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.