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.