mercy:
God brought the king of Assyria against Manasseh, who bound him with chains and carried him to Babylon. There Manasseh, in his affliction, humbled himself deeply and prayed to the LORD his God. God heard his prayer and brought him back to Jerusalem. Then he knew that the LORD was God... He is often held up as a trophy of God's marvellous grace in Old Testament times. Saul of Tarsus and the thief on the cross are trophies of the same grace in New Testament times.
- Forgetting, named. Manasseh means "forgetting." His father named him in thanks for mercy; the son lived out mercy forgotten.
- Forgetting, not inherited. A godly father did not hand faith down, and a wicked father did not shut grace out — Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, proved the second half.
- Forgetting, measured. God measures him against the nations He drove out and finds him worse: the corruption of the best is the worst corruption.
- Forgetting, tolerated. The vilest king reigned the longest, so the ease or severity of God's dealings is no gauge of anyone's true state.
- Forgetting, forgiven. The same man who forgot God ends up a trophy of grace, ranked with Saul of Tarsus and the thief on the cross.
And he built again the high places that Hezekiah his father had broken down; and he reared up altars to the Baals, and made Asherahs, and worshipped all the host of heaven and served them.
Hezekiah had torn down Judah's idol shrines; his son put every one of them back. One verse undoes a father's whole reform, and raises a hard question: how did a godly home produce a king like this?
Manasseh was a boy when he took the throne. One writer looks at who stood beside him, and at the foreign religions he brought in:
Manasseh, the twelve-year-old son of Hezekiah, did not follow the ways of his father… He was surrounded, no doubt, by counsellors, but they were evil counsellors. Instead of following his father's example, he followed the example of his wicked grandfather Ahaz. Reading the record of his evil deeds, we get the impression that he hurried to undo all his father had done. He restored the corrupt worship on the high places. At the same time he added the Phoenician rites of Baal and Asherah, and the Chaldean worship of the host of heaven — the sun and the stars.
The high places were hilltop shrines, and they were not Manasseh's invention. One writer traces their whole history:
From Solomon's reign on, the high places were tolerated. At first, in the days before the temple, they had not necessarily been idolatrous. Solomon had sacrificed to God at the great high place of Gibeon. But the people, encouraged by the king's example, were already seeing something else in this. Their superstitious or idolatrous thoughts rose up with the incense they burned there… From then on none of Judah's faithful kings had the courage to abolish them. With Hezekiah and the first true restoration of Judah, the high places at last disappeared. Manasseh, his ungodly son, rebuilt them… Josiah was not content merely to remove them like godly Hezekiah, but destroyed them altogether, so completely that none of the evil kings who followed found it possible to rebuild them.
That is why Hezekiah's demolition stood out. One writer sets Hezekiah apart from his own father and grandfather on exactly this point:
Uzziah and Jotham had done what was right according to all their fathers had done, but not according to what David had done, for they tolerated the high places. It was different with Hezekiah.
Baal, the Asheroth and the host of heaven belong together. Older translations put "groves" where newer ones read Asheroth:
The "groves" so often mentioned in the history of Ahab and Elijah were really statues of Ashtoreth. Baal seems to have represented the sun, and Ashtoreth the moon… Notice how "all the host of heaven" is here linked with Baal. Jeremiah 7:18 calls Ashtoreth "the queen of heaven." From Job 31:26-27 we learn that honouring the sun and moon was the earliest form of idolatry.
Star worship was never only a matter of bowing down. It was a search for guidance from the sky, and it has never gone away:
They worshipped the hosts of the heavens from their housetops. They worshipped the stars, and studied their movements as if the stars could give them help and a revelation. Astrology, so widely practised among civilized nations today, is an old cult.
Manasseh was not irreligious. He was busy building:
With all his altars and images he may have thought he was full of religious zeal, more zealous than his father. But this was the folly of unbelief.
Manasseh had a godly father and still went his own way. One writer gives the reason:
There is no such thing as succession in grace. The son of the most faithful father needs to be born again as well as the most degraded of mankind. This is written clearly on many a page of the word of God.
The same truth runs the other way. Hezekiah himself was the son of wicked Ahaz:
If piety is not passed on from father to son, grace can work in the heart and direct the steps of one who had the most wicked father. This was the case with the son of Ahaz.
- Rebuilt. What one generation tears down, the next can put back. Manasseh took the throne at twelve, listened to evil counsellors, and hurried to undo his father's work.
- Tolerated. Kings had tolerated the high places since Solomon. Hezekiah removed them, and that was the exception, not the rule. Old habits return fastest when they were only ever half-condemned.
- Borrowed. Baal and the Asheroth came from Phoenicia, star worship from Chaldea. Sun, moon and sky took the place of the God who made them.
- Busy. More altars did not mean more faith. All his building may have looked like zeal beyond his father's, but it was the folly of unbelief.
- Personal. Grace has no line of succession. A godly father's son still needs to be born again. And grace can reach a wicked father's son, as it reached Hezekiah.
And he built altars in the house of Jehovah, of which Jehovah had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be for ever.
Manasseh, son of the godly king Hezekiah, did more than allow idolatry in his land. He built altars for it inside the temple, which raises a hard question: what does God do when rival altars fill His own house?
Manasseh may have felt he was out-doing his father in devotion. One commentator names what that devotion really was.
Even in the temple of God Manasseh set up altars to worship idols. With all his altars and images he may have thought he was very zealous in religion, more zealous than his father. But this was the folly of unbelief… Placing a carved image in the temple was a direct insult to God. God had declared the temple to be the place where He would set His name.
The altars that belonged to that house pointed to Christ. Every added altar pointed somewhere else.
On the roof there were altars made by the kings of Judah. They were surely an insult to God, whose altar outside the temple and the altar inside it both spoke of Christ. Other altars expose men's desire to have other gods. Beside these Manasseh had made altars in the two courts of the house of the Lord.
God's promise over this house sounded final: His eyes and His heart would be on it forever. Yet a few verses later He warned that He could cast it away. One writer holds the two together.
In the space of two verses God declares unconditionally that His eyes and His heart will be forever upon this house — and that He will cast it out of His sight! Does God contradict Himself? Certainly not. The conditional warning came true to the letter, and the unconditional promise will come true to the letter as well. It will happen when the true king after God's heart has built Him a house, a temple on earth far more glorious than Solomon's.
This was not ordinary wickedness, and the watching nations drew their own conclusion.
It was the worst of all corruptions — the corruption of the best. The higher the fall, the deeper the plunge… Of Manasseh and Judah it was true, as the apostle, by the Spirit, declared seven hundred years later: "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
One writer looks at who stood beside this young king — and who did not.
Manasseh, the twelve-year-old son of Hezekiah, did not follow the ways of his father, but did evil in the sight of the LORD. He had no godly Jehoiada, like Joash, to stand by him and guide him. He no doubt had counsellors around him, but they were evil counsellors. Instead of following the example of his father, he followed that of his wicked grandfather Ahaz. In reading the record of his evil doings we get the impression that he hurried to undo all his father had done.
One writer sets that horror beside the pledge God had given about this very house, then looks at later history.
Imagine someone setting up such a horror in the house of the Lord! Of that house He once said that His eyes and His heart would be there forever (2 Chron. 7:16)… The history of Christendom has been just as fearful.
The story of these altars does not end here. Captivity humbled Manasseh, and he turned on his own work.
He took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord. He removed all the altars he had built on the mountain of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem, and threw them out of the city. And he repaired the altar of the Lord… He was the Old Testament "chief of sinners," an example at that time in whom God showed all His patience, to anyone who would turn to Him in repentance and faith.
- The house: God put His name on one house in Jerusalem forever, and said His eyes and His heart would rest there.
- The intrusion: Manasseh filled that same house with altars. Its own altar spoke of Christ; every added altar exposed a wish for other gods.
- The path in: a young king, evil counsellors, and a rush to undo his godly father's work.
- The damage: the corruption of the best is the worst corruption of all, and watching nations blasphemed God's name because of Judah.
- The mercy: the king who built those altars tore them down again and repaired the Lord's altar — proof of God's patience with anyone who turns to Him.
And he built altars to all the host of heaven in both courts of the house of Jehovah.
Manasseh did not keep his idolatry outside the city. He brought the worship of the stars inside God's own house — so what is the "host of heaven", and why does the address make the sin worse?
Manasseh's religion was borrowed. He took it from the nations around Judah, and he was in a hurry.
Reading the record of his evil deeds, we get the impression that he hurried to undo all his father had done. He restored the corrupt worship on the heights. At the same time he added the Phoenician rites of Baal and Asherah, and the Chaldean worship of the host of heaven — the sun and the stars. He placed the altars for this wicked worship in the outer and inner courts of the house of the LORD.
The sun, moon and stars are real and impressive. That is the danger. Long before Manasseh, God told Israel which way to look when the night sky moved them.
If they lifted their eyes to heaven, past the creatures on earth, they were to look above the sun, moon and stars. They were to look to the One who created all these things, rather than worship these visible works of God's hands. God made these wonderful heavenly bodies. But they are there only to direct our attention to their unseen Maker.
What makes this worse than idolatry on a hillside is the address. God lived in that house, and sin done there answered to Him.
When it was a question of idolatry, He says, "They have set their altars by My altar." So when He is about to judge the people in Ezekiel, He shows the prophet what they were doing in the temple. It might be the elders of the house of Israel in the rooms full of carved images. It might be women weeping for the god Tammuz. It might be the men at the door of the temple of the Lord, standing between the porch and the altar with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces to the east, worshipping the sun. But it was in the temple. That was the place to which sin referred itself.
Building altars can look like devotion. It can also be self-deception.
With all his altars and images, he may have thought he was full of zeal for God — more zealous than his father. But this was the folly of unbelief.
Manasseh began with every advantage: the throne of Judah, and a godly father. That is what makes the verdict on him so severe.
It is a terrible portrait to paint of any man; but of a king of Judah, and a son of Hezekiah the Good, it seems almost unbelievable. It almost makes the heart turn sick to read the list of his evil deeds. He "led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel." It was the worst of all corruptions — the corruption of the best. The higher the fall, the deeper the plunge.
The chapter does not end with the altars. Scripture remembers this same king for something else as well.
Manasseh stands out in a frightening way among the wicked kings of Judah. Even the fierceness of the Lord's wrath is put down to his sins and provocations. He is singled out for his sins, and as the object of God's mercy, as no other, before or since.
- Place. The altars stood in the outer and inner courts of God's house. Where he worshipped made the sin worse, not only what he worshipped.
- Object. The host of heaven means sun, moon and stars. They are real works of God's hands, made to point past themselves to their unseen Maker.
- Offence. God's own word is that they set their altars beside His altar. In His house, every sin answered to His presence.
- Delusion. More altars can feel like more devotion. Manasseh may have thought himself more zealous than his father; it was the folly of unbelief.
- Mercy. The worst corruption is the corruption of the best. Yet God singled this same king out for mercy like no other.
He also caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom; and he used magic and divination and sorcery, and appointed necromancers and soothsayers he wrought evil beyond measure in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger.
Manasseh took Judah's throne from his father Hezekiah, one of its most faithful kings, and used it to copy the nations God had driven out. He burned his own sons and consulted the dead, which raises two questions: how did such a son come from such a father, and what does God do with him?
The boy king had no wise guide, and he reached back past his father for his model.
Manasseh, the twelve year old son of Hezekiah, did not follow the ways of his father, but did evil in the sight of the LORD. He had no godly Jehoiada, like Joash, to stand by him and guide him. He had counsellors, no doubt, but they were evil counsellors. Instead of copying his father, he copied his wicked grandfather Ahaz. In reading the record of his evil doings we get the impression that he hurried to undo all his father had done.
Some readers soften "passing through the fire" into a figure of speech. One writer will not.
Some have argued from the words "passing through the fire," here and elsewhere, that their children were not really burned. But this looks like a well-meaning attempt to soften how wicked it was. It was the fullest, though not the only, profanation of the name of Israel's God. The LORD accepted a sheep or an ox, or even a much smaller sacrifice. Satan, under the names of these idols, demanded their sons.
Manasseh had a reason for doing it.
He caused his sons to pass through the fire in the valley of Hinnom. He thought that sacrificing his own sons would win him some recognition from heaven. He also practised witchcraft, soothsaying and sorcery. In this way he brought his kingdom into the bondage of satanic deception.
The verse lists several kinds of occult practice. The Hebrew word behind "sorcery" has a definite aim.
WITCH or SORCERER. The Hebrew word is kashaph. It means the practice of magical arts, meant to injure man or beast, or to twist the mind — to bewitch. They may have had no power to injure anyone unless that person willingly listened to their spells, out of curiosity or friendship. Manasseh practised this wickedness too.
One writer sees the same thing at work today.
This is the very thing that spiritualists claim to do — to bring the inquirer into contact with departed spirits. Like Saul, they can get no word from God. So they look for news of unknown and unseen things through spirits. It is in fact a turning from God to Satan. The whole system, whether in Israel or our own day, is satanic.
Manasseh's evil did not stay his own, and God did not stay silent.
The account which opens chapter 33 of 2 Chronicles is terrifying. How could such a pious king as Hezekiah have a son like Manasseh? He "did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him to anger." He also led Judah and the people of Jerusalem astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the LORD had destroyed before the children of Israel. In His patience God spoke to Manasseh and to His people, to try to bring them back to Himself. But they paid no attention.
Two books tell Manasseh's story, and they do not end in the same place.
The book of Kings stops when it has taken note of the king's responsibility; that of Chronicles shows us grace acting through judgments to restore him. What a blessed thought, that the hearts of the most hardened may become the objects of grace!
Grace did not undo what Manasseh had done.
But he could never bring back the innocent lives he had taken. He could never fully undo the evil of his earlier ways. His sin, and Judah's sin with him, was so great that God never forgave it as a nation. As a man, though, Manasseh confessed and humbled himself before God, and God forgave him.
- Inheritance — A godly father guarantees nothing. Manasseh passed over Hezekiah's example and copied his grandfather Ahaz, with bad advisers pushing him on.
- Fire — God asked Israel for a lamb. Satan, behind these idols, asked for sons — and Manasseh paid, hoping to buy notice from heaven.
- Consultation — Sorcery here is magic worked to injure or to twist the mind. Turning to mediums is turning from God to Satan, then and now.
- Provocation — God's anger rose over more than one man's sin. Manasseh dragged the nation with him, and they ignored God's patient warnings.
- Grace — Chronicles keeps going after Kings falls silent. The same man humbled himself, and God forgave him — yet he could never undo the harm he had done.
And he set the graven image of the idol that he had made, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever;
Manasseh was the son of Hezekiah, the king who had cleared idols out of Judah. Here his son carries a carved idol into the one house God chose out of all the tribes of Israel for His name. So this verse asks the sharpest question of his reign. What happens when God's own house makes room for a rival?
The temple was not one holy site among many. God had put His name there forever, and that is what makes this act more than bad religion.
Even in the temple of God Manasseh set up altars to worship idols. With all his altars and images he may have thought he was very religious, even more zealous than his father. But this was the folly of unbelief… Placing a carved image in the temple was a direct insult to God. God had declared the temple to be the place where He would set His name.
Ezekiel later saw "the image of jealousy" in a vision. One writer traces that phrase back to the same word used for Manasseh's idol.
What was the image of jealousy that provokes to jealousy? It was an idol. The same word appears in Deuteronomy 4:16, translated there as "graven image." It appears again in 2 Chronicles 33:7, 15, where it means the idol Manasseh had made and put up in the temple.
(Older translations read "graven image"; the ESV has "carved image.")
Manasseh did not sin alone. He pulled the whole nation down with him, and that is what makes this record so ugly.
It makes the heart turn sick almost, to read the list of his abominations. He "led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel." It was the worst of all corruptions — the corruption of the best. The higher the fall, the deeper the plunge… Seven hundred years later the apostle, by the Spirit, declared, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." Of Manasseh and Judah that could truly be said.
Judah's kings were meant to act for God. One writer traces what they did instead, and how God will end it.
Instead of acting as Jehovah's representatives, they ignored His supremacy in practice. They neglected or rejected His Word and made their own will supreme… Idolatry spread through the whole land. It even invaded the temple grounds and defiled the house itself. When the time of Ezekiel's vision has come, all such conditions will have passed forever… Neither the people nor their kings will defile Jehovah's holy name any more. Because of their abominations (compare 2 Chronicles 33:4-7) His anger had consumed them.
Manasseh's idol was wood and stone you could see. One writer warns that the same image can threaten us with nothing on display.
And still this image of jealousy is that which threatens us all. It stands, as it were, at the very entrance when we would approach God Himself. And it need not be a visible or open image to do this. What a warning for us this is! It is, in truth, an effort to have a god shaped by our own thoughts, and such a god always stands against the true God. So "covetousness," the apostle tells us, "is idolatry." And this, as we know, can be found in people who are in every other way most orthodox.
The account does not end with the idol standing. The man who set it up is the man who later tore it down.
Re-established in his position, Manasseh produced what John the Baptist later called "fruits worthy of repentance" (Luke 3:8). He tore down the idols he had set up, and the altars dedicated to them. He tried to bring the people back from the wrong road down which he had driven them. It was hard work, and it was bound to stay incomplete!
- Place. God had put His name in the temple. To set a carved image inside it was a direct insult to Him, not just a religious mistake.
- Zeal. Manasseh's many altars and images may have felt like zeal. Commentators call it the folly of unbelief.
- Privilege. Judah sank lower than the nations God had destroyed. The worst corruption is the corruption of the best.
- Warning. The same image of jealousy threatens us all, and it needs no statue. A god shaped by our own thoughts can block the way to God in people who are otherwise most orthodox.
- Reversal. God's anger consumed them for these abominations. Yet Manasseh, restored, tore his idols down, and a day is coming when neither people nor kings will defile God's name again.
neither will I any more remove the foot of Israel from out of the land that I have appointed to your fathers; if they will only take heed to do all that I commanded them through Moses, according to all the law and the statutes and the ordinances.
Verse 8 repeats a promise God once made: Israel would keep their place in the land He gave their fathers, but only if they obeyed the whole law given through Moses. It comes right after the account of an idol set up in the temple, which raises the question the chapter answers — what happens to a promise when its condition is broken?
God gave Israel the land, but staying there was not automatic. One commentator shows how much the condition covers.
God's promise not to remove Israel from their land was conditional on their being careful to observe all God's commandments, which involved the whole law with its statutes and ordinances (v. 8).
Getting the land and keeping it were two different things. One writer finds the same pattern in three places.
Grace had led them all the way... But grace had set them in the land, just as God long ago in goodness set Adam in the Garden. Now they had to hold it on the terms of their own covenant — on condition of obedience. It is the same, I may add, with the throne of David afterwards... David's family had to keep the throne of David on terms of obedience. And we know they lost the throne, just as the tribes of Israel lost the land, and Adam the Garden.
God gave this promise to Solomon and his line. One writer shows how much of Israel's future rested on the king.
God's answer makes the house the place where He has set His name for ever. His eyes and His heart will be there always. But to enjoy the blessing He granted, Solomon's line, the people of Israel, and even the house itself all had to meet one condition: Solomon and his children must stay faithful to the Lord. If he or his descendants turned away to serve other gods, Israel would be cut off... We see here how far the fate of Israel hung upon their king.
Manasseh wanted Israel to stay in the land. One commentator shows the method he chose.
...even setting a carved image of Asherah in the house of the Lord, the house which the Lord had chosen as His centre in Israel. In doing this he wanted to keep Israel from wandering from the Lord and being scattered (v. 8)! How foolish an attitude, for Israel's preservation depended on their being careful to obey the commandments of the Lord as given through Moses.
The narrative does not leave the "if only" hanging. One writer marks the gap between father and son, then records the outcome in a single short sentence.
Here we see how truly a godly father may be followed by an ungodly son... "But they did not listen."
God forgave Manasseh himself. One writer separates the pardon of the man from God's dealings with the people he misled.
Although God was so merciful, the evil of Manasseh brought upon the nation the government of God... When king David sinned, the Lord pardoned his sin, but the government of God on his house took its course. So it was with Manasseh. God heard and answered his prayer when he humbled himself, yet the righteous government of God still fell on the guilty nation he had led astray.
Israel broke the terms. So is the land lost for good? One writer points back to an older promise that carried no "if."
...their failure came from disobeying a law they had promised to keep, and they completed that failure in rejecting the Messiah. But they will be restored to the land of Canaan by the free mercy of God, because of His promises to Abraham. Their failure does not change this, though God has punished them for it and will punish them yet... Up to the giving of the law, God's dealings with them had been grace alone. Then (Exodus 19:8) they put themselves under the law by their own will. "All that the Lord has spoken we will do." But they failed under this law, as the sin of the golden calf (Exodus 32) showed. This, however, did not touch the promises to Abraham.
- Gift. Grace put Israel in the land, set Adam in the Garden, and set David on the throne. Not one of the three earned it.
- Terms. What grace gave, obedience had to hold. Staying in the land rested on keeping the whole law given through Moses.
- Throne. God tied the promise to Solomon and his line, so Israel's place in the land hung on the king's faithfulness.
- Forfeit. Manasseh sought safety by setting an idol in the house that bore God's name. The answer to the "if only" came back: they did not listen.
- Covenant. Pardon for the king did not cancel God's government on the nation. Yet behind the land stands the promise to Abraham, which carried no condition at all.
And Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations that Jehovah had destroyed from before the children of Israel.
Manasseh was the son of Hezekiah, one of Judah's godliest kings. Within one reign he pulled the nation lower than the peoples God destroyed before Israel — how could a people who knew God sink below those who never did?
The shock is not that Judah sinned. It is that Judah went further than the nations around it. One writer points to the height Judah fell from:
It is a terrible portrait to paint of any man; but of a king of Judah, and a son of Hezekiah the Good, it seems almost incredible. It almost makes the heart turn sick to read the list of his abominations... It was the worst of all corruptions — the corruption of the best. The higher the fall, the deeper the plunge... And what must the surrounding nations have thought of these annals of Judah — "worse than the heathen"? Seven hundred years later the apostle, by the Spirit, declared, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." Of Manasseh and Judah it could truly be said even then.
So the damage spread outward. Judah's sin gave the watching nations a reason to insult God's name.
The verse does not stop at Manasseh's own sin. It says he led a whole city and nation astray. That is the heaviest charge in it, and it fits a pattern in the record of the kings:
Let us note here what these earlier chapters repeat so often: the sins of their kings made Israel sin. The sin of one person becomes far more serious when it turns into a stumbling-block for others. Its consequences count against those who carry away the ignorant and the poorly grounded into the path of their own disobedience.
The verse also decides Judah's future in the land. William Kelly follows the logic to its end:
The consequence was that Manasseh not only did evil himself, but led them to do more evil than the nations the LORD destroyed. How was it possible then for Judah to remain in the land of the LORD? It became a moral impossibility.
Judah's advantage was knowledge. The verse shows that knowledge without obedience does not protect a person. Kelly presses the same point on anyone who has heard much truth and obeys little:
No one brings shame on the truth so completely, or loses all conscience so fully, as those who are familiar with truth without obedience. The people who dishonour the Lord most are those who know the truth but are not subject to it... The greater the truth you know, if you treat it lightly, the worse your conduct will be.
God did not stay silent while the nation sank. One writer puts the horror of the account and God's patience side by side:
The account which opens chapter 33 of 2 Chronicles is terrifying. How could such a godly king as Hezekiah have a son like Manasseh?... In His patience God spoke to Manasseh and to His people, trying to bring them back to Himself, but they paid no attention.
Manasseh's name stands out twice over in the record of the kings, and one commentator names both reasons:
Manasseh stands out in a terrible way among the wicked kings of Judah. Even the fierceness of the LORD's wrath is traced to the sins and provocations of Manasseh. He is singled out for his sins, and as the object of God's mercy, as no other, before or since.
- Light: Manasseh began with every advantage, starting with a godly father in Hezekiah.
- Led: His sin was not private. He drew a city and a nation with him, and the consequences count against those who lead others into their own disobedience.
- Lower: Misused privilege is "the corruption of the best" — a people sinking below the nations who never had the light.
- Loss: Once Judah lived worse than the nations before it, staying in God's land became a moral impossibility.
- Mercy: The man singled out for the worst record is also singled out for mercy. The warning and the hope stand in the same chapter.
And Jehovah spoke to Manasseh and to his people; but they did not hearken.
Manasseh had dragged Judah lower than the nations God drove out of the land before them. Then God does something surprising: He speaks — and the whole nation ignores Him.
God sent messengers. One writer names them, the danger of the work, and the result:
God's prophets spoke out faithfully against these terrible deeds. Jewish tradition claims that Isaiah was put to death during Manasseh's reign. But though the LORD sent His messages, the people did not listen. 2 Kings 21:10-15 preserves the message that the LORD sent by His servants the prophets.
God did not send one messenger only. Another writer shows how heavy the warning was:
The LORD therefore spoke by the prophets — not by one prophet only. Manasseh had done greater wickedness than the Amorites, and had made Judah sin with his idols. So God declared with awful solemnity that He would bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who heard of it would tingle.
The warning was not a gentle hint. It was a charge, and it pointed to two disasters the nation had already watched:
It was a terrible charge, though a completely just one, and it should have brought the nation to repentance. The threats alone should have startled them out of their sins. They knew what had happened to Samaria — it had already fallen, and Jerusalem was to receive the same punishment. The house of Ahab had been destroyed, and their own kings would not escape a similar judgment. But the message was lost on them. They proved themselves a more stubborn people than the men of Nineveh, who one hundred and fifty years earlier had repented at the preaching of Jonah.
The verse names the king and the people together. One writer traces the people's deafness back to the king:
But Manasseh showed utter contempt for God in the way he treated God's temple. He led the people so far astray that they paid no attention to God's commands. They did worse evil than the ungodly nations whom God had destroyed so that Israel could take the land.
Knapp draws out how shocking it is that this happened inside the nation that carried God's name:
It was the worst of all corruptions — the corruption of the best. The higher the fall, the deeper the plunge… And what must the surrounding nations have thought of these annals of Judah — "worse than the heathen"?
Manasseh's reign ran on for fifty-five years. A long reign is easy to misread:
Manasseh may have reigned for 55 years, but that made no difference to the certainty of God's judgment. People too often mistake God's patience for leniency or indifference. Yet the longer He waits, the more awesome and terrible we can expect His judgment to be.
Verse 10 explains verse 11. When people ignore God's word, He changes method:
But the reaping came at last, though the harvest was late — delayed, perhaps, by God's long patience. "So the LORD brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks … and brought him to Babylon." They refused to hear the word, so they had to feel the rod.
The prison was not the last word. What the message failed to do, the suffering did:
We would tend to say: "he got what he deserved, it is over for him and so much the better!" But God has resources we can hardly imagine. In prison, in distress, Manasseh came to himself and called on the LORD. Scripture says he "humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers." God "was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem." What wonderful grace of God, far beyond anything we can think!
- Voice. God spoke first. He sent prophets, not one but many, with a warning strong enough to stop the nation.
- Deafness. The king's sin had become the people's habit, so God spoke to both. Judah proved harder to move than Nineveh, which repented under Jonah.
- Delay. A reign of fifty-five years made judgment no less certain. God's patience is not indifference, and long patience means a heavier reckoning.
- Rod. They refused the word, so they felt the rod. Capture and exile did what warnings had not.
- Mercy. Even then God was not finished. In prison Manasseh humbled himself, and God heard him and brought him home.
And Jehovah brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with fetters, and bound him with chains of brass, and carried him to Babylon.
God spoke to Manasseh and his people through His prophets, and they would not listen. So the Lord sent an Assyrian army, and their king went to Babylon in chains — the end of him, or the beginning of something else?
History gives a political background to this deportation. One writer traces it, then sets it beside the reason Scripture gives:
Up to a point in his reign, Manasseh had accepted the rule of the kings of Assyria. Babylon had thrown off the Assyrian yoke under its king Berodach-baladan, but Assyria had soon won it back and ruled it again. Manasseh was probably caught up in a conspiracy of all these eastern kingdoms against harsh Assyrian rule. He is led captive to Babylon, weighed down with chains of bronze. Judging by history, that was probably the cause of his cruel captivity. But the Word reveals the true cause. It was the LORD who brought upon Manasseh and his people "the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria."
The word "therefore" ties this verse to the sentence before it, where God spoke and no one listened. One writer puts the whole sequence in one line:
But the reaping came at last, though the harvest was late, perhaps, because God is so patient… They refused to hear the word, so they had to feel the rod. As was fitting for this monster of evil, Manasseh was brought in chains to Babylon.
Assyria captured him, yet the chains take him to Babylon, the city Assyria then ruled. One writer sees an old pattern in that:
It was the old law of retribution working itself out once again. The occasion of the sin became the instrument of its punishment. Hezekiah sinned in the "matter of the ambassadors" from Babylon, and it is to Babylon that his son Manasseh goes as a captive.
Translations differ over how the Assyrians took him. Older versions read "among the thorns." The ESV has "with hooks." One reference work keeps both older phrases:
God brought the king of Assyria against Manasseh, who took him "among the thorns," or "bound him with chains of brass," and carried him to Babylon.
Some have called the whole account unhistorical. One writer answers with hard evidence that also shows what the hooks were:
But an Assyrian monument has completely refuted these objections. The monument pictures the Assyrian king leading two captives with hooks and rings. The inscription reads: "I transported to Assyria men and women… innumerable." It also gives the name "Minasi sar matir Jaudi," which means "Manasseh, King of Judah."
Read on, and the chains change character. What looks like the end of Manasseh is how God reached him:
It was plainly the goodness of God that brought Manasseh down to this miserable condition of bondage. Romans 2:4 tells us that it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. How marvellous that the discipline of God brought Manasseh to repentance! No doubt God has used this means many times in seeking to bring people to repentance, yet most do not seem to respond.
Kings and Chronicles tell this king's story differently. One writer explains why:
The book of Kings stops once it has noted the king's responsibility. Chronicles shows us grace acting through judgments to restore him. What a blessed thought, that the hearts of the most hardened may become the objects of grace! How many will we find in the Lord's presence whose lives, like this one, seemed broken by judgment, and who beyond any doubt were brought by repentance to salvation.
- Refused — God spoke through His prophets and Manasseh would not listen. The word ignored brings the rod.
- Rod — behind the Assyrian commanders and the politics stands the cause the Word names: the Lord brought them.
- Reaped — the occasion of the sin became its punishment. Hezekiah sinned over the ambassadors from Babylon, and his son went to Babylon in chains.
- Rescued — those same chains were the goodness of God leading to repentance. He has used this means often, though most do not respond.
- Recorded — Kings closes with his guilt. Chronicles adds the rescue, showing that the most hardened heart can still become an object of grace.
And when he was in affliction, he besought Jehovah his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,
Manasseh led Judah deep into evil, and this verse finds him in chains, calling on the God he had dishonoured all his life. The turn is sharp, and it raises the question the chapter exists to answer: how far can grace reach?
The chains were not the end of the story. They were the means of a rescue. Manasseh had ignored God's Word, so God used a harder voice.
Manasseh had resisted the Word of God, which sought to correct his evil. So the Lord brought the army of the king of Assyria to take Manasseh captive and carry him off to Babylon (v. 11). It was clearly the goodness of God that brought Manasseh down into this miserable slavery. Romans 2:4 tells us that it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. How wonderful that God's discipline brought Manasseh to repentance! No doubt God has used this means many times in seeking to bring people to repentance, yet most do not seem to respond.
The word "greatly" is not decoration. It matches the size of what he had done. He admitted he deserved the punishment.
"He humbled himself greatly," and rightly so, for his guilt was indeed very great. "When he was in distress" — no doubt he admitted that his punishment was just. "I know, O LORD," he could say, "that Your judgments are right, and that You in faithfulness have afflicted me" (Ps. 119:75).
He cried out to the God of his fathers. Our instinct would write such a man off. God did not.
We would tend to say: "he got what he deserved, it is over for him and so much the better!" But God has resources we can hardly imagine. In prison, in distress, Manasseh came to himself and cried out to Jehovah. It is written that he "humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers" (2 Chr. 33:12). God "listened to his prayer and heard his plea, and brought him back to Jerusalem" (2 Chr. 33:13). What marvellous grace of God, which infinitely surpasses our thoughts!
The same reign is told twice in Scripture. The two accounts stop at different points.
God does not desire the death of a sinner, and His purpose was reached. Manasseh humbled himself and judged his whole conduct before God. God brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom… The book of Kings stops once it has recorded the king's responsibility. Chronicles shows us grace working through judgments to restore him. What a blessed thought, that the hearts of the most hardened may become the objects of grace! How many will we meet in the Lord's presence whose lives, like his, seemed broken by judgment, yet who beyond any doubt came to a repentance that leads to salvation.
Other reigns ran the other way, which makes this one stand out.
This is a very unusual history. Others, sadly, began well and ended badly. He began as badly as any had ever done, and worse than any before; but he had a blessed end.
Restoration did not erase every consequence. Writers distinguish between what God did for the man and what still fell on the nation.
He set out to undo his earlier evil works as far as he could… But he could never give back the innocent lives he had taken. He could never fully undo the evil of his past way of life. His sin, and Judah's with him, was so great that God never forgave it as a nation (2 Kings 23:26; 24:4; Jer. 15:4). As an individual, God forgave Manasseh through his confession and humbling before Him… He was the Old Testament chief of sinners — an example in that day of how much patience God shows to anyone who turns to Him in repentance and faith.
These accounts call us to the same humbling.
"Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God" (1 Peter 5:6)… God shows us through His Word that He will never be indifferent to our repentance. In grace He will appreciate, in a just measure, the reality of the judgment which we are inclined to apply to our own ways.
- Affliction — The chains were God's last word to a king who ignored His Word. His goodness stood behind the hardship.
- Humbled — The word "greatly" measures the guilt he confessed. Manasseh agreed that God had dealt with him justly.
- Heard — He turned to the God of his fathers, the very God he had insulted, and that God listened and restored him.
- Grace — Kings records the king's responsibility. Chronicles records God's grace, so no hardened heart is beyond reach.
- Fruit — He set out to undo his earlier evil works. He could not undo every consequence: God forgave the man, but judgment still fell on the nation.
and prayed to him. And he was intreated of him and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that Jehovah, he was God.
Manasseh had filled Jerusalem with idols and blood, so God let Assyria drag him away in chains to Babylon. This verse is what happened next: a prayer from prison, a God who listened, and a king who at last knew who the LORD was.
The chains were not an accident of Assyrian politics. Commentators read the whole collapse as God's own work on a hardened man.
It was plainly the goodness of God that brought Manasseh down into this misery of bondage. Romans 2:4 tells us that it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. How marvelous that God's discipline brought Manasseh to repentance! No doubt God has used this means many times in seeking to bring people to repentance, yet most do not seem to respond.
From Manasseh's own side, the exchange looked like ruin. It turned out to be gain.
King Manasseh was bound in chains. This was sad to see — a crown of gold changed into fetters. But it worked for his good, for "when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly ... and God was moved by his entreaty" (2 Chr. 33:12-13). He owed more to his iron chain than to his golden crown. The crown made him proud; the chain made him humble.
Judah had refused God's word before the chains came. What changed in prison was Manasseh's own view of his guilt.
They refused to hear the word, so they had to feel the rod. "He humbled himself greatly," as well he might, for his guilt indeed was very great. "When he was in affliction" — no doubt, he owned the justice of his punishment. "I know, O Lord," he could say, "that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me" (Ps. 119:75).
Scripture gives no political reason for the release of a deported king. It credits God alone.
We are not told how the king of Assyria came to release Manasseh from prison and let him return to his place as king over Judah. But God Himself directed this restoration, and Manasseh then knew indeed that the Lord is God. This was a complete transformation, worked by the grace and power of God.
The parallel account in 2 Kings closes Manasseh's story without the prison prayer. The two books have different aims.
The book of Kings stops once it has noted the king's responsibility. Chronicles shows us grace acting through judgments to restore him. What a blessed thought, that the hearts of the most hardened may become objects of grace! How many will we meet in the Lord's presence whose lives, like his, seemed broken by judgment, yet who, beyond any doubt, came through repentance to salvation.
Most kings of Judah began well and finished badly. Manasseh ran the other way.
This is a history most peculiar. Others, sadly, had begun well and ended badly. He began as badly as any had ever done, and worse than any before; but he had a blessed end. He took away the strange gods and idols he had set up himself, and the altars he had made. He repaired the altar, offered peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the LORD.
God heard him, but not every consequence went away. Commentators draw a line between Manasseh himself and the nation he had corrupted.
But he could never restore the innocent lives he had taken, and he could never fully undo the evil of his earlier course. His sin, and Judah's with him, was so great that God never forgave the nation for it (2 Kings 23:26; 24:4; Jer. 15:4). But Manasseh himself was forgiven, through his confession and humbling of himself before God. It is good to see the great change in his later life. He did not forget how much he owed God for His matchless grace to him, as his "thank offerings" on the restored altar show.
God had a reason for keeping this prayer on record.
God valued that prayer for pardon in the prison in Babylon so highly that He had it written down. He did it to encourage other repentant sinners who would come back to the same God — the God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and of great kindness.
- Chains. God brought Assyria against Manasseh. The fetters that replaced his crown were discipline aimed at repentance, not just punishment.
- Cry. He humbled himself and agreed that the affliction was just. God was moved by that prayer.
- Crown restored. No politics explains his release. God brought him back to Jerusalem, and there Manasseh learned who the LORD is.
- Consequence. God forgave Manasseh himself. But he could not give back the lives he had taken, and the nation still bore judgment for his sins.
- Comfort. God had the prayer written down for sinners who would come back. The worst beginning in Judah's history ended with idols torn down, a repaired altar, and thank offerings.
And after this he built the outer wall of the city of David, on the west, toward Gihon, in the valley, even to the entrance of the fish-gate, and carried it round Ophel, and raised it up a very great height; and he put captains of war in all the fortified cities of Judah.
Manasseh comes home from captivity in Babylon a changed man. Why does a chapter about his repentance then stop to describe a wall, a gate and army officers?
Before Manasseh could build, he had to be back in Jerusalem. The text gives no political reason why a prisoner of Assyria got his throne back.
There are no details about how the king of Assyria came to release Manasseh from prison and let him return to his place as king over Judah. But it was God Himself who ordered this restoration, and Manasseh then truly knew that the Lord is God. This was a complete transformation, done by the grace and power of God.
The change in the man shows up in what he now does with his energy.
There were good results too, for Manasseh now built something useful instead of tearing down what was of God. He built a wall on the west of Jerusalem, no doubt to hold off the attacks of enemies. He also appointed military captains in all the fortified cities of Judah. This shows his concern for the protection of these cities (v. 14).
Ophel was a part of Jerusalem where an earlier king had already built. Manasseh did not start something new; he carried that work higher.
A part of Jerusalem, first mentioned in 2 Chr. 27:3, where it is said that Jotham built much "on the wall of Ophel." Manasseh in his building "carried it around Ophel and raised it to a very great height" (2 Chr. 33:14). It is thought to have stood at the south-east corner of Jerusalem, outside the present walls.
Gihon, the other landmark in the verse, is the spring outside the city. Solomon was anointed king there, and Hezekiah had earlier channelled its water into the city (Morrish Bible Dictionary).
The wall comes first in the record. One writer points to something better that followed, and to the limit of what any of it could repair.
When he returned to Jerusalem he began to build and fortify, and he "put commanders of the army in all the fortified cities." But better still, he took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord... He set out to undo his former works of wickedness as far as he could. But he could never restore the innocent lives he had taken, and he could never wholly undo the evil of his earlier course. His sin, and Judah's with him, was so great that God never forgave it as a nation. God did forgive Manasseh himself, because he confessed and humbled himself before Him.
Another writer sets out what Manasseh did next, and how far it could go.
Restored to his position, Manasseh produced what John the Baptist later called "fruits in keeping with repentance" (Luke 3:8). He tore down the idols he had set up and the altars dedicated to them. He also tried to bring the people back from the wrong way he had driven them into. It was hard work, and it was bound to remain incomplete!
The account of Manasseh in Kings ends with his crimes. Everything in this verse — the wall, the gate, the captains — belongs to a second telling with a different purpose.
The book of Kings stops once it has noted the king's responsibility. Chronicles shows us grace acting through judgments to restore him. What a blessed thought, that the hearts of the most hardened may become the objects of grace! How many we will find in the Lord's presence whose lives, like his, seemed broken by judgment, and who were beyond any doubt brought by repentance to salvation.
His case is held up as an example well beyond his own reign:
So God gave repentance to this wicked king, for His mercy endures forever. He is often held up as a trophy of God's marvellous grace in Old Testament times, as Saul of Tarsus and the thief on the cross are given under the New Testament.
- Grace first. No human reason is given for Manasseh's release. God Himself brought him back, and the change in him was His work.
- Grace builds. The man who once tore down what was of God now builds a wall and posts commanders. His new energy is the proof.
- Grace repairs. He set out to undo his old evil as far as he could. That is the fruit a repentant heart bears.
- Grace and the scars. He could never bring back the innocent lives he had taken, and the judgment on the nation still stood. God forgave the man himself.
- Grace reaches further. Kings records his guilt; Chronicles records his restoration. That is why he is named with Saul of Tarsus and the thief on the cross as proof of how far mercy goes.
And he removed the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of Jehovah, and all the altars that he had built on the mount of the house of Jehovah and in Jerusalem, and cast [them] out of the city.
Manasseh had made an idol and set it up inside God's temple. Now, back in his position, he clears it out of the city — so what does real repentance look like, and what damage can it never undo?
The verse names both foreign gods and one particular idol. One writer traces the word used for that idol through other passages.
The word is used in Deuteronomy 4:16, where older translations render it "graven image." It is also found in 2 Chronicles 33:7 and 33:15, where it refers to the idol which Manasseh had made and put up in the temple.
Once he was back on his throne, the change showed in what he pulled down.
Back in his position, Manasseh produced what John the Baptist later called "fruits in keeping with repentance" (Luke 3:8). He tore down the idols he had set up, and the altars dedicated to them. He tried to bring the people back from the wrong way he had driven them into. It was hard work, and it was bound to be incomplete!
The zeal he once gave to his idols he now turned against them. One writer measures how far that change went.
He was now as eager to burn what he had been worshipping as the godly kings before his father Hezekiah had been. The people followed the same path. Only the high places were not abolished. This was not a revival in the full sense of the word. It was a return to God through affliction. That affliction had made this wretched man cry to Him, and God delivered him from all his distress.
Removing the false altars was only half of it. The next verse shows him repairing the Lord's altar. One writer notes which offerings he brought there, and which he did not.
He also took away the idols from the house of the Lord — idols he himself had brought in. He removed all the altars he had built in Jerusalem too (v. 15). On the positive side he repaired the altar of the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings and thank offerings on it (v. 16). These offerings show his thankfulness for God's mercy to him. But burnt offerings are not mentioned. Burnt offerings stress the glory God receives through the sacrifice of Christ, which is a far more important matter than the blessing we receive.
Some consequences outlived his repentance. One writer separates Manasseh's own standing before God from the nation's future.
He undertook to undo, as far as possible, his former works of wickedness. His name Manasseh means forgetting. Josephus says: "When he came to Jerusalem, he tried, if it were possible, to cast out of his memory his former sins against God, of which he now repented." But he could never give back the innocent lives he had taken. He could never wholly undo the evil of his former course. His sin, and Judah's with him, was so great that God never forgave it as a nation. But as a man he was forgiven, through his confession and humbling before God. It is good to see the great change in his later life. He did not forget how much he owed God for His matchless grace to him, as his "thank offerings" on the restored altar show.
He put the idols outside the city. He did not destroy them, and the next reign shows why that matters.
Manasseh had thrown the idols and idolatrous altars he had made out of the city. Amon clearly brought them back, for he sacrificed to all the images that his father had made. He made himself a slave to these abominations. He must have known that his father had repented and completely changed his ways. But this had no real effect on Amon.
- Taken away — the idol Manasseh had planted in God's own house goes first. Repentance strikes at what it built, not at someone else's sin.
- Put right — he did not stop at clearing out the altars. He repaired the Lord's altar and sacrificed there, because removal alone is not worship restored.
- Left standing — the high places remained. Writers call this a return to God under affliction, not a full revival.
- Never recovered — he could not give back the lives he had taken, and the nation's judgment stood. Forgiveness for the man did not cancel the consequences for the people.
- Brought back — what he cast out of the city, his son Amon carried in again; one man's repentance secures no one else's.
And he reinstated the altar of Jehovah, and sacrificed on it peace-offerings and thank-offerings, and commanded Judah to serve Jehovah the God of Israel.
Manasseh had filled Jerusalem with idols, and Assyria had carried him off in chains. God heard his prayer and gave back his throne; this verse shows what he did with it, and how far a repentant man can undo his own damage.
The text never says the altar was smashed. One commentator reads the repair as a matter of use, not stonework:
When we read that he restored the altar of the Lord, this may mean that he put back the proper sacrifices on that altar, since there seems to be no sign that the altar itself had been damaged.
Peace offerings and thank offerings are the gifts of a thankful man. One commentator also notices what is missing:
These offerings show his thankfulness for God's mercy to him. But burnt offerings are not mentioned, and they stress the glory God receives through the sacrifice of Christ — a far more important matter than the blessing we receive.
The peace offering was a shared meal, not a sacrifice burned up whole:
Burnt offerings were burned up completely on the altar. But with peace offerings, everyone involved had a share — God, the priest who served, all the males of the priestly family, and the person who brought the offering... They feasted on a sacrifice of which God had already received His portion. It was communion with Him in the sacrifice.
In this verse Manasseh is undoing his own work. But one writer shows that some damage could never be repaired, and that God's forgiveness of the man was not forgiveness of the nation:
He set out to undo his former evil works as far as he could. His name Manasseh means forgetting... But he could never bring back the innocent lives he had taken, and he could never fully undo the evil of his old ways. His sin, and Judah's sin with him, was so great that God never forgave it as a nation... As a man, Manasseh was forgiven, because he confessed and humbled himself before God. It is good to see the great change in his later life. He did not forget how much he owed God for His matchless grace to him, and his "thank-offerings" on the restored altar show it. He was the Old Testament "chief of sinners," an example at that time of God showing all His patience to anyone who would turn to Him in repentance and faith.
He had driven the people into idolatry; now he works to bring them back. One writer notes how hard that task was, and that it was never finished:
He tore down the idols he had set up, and the altars built for them. He tried to bring the people back from the wrong road he had driven them down. It was hard work, and it could never be finished!
The effect on his own family was mixed. His son ignored it; his grandson may not have:
All this had no effect on Amon his son, the father of Josiah. But it may have influenced the young child who came to the throne about two years after Manasseh's death. From the very start of his reign, at eight years old, he took the right road, doing what "was right in the eyes of the LORD."
This verse serves as evidence. Manasseh turned to God in a prison in Babylon; what he did once he got home is the test:
He humbled himself and prayed and found mercy. What a display of God's mercy! Jewish tradition often points to Manasseh's conversion as the greatest encouragement to sinners who repent. God will yet show such mercy to the remnant of Israel, when they turn to the LORD "whose mercy endures forever." And there is no lack of evidence that Manasseh's conversion was real. After his return he acted faithfully, repaired the altar, and commanded Judah to serve the LORD God.
And the shape of the whole reign is unusual among the kings:
Sadly, others had begun well and ended badly. He began as badly as anyone ever had, and worse than any before him — but his end was blessed.
- Mercy first. Manasseh humbled himself in captivity. God heard him and brought him back to Jerusalem. Everything in this verse follows that.
- Altar restored. The repair may mean he put the proper sacrifices back in use; nothing says the altar itself was broken.
- Thanks offered. Peace and thank offerings show the thanks of a man who owed everything to grace. Burnt offerings, which speak of the glory God receives, are not mentioned.
- Reach limited. He undid what he could. He could not bring back the lives he had taken, and his call to Judah was work he could never finish.
- Fruit proved. These acts are the evidence that his change was real — a king who began as badly as any, and ended well.
Nevertheless, the people sacrificed still on the high places, although to Jehovah their God only.
Judah's most wicked king hit bottom, cried to God in his trouble, and God forgave him. But his reform stopped short: the people kept sacrificing at the local shrines — to the true God, but not where He had said.
Manasseh's change was real. Yet one thing from his father's reign he never restored.
Hezekiah had banished worship in the high places. Manasseh did not follow his father in this. He allowed the people to sacrifice there, though only to the Lord (v. 17).
That gap shapes how one writer sums up the whole reign.
Only the high places were not abolished. It was not a revival in the true sense of the word. It was a return to God through affliction. His trouble made this wretched man cry to Him, and God delivered him from all his distress... What a blessed thought, that the hearts of the most hardened may become the objects of grace!
The problem was never the hill. It was that God had named one place for sacrifice, and these were places men picked for themselves.
All the high places offended Him, whatever the motives of those who set them up. They expressed a self-will that invents its own ways, hearts not subject to His commandments. Some of Judah's best kings tolerated high places — not the ones set apart to idols, we may be sure, but the ones where people claimed to worship the Lord.
Commentators differ about how these sites began. One traces a shift that came once God chose His own centre.
At the beginning they were devoted to the true worship of God. To some extent He Himself in grace recognized the need and met with His people there, though not in the order He Himself had provided. Later, however, He established His centre. He placed His name at Jerusalem, and the temple of His glory stood there. From then on the worship of the high places was direct disobedience to His will. So it was bound to grow more and more tied to the idolatry the people always leaned toward.
The sacrifices did go up to the Lord their God. That is what made the practice feel safe — and it is what makes it dangerous. Worship has two halves, and we do not get to invent the second one.
Man is not to decide his own ways as a worshipper. Willingness in worship is right; wilfulness destroys it all. They brought their offerings of their own free will (Leviticus 1:3; 7:16), but they had to bring them as and where the Lord willed. So with us. We are to worship "in spirit" — that is most true — in the grace and liberty of the Holy Spirit He gives us. But we are to worship "in truth" as well, according to God's revelation of Himself and of His worship. Israel's groves and high places were always the witness that the people had not properly prepared their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel, the only true God, who had set His name at Jerusalem.
Manasheh's later years show genuine fruit, but they also show a limit. The habits he had planted in a whole nation outlived his repentance.
He demolished the idols which he had erected, and the altars which were consecrated to them, and sought to bring the people back from the wrong way in which he had driven them; a difficult work and necessarily incomplete!
Forgiveness for the man and repair of the damage are two different accounts, and only one of them was settled.
But he could never restore the innocent lives he had taken, nor could he ever wholly undo the evil of his former course... Personally, when he confessed and humbled himself before God, God forgave him. It is good to see the great change in his later life. He did not forget what he owed God for His matchless grace to him, as his "thank-offerings" on the restored altar show.
The same fault appears today. People who love God still pick their own ways to come to Him.
To ignore the Centre God Himself has provided, and to turn to human thoughts, and pick places and ways of worship that the word of God never provided for, is to worship in the high places. Many do this in complete sincerity, and God, as we said, meets His people in grace according to the measure of their faith.
- Grace reaches — affliction drove the hardest heart in Judah's history to cry out to God, and God brought Manasseh back.
- Grace repairs — his later life showed a great change, and his thank-offerings on the restored altar show he never forgot what he owed God.
- Grace meets a limit — God forgave the man, but he could not give back the innocent lives he took or undo the evil he had spread.
- Grace stops where self-will stays — he left the high places standing, so his reign counts as a return to God, not a real revival.
- Grace still asks obedience — choosing our own places and ways of worship is the high place today; willingness in worship is right, wilfulness destroys it.
And the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers that spoke to him in the name of Jehovah the God of Israel, behold, they [are written] in the acts of the kings of Israel.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And his prayer, and [how God] was intreated of him, and all his sin and his unfaithfulness, and the places in which he built high places, and set up Asherahs and graven images, before he was humbled, behold, they are written among the words of Hozai.
Second Chronicles closes the story of Judah's worst king with a strange pairing: his prayer and his sins sit in the same record, split by the moment he humbled himself. Why would God keep both halves of a man's life on file — the crimes and the cry for mercy?
Most lives in these books run the other way. One writer sets Manasseh's beginning beside his end:
The ways of Manasseh were first a terrible outbreak of every kind of abomination, yet at the end God showed mercy. After his sin — after he had made Judah and Jerusalem sin and act worse than the nations — the king of Assyria took this very Manasseh and carried him to Babylon. There he was taught through painful discipline. But in his affliction he humbles himself before the God of his fathers and prays to Him; and God heard and brought him back again. "Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God." This is a most unusual history. Others, sadly, had begun well and ended badly. He began as badly as anyone ever had, and worse than any before him; but he had a blessed end.
The verse does not only report that Manasseh prayed. It tells us his prayer went on record. One writer explains why God preserved the words of a man praying in a foreign prison:
God valued that prayer for pardon, prayed in the prison in Babylon, so highly that He caused it to be recorded. He did it to encourage other penitent sinners who would come back again to the same God, who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and of great kindness, and who relents from sending disaster (Joel 2:13). And, my dear ones: if one of you ever wanders from the narrow path, remember this. The way back is wide, wide open. The Father's kiss of pardon is waiting for you, and not one single word of reproach.
Alongside the prayer stand "all his sin and his faithlessness" and the exact sites where he built his shrines. One writer keeps two things apart: what God pardoned in the man, and what He never forgave in the nation.
He set out to undo, as far as possible, his earlier works of wickedness. His name Manasseh means forgetting; and Josephus says: "When he came to Jerusalem, he tried, if it were possible, to cast out of his memory his former sins against God, of which he now repented." But he could never restore the innocent lives he had taken. And he could never fully undo the evil of his former course. So great had been his wrongdoing, and that of Judah with him, that God never forgave it nationally. Personally, through his confession and humbling before God, Manasseh was forgiven.
That short clause dates every crime listed and marks where the change came. One writer traces the change to the disaster God sent:
It was clearly the goodness of God that brought Manasseh down to this miserable condition of bondage. Romans 2:4 tells us that it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. How wonderful that the discipline of God brought Manasseh to repentance. No doubt God has used this means many times in seeking to bring people to repentance, yet most do not seem to respond.
Kings and Chronicles tell this reign in different ways. One writer explains the difference, and notes that the recovery was only partial:
Manasseh humbled himself, judging his entire conduct before God, and God brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom... Only the high places were not abolished. It was not a revival in the proper sense of the term. It was a return to God through the affliction. That affliction had made this wretched man cry to Him and receive deliverance from all his distress... The book of Kings stops once it has noted the king's responsibility. Chronicles shows us grace acting through judgments to restore him. What a blessed thought, that the hearts of the most hardened may become the objects of grace!
- Recorded sin. The record lists every shrine and every offence, dated "before he humbled himself." God pardoned the man, but never forgave the sin of the nation.
- Recorded prayer. God valued one prisoner's plea so highly that He had it written down. Later penitent sinners could read it and come back.
- Recorded mercy. No king began worse than Manasseh, yet his end was blessed.
- Recorded method. It was God's goodness that brought him to the chains, and that discipline brought him to repentance.
- Recorded reach. Kings stops at what the man deserved. Chronicles shows grace working through the judgment. The hardest hearts can still become objects of grace.
And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house; and Amon his son reigned in his stead.
Manasseh reigned fifty-five years, and his story ends with one quiet sentence about a grave and a successor. Two questions sit behind it. What happens to a man who sinned worse than any king before him and then repented? And what happens to the son who watched it all?
The parallel account in 2 Kings places his grave in a garden, not among the royal tombs. One writer sees that detail as a shadow left by his sins.
Manasseh "was buried in the garden of his house, in the garden of Uzza." His body found no place of rest among the kings, showing how the consequences of sin follow men even to the grave.
Commentators differ on how to read that burial. Another sees the same fact as a mark of honour.
Manasseh reigned 55 years. He died and was buried in his own house, so he received more respect at his death than some of the kings did. His son Amon then took the throne.
Kings and Chronicles close this reign in different ways. One writer explains the reason.
The book of Kings stops once it has noted the king's responsibility. Chronicles shows us grace acting through judgments to restore him. What a blessed thought, that the hearts of the most hardened may become the objects of grace! How many we shall find in the Lord's presence whose lives, as here, seemed broken by judgment! Beyond any doubt, repentance touched them and brought them salvation.
Most of Judah's kings started well and slid. Manasseh's record moves the other way, and that is what makes his death notice remarkable.
This is a very unusual history. Others, sadly, began well and ended badly. He began as badly as anyone ever had, and worse than any king before him; but he had a blessed end. He took away the foreign gods and idols that he had set up himself, and the altars that he had made. He repaired the altar, offered peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve Jehovah.
Forgiveness did not cancel every effect. God cleared the man; the nation still carried the debt.
But he could never bring back the innocent lives he had taken, and he could never fully undo the evil of his earlier course. His sin, and Judah's sin with him, was so great that God never forgave the nation for it (2 Kings 23:26; 24:4; Jer. 15:4). Yet God did forgive Manasseh personally, through his confession and humbling before Him... He was the Old Testament "chief of sinners." He was a "pattern" at that time, a man in whom God "showed forth all long-suffering" to anyone who would turn to Him in repentance and faith.
One writer sets Manasseh beside Josiah and weighs what each life produced.
In Manasseh and Josiah we see something similar. We shall undoubtedly meet Manasseh in Heaven — a sinner saved by grace, but he wasted most of his life. We shall also meet Josiah in Heaven, but in his case a life was saved too, and it bore fruit for God for many years.
Amon inherited both halves of his father's life and chose only one of them.
His son Amon followed him in his iniquity, but not in his repentance, and he died at the hands of his own servants.
Yet Amon's murder did not end the story. God kept a record of Manasseh's prayer, and He gave him a grandson.
God valued that prayer for pardon in the prison in Babylon so highly that He had it written down. He did it to encourage other repentant sinners who would come back to Him... And God gave that wicked king who humbled himself a little grandson, Josiah, who proved to be one of the very best in Judah's long line of kings. Such is the grace of God.
- Grace comes late. Manasseh began worse than any king before him, and still ended well. Most of Judah's kings ran the other way.
- Grace forgives the person. God pardoned the man who confessed and humbled himself. But He never forgave the nation for the guilt Manasseh had loaded on Judah.
- Grace does not rewind. He could never bring back the lives he took, and a few faithful years at the end could not undo the fifty-five.
- Grace is recorded on purpose. God had his prayer written down so that other repentant sinners would know the way back is open.
- Grace must be taken personally. Amon copied his father's sin but skipped his father's repentance. Josiah, a generation later, took the whole lesson.