Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign; and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Hephzibah.
Hezekiah dies, and his twelve-year-old son takes the throne. Manasseh holds it for fifty-five years — the longest reign in the nation's history, and also its worst. Two questions sit in this verse before the evil of the chapter even begins. Where did this boy come from, and why are we told his mother's name?
Hezekiah fell ill, prayed, and recovered, and God gave him fifteen more years. The arithmetic of this verse points straight back to that moment.
But before we leave this chapter, there is another sobering reflection. 2 Kings 21:1 reveals that his son Manasseh, who succeeded him, was only twelve years old when he began to reign. That is, he was born after Hezekiah's recovery, in the fifteen years added to his life. 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, as 2 Kings 21:10-16 shows so plainly. Let us learn from this. We may beg God for something we regard as a favour, and He may grant it. Yet we may later discover that the "favour" we demanded carried with it consequences that were by no means favourable.
One writer stops short of judging Hezekiah, but he draws a sharp parallel with Israel:
We must not presume to judge God's honoured servant. But it does appear as if he would have done better to submit to God's will in his sickness... True, his healing was in answer to prayer, and a wonderful miracle was done as a pledge of it. But so it was with Israel when they asked for meat to eat. "He gave them what they asked, but sent a wasting disease among them" (Psalm 106:15). A miracle was performed for them too — that of the quails — so that they might have what they kept on desiring. But there was only One who always said, "Not my will, but yours, be done."
Twelve years old means Manasseh spent his whole childhood in Hezekiah's house. That makes what follows harder, not easier, to explain.
There can be no doubt that Manasseh was carefully taught the ways of God. Hezekiah himself said, "the father makes known to the children your faithfulness" (Isaiah 38:19). Let every Christian father note this carefully and follow Hezekiah's good example. Despite his early advantages Manasseh became the wickedest king Judah had ever known.
Fifty-five years is not a reward. The length of a reign tells you nothing about God's approval.
Often a time of revival is followed by a faster slide down the path of decline. Remarkably, we are not told that God marks this state of things out by His judgments. Manasseh's reign, marked by a real flood of idolatry, is the longest recorded among the kings of Judah and Israel. No one can judge people's condition by how severely or how gently God deals with them. This was exactly the error of Job's friends, who judged his character by his troubles.
Delay is not indifference, and it does not soften the judgment when it comes:
Manasseh may have reigned for fifty-five years (v.1), but that made no difference to the certainty of God's judgment. People too often mistake God's patience for indulgence or indifference. But the longer He shows patience, the more awesome and terrible we can expect His judgment to be.
The mother's name carries a meaning God later gives to Jerusalem.
Wife of Hezekiah and mother of Manasseh, 2 Kings 21:1. The name is used as a symbol: God will give it to Jerusalem when the city comes again into blessing. It means "My delight is in her," Isaiah 62:4.
Manasseh's story does not end with his sins. What came later changes how the fifty-five years read.
Taken as a prisoner to Babylon, 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 removed the idols, repaired the altar of the LORD, and sacrificed to Him... So God gave repentance to this wicked king, for His mercy endures for ever. He is often held up as a trophy of God's marvellous grace in Old Testament times.
- Asked — Manasseh was born in the fifteen extra years Hezekiah prayed for. A prayer God grants can still bring consequences you never wanted.
- Taught — Twelve years in the best home in Judah did not make him godly; early advantages are not a guarantee.
- Spared — The longest reign of any king went to the worst king. You cannot judge a person's standing with God by how easy his life is.
- Warned — God's long patience is not approval, and it does not soften the judgment that follows.
- Restored — Hephzibah means "My delight is in her." That name, and Manasseh's own repentance, point past the ruin to grace.
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.
Hezekiah prayed, and God gave him fifteen more years of life. The son born in those years grew up to copy the very nations God had thrown out of the land. Why does godliness so often fail to pass down? And what does God do with the wreckage?
Manasseh was not raised in ignorance. He was born in the fifteen extra years God gave Hezekiah after his illness. He grew up in a home where the truth was taught.
Manasseh was twelve years old when he took the throne after his father Hezekiah. So he was born during the fifteen extra years of life God granted Hezekiah in answer to his prayers and tears (Isaiah 38:5). There is no doubt that Manasseh was taught the ways of God with great care... Despite his early advantages, Manasseh became the most wicked king Judah had ever known.
What a father has from God he cannot hand on like property.
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.
The word is not a general term for bad behaviour. In the Old Testament it points at one particular sin.
Of all sins, the one God finds most abominable is idolatry. It is an open, outright denial that He is God, and it puts the creature in the place of the Creator Himself. So in the Old Testament the word "abomination" has a special use: it means an object of false worship.
The king's name was a memorial of God's kindness to his father. It became a description of what the son did with that kindness.
Manasseh means "forgetting." No doubt Hezekiah gave him that name because the LORD had rescued him and made him forget his troubles and trials. He was born three years after Hezekiah recovered from his sickness. And now Manasseh forgot all the goodness and mercy of the LORD and threw himself headlong into the worst kind of falling away from God.
The verse measures Manasseh against the pagan nations. Judah did not just match them. The people who carried God's name sank lower.
It was the worst of all corruptions — the corruption of the best. The higher the fall, the deeper the plunge... And what must the nations around them have thought of a record like this — Judah "worse than the pagan nations"? Of Manasseh and Judah you could truly say what the apostle, by the Spirit, wrote seven hundred years later: "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
One writer lists what those practices were, and what they cost the nation.
His crimes made it impossible for the LORD to tolerate the people staying in His land. Manasseh practised every form of idolatry. He was deeply involved in contacting spirits. And he freely killed everyone who dared to oppose his evil ways.
Manasseh reigned longer than any other king of Judah or Israel. That fact corrects a common mistake about suffering and prosperity.
Often a time of revival is followed by an even quicker slide downward. Strikingly, we are not told that God marks this out by sending special judgments. The reign of Manasseh, marked by a real flood of idolatry, is the longest reign recorded in the history of the kings of Judah and Israel. You cannot judge a man's condition by how severe or how gentle God's ways with him are. That was exactly the error of Job's friends. They judged his character by his troubles, and argued as if a man with fewer troubles must be more righteous.
Kings tells this story without a happy ending. It is not the whole account.
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 hardest hearts can become the objects of grace! Many will be found in the Lord's presence whose lives, like his, seemed broken by judgment, and who were beyond doubt touched by a repentance that leads to salvation.
- Inherited nothing. Manasseh had a godly father and careful teaching. None of it transferred. Grace has no line of succession.
- Forgot everything. His name meant "forgetting," given in thanks for God's mercy to Hezekiah. He lived it out in reverse and forgot the God who gave it.
- Copied the condemned. He copied the nations God had already thrown out for those very practices. Judah carried God's name, and still sank below people who never knew it.
- Reigned longest. The longest reign in the record, and no special judgment fell on it — so ease is no verdict of approval and affliction no proof of guilt.
- Was still reached. Kings closes the file on his responsibility. Chronicles reopens it on God's grace, and God broke and restored the hardest heart in the book.
And he built again the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars to Baal and made an Asherah, as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.
Hezekiah had torn down Judah's shrines of false worship. His son Manasseh built them again and added more, which raises a hard question: how does a godly man's son end up leading a nation into star-worship?
One writer looks at who shaped the boy king, and at how fast he worked:
Manasseh was the twelve-year-old son of Hezekiah, and he did not follow his father's ways. He had no godly guide to stand by him. He was surrounded by counsellors, no doubt, but they were evil counsellors. Instead of following his father's example, 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. He restored the corrupt worship on the heights, and 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 may look like a small item next to Baal and the stars. One writer shows why they were not:
The Word alone must govern them in all matters of worship, as indeed in everything else. The LORD would choose His own centre. There His people must come with their burnt offerings and sacrifices. But flesh is no better in those who are near to God than in those who are far from Him. The time soon came, sadly, when Israel chose high places for themselves. Some of these were for idolatrous worship, and some for the worship of the LORD. But all the high places were offensive in His sight, whatever the motives of those who set them up. They were the expression of self-will, of hearts not subject to His commandments.
Older translations call the Asherah "a grove," which suggests trees. One writer explains what these objects were, and what lay behind them:
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. God's charge against the Northern Kingdom, when Assyria carried the people away, reads: "They abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal." Note how "all the host of heaven" is here linked with Baal.
This was not harmless stargazing. One writer traces the same practice into our own day:
They worshipped the stars. They studied their movements as if the stars could help them or give them a revelation. Astrology, so widely practised among civilized nations today, is an old cult (2 Kings 21:3, 5; Jer. 8:2; 19:13).
The verse names Ahab — the king of the northern kingdom whose house God had already destroyed. God's answer through His prophets used the same measure:
"Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these abominations and has done things more evil than all that the Amorites did... and has made Judah also to sin with his idols, therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plumb line of the house of Ahab." The house of Ahab had perished, and their kings would not escape a similar judgment.
Hezekiah's faith did not pass to his son. One writer states the rule:
There is no such thing as succession in grace. The son of the most faithful father needs to be born again as much as the most degraded of mankind. This is written clearly on many a page of the word of God. "You must be born again."
It works the other way too. Hezekiah was himself the son of a wicked father:
If piety is not passed from father to son, grace can still work in the heart. It can direct the steps of one who had the most wicked father. This was the case with the son of Ahaz.
Hezekiah's reform was real, yet it did not survive him. One writer explains why:
Revivals took place, but they did not last. The reactions that followed led to an even greater falling away from God... No mistake in religion is more common or more fatal than this: to put confidence in mere negations, and to expect lasting good from them. A negation without a matching affirmation is of no use for spiritual purposes.
- Rebuilt. Manasseh hurried to put back what his father had torn down. A reform can fall faster than it rose.
- Self-will. God chose one centre where His people were to come to Him. The high places offended Him even when they honoured His name, because they came from hearts that would not obey.
- Borrowed gods. Baal stood for the sun and Ashtoreth for the moon. Behind them lay the worship of the whole host of heaven — the old cult we now call astrology.
- Copied judgment. Manasseh took Ahab as his pattern. So God measured Jerusalem by the line He had used on Ahab's house.
- Not inherited. Grace does not run in families. A godly king's son went wrong; a wicked king's son turned to God. Each person must be born again.
And he built altars in the house of Jehovah, of which Jehovah had said, In Jerusalem will I put my name.
Hezekiah had pulled down the pagan shrines, but his son Manasseh rebuilt them and carried idol altars into the temple itself. Why did that one building matter so much, and why was an altar inside it the worst offence a king of Judah could commit?
The verse ends with a promise God had made about Jerusalem. The law shows what that promise carried with it.
Jerusalem was the place God had chosen, out of all places. Deuteronomy 12 makes the point again and again: Jerusalem was "the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name there." The temple could be built only here. Here the people had to assemble, celebrate the national feasts, give the sacrifices, and bring the offerings. And it was in this place that the people would rejoice before the Lord.
Because God had fixed His dwelling in one spot, the sin of His people was always reckoned in relation to that spot.
If it is true that God dwells on the earth in a "habitation," then the habitation where He dwells must be of the greatest importance. This remains always true. There may be failure, but the Church is still His dwelling place. God dwelt there until Christ came — or at least until He pronounced Lo-ammi upon Israel at the Babylonian captivity. Both the blessing of the people and their guilt were measured by God's dwelling. If it was a question of idolatry, "They have set," He says, "their altars by my altar."
("Lo-ammi" means "not my people.")
Manasseh was busy with religion, not careless about it. One writer weighs what all that building was worth.
With all his altars and images he may have thought he was very religious, 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. He had declared the temple to be the place where He would set His name.
The king's own name carried a memory of God's kindness to his father.
Manasseh means "forgetting." No doubt Hezekiah gave him this name because the LORD had rescued him. That rescue 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.
Judah now behaved worse than the nations God had destroyed. That comparison is where one writer finds the real horror.
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"? Of Manasseh and Judah it could then truly be said, as the apostle by the Spirit declared seven hundred years later, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
Manasseh did not sin alone. One writer follows that out to the nation's place in the land.
The result was that Manasseh not only did evil, but "seduced them to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord destroyed." How could Judah then stay in the LORD's land? It became a moral impossibility.
The story of this king does not end where 2 Kings leaves it.
This book of Kings says nothing about the repentance of Manasseh, which 2 Chronicles 33:12-13 records. Kings deals mainly with responsibility, while Chronicles emphasises the grace of God… It is amazing that God would bring one so wicked to genuine repentance, but the grace of God is able to save the most guilty.
- The name — Jerusalem was God's one chosen place. The temple, the sacrifices, the feasts, and the people's joy before Him all belonged there.
- The insult — God measured His people's guilt by the place where He dwelt. Manasseh's idolatry set altars beside God's own altar.
- The zeal — Manasseh may have felt more religious than his father. Building altars God never asked for is the folly of unbelief.
- The forgetting — His name recalled God's mercy to Hezekiah. He forgot that goodness and led Judah to do worse than the nations.
- The outcome — Staying in the land became a moral impossibility. Yet Chronicles adds what Kings leaves out: grace reached even this king.
And he built altars to all the host of heaven in both courts of the house of Jehovah.
Manasseh was the son of a good king, yet he brought back the very worship his father had destroyed — and he set it up inside the courts of God's own house. Two hard questions follow: why did star worship pull so strongly at God's people, and how long does God wait when His own house is turned against Him?
Hezekiah had cleansed the land. His son undid the work. One writer notes that this pattern is common, and that a long reign is no proof of God's approval.
Often a fast slide into decline follows a time of revival. And strangely, Scripture does not say that God marked this state of things with special judgments. Manasseh's reign overflowed with idolatry. It is also the longest reign recorded among the kings of Judah and of Israel. You cannot judge people's condition by how severe or how gentle God's ways with them are.
This was no single slip. The same writer traces a whole descent: high places rebuilt, altars to Baal, a statue in the temple, altars in the house and in its two courts, star worship, child sacrifice, fortune-tellers.
The phrase covers the sun, moon and stars. Judah did not just admire them. They looked to them for guidance, and one writer notes that people still do.
They worshipped the hosts of the heavens from housetops. They worshipped the stars. They studied their movements as if the stars could give them help and a revelation. Astrology, so widely practised among civilised nations today, is an old cult.
Looking up was never the sin. The mistake was stopping at what the eye can see.
Also, if they lifted their eyes up to heaven, past the level of creatures on earth, they were to be sure to look above the sun, moon and stars. They were to look to the One who had created all these things, and not to worship these visible works of God's hands... God did create these wonderful heavenly bodies. But they are there only to turn our attention to their unseen Maker.
Manasseh set these altars in the two courts of God's own house. One writer explains why that address matters so much.
If it is really true that God dwells on earth in a "dwelling place," then clearly that place must be of the greatest importance... If it was a question of idolatry, He says, "They have set their altars by my altar."
These altars also told the truth about the men who built them.
On the roof there were altars made by the kings of Judah, certainly an insult to God whose altar outside and that inside the temple 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.
Manasseh was a king of Judah and the son of a good king. That is what makes this record so painful to read.
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 was the worst of all corruptions — the corruption of the best. The higher the fall, the deeper the plunge.
Manasseh himself was later broken, and restored. Judah still lost the land. One writer shows how both things can be true at once.
Manasseh was converted in his later years. Even so, the evil he had done was enormous, and it had deeply defiled Judah. God's grace may triumph over man's sin and save him from eternal judgment. Yet God's government still judges whatever evil has been done. So God would remove Judah from their land, just as He had let Israel be removed.
And the man who built those altars was not beyond mercy.
God brought the king of Assyria against Manasseh, who bound him with bronze chains and carried him to Babylon. There, in his trouble, Manasseh humbled himself deeply and prayed to the Lord his God. God heard his prayer and brought him back to Jerusalem. Then he knew that Jehovah was God. He removed the idols, repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed to Him... Thus God gave repentance to this wicked king.
- Reversal. Manasseh undid his father's reform fast. A fast slide into decline often follows a time of revival.
- Misread stars. The sun, moon and stars — the host of heaven — point us to their unseen Maker. They were never made to guide us.
- Wrong address. Manasseh set his altars in the two courts of God's own house. The place where God dwells is of the greatest importance.
- Deepest fall. A king of Judah, son of a good king, fell furthest. The worst corruption is the corruption of the best.
- Two ledgers. God gave Manasseh repentance and brought him home. His government still judged the evil Manasseh had done, and Judah lost the land.
And he caused his son to pass through the fire, and used magic and divination, and appointed necromancers and soothsayers he wrought evil beyond measure in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger.
This verse holds the worst items in the record of Manasseh's reign: a son burned in sacrifice, a king consulting the spirit world, and a God provoked to anger. Commentators ask how a son of Hezekiah reached this point, and whether such a life can ever be turned around.
The phrase describes an act of worship offered to a foreign god. The ESV says he "burned his son as an offering." Older translations say he made his son pass through the fire. One reference work asks whether that older wording softens what happened:
This is the Fire-god, "the abomination of Ammon." The Israelites sacrificed their children to this idol. Passing their children through the fire might seem to mean that the children were only dedicated to the idol, moved quickly through a fire without being burnt. That may have been done. But some passages do not allow this reading. Of the Canaanites it is said, "their sons and their daughters they have burned in the fire to their gods."
The words in this verse each name a trade. One comes from a Hebrew root meaning to whisper:
Enchanter, nachash, means "a whisperer." This seems to refer to the songs sung or the charms muttered before getting an answer from the spirits they wished to consult. It was one of the things Manasseh turned to.
The ESV calls the next practice "omens." Older versions call it "observing times":
An observer of times had his lucky and unlucky days. Nothing could be started without first consulting the gods.
These were not harmless customs. One writer names what stood behind them:
Calling on familiar spirits and wizards shows that the powers of hell were behind idol worship. All this was strictly forbidden to the Jews.
Another writer sees the same power at work today:
Then came enchantments, witchcraft and wizards. He also dealt with a familiar spirit. This was demon-power manifested as it is today in spiritualism and similar cults.
None of this was new ground. The law had closed each of these doors long before, and it warned against curiosity too:
At the same time there is the strictest guard against all curious prying into the will of God that He had not revealed. It guards, as follows here, against tampering with divination or the observation of times, against enchantments or charms, and against consulting familiar spirits, wizards, or necromancers. "For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you."
His father Hezekiah gave him a name that carried a memory:
Manasseh means "forgetting." No doubt Hezekiah named him this because the LORD had rescued him and so 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. He threw himself headlong into the worst turning away from God.
The verse ends with the LORD provoked to anger. Yet Manasseh kept his throne for fifty-five years. One writer reads that long reign as a warning, not as approval:
Even if Manasseh did reign 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. But the longer He shows patience, the more awesome and terrible we can expect His judgment to be.
The account here stops at the sin. Another book of the Bible tells the rest:
Kings says nothing about his conversion and his later reign. We find the record of these events in Chronicles. His conversion was indeed a miracle of grace.
Grace, though, did not cancel what he had set in motion for the nation:
God was so merciful, yet the evil of Manasseh brought the government of God upon the nation. The godly life of Josiah delayed the judgment. But when it came, it is written, "Surely at the commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah, to remove them out of His sight, for the sins of Manasseh." 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. Even so, the righteous government of God fell upon the guilty nation he had led astray.
- Forgot — his name meant "forgetting." A father God had spared gave it to him, and he forgot the mercy behind it.
- Burned — the fire was worship offered to a fire-god, and the older wording hides nothing of what happened to the child.
- Consulted — whispered charms, lucky days, mediums. The powers of hell stood behind it all, and God had already forbidden every one of these practices.
- Provoked — fifty-five quiet years changed nothing. Mistake God's patience for indifference, and the coming judgment only grows heavier.
- Pardoned — he humbled himself and God heard him, a miracle of grace; yet the nation he had led astray still went into judgment.
And he set the graven image of the Asherah that he had made, in the house of which Jehovah 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 did more than worship idols; he carried one into the house God had marked out as His own. This verse sets God's promise to David and Solomon beside the carved image standing in that same house.
The verse calls the object an Asherah. Older translations use the word "grove," which can make a reader picture trees. Writers say the word cannot mean that, and that Manasseh's image was made of different material from the wooden ones:
The word "grove" suggests a row of trees. But that cannot be the meaning, since people set up groves "under every green tree" (1 Kings 14:23; 2 Kings 17:10). Manasseh set a carved image of the grove that he had made in the temple, which Josiah removed, burned, and ground to powder (2 Kings 21:7; 2 Kings 23:6). This was no doubt made of metal, while the groves were of wood, as we learn from their being cut down and burned.
The address is what makes this crime so great. Manasseh planted his idol in the one house God had promised to keep His eye on:
Josiah cleared Jerusalem first — the Lord's chosen centre. "The grove" appears to have been an image of Astarte. Imagine such a horror set up in the house of the Lord — the house about which He once said that His eyes and His heart would always be there! (2 Chron. 7:16).
Another writer names what such an act shows about the man who did it.
But Manasseh showed utter contempt for God in the way he treated God's temple.
Because Judah held the highest privilege, her fall carried the furthest. The nation that bore God's name became the nation that shamed it:
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 this record of Judah — worse than the nations around her? Seven hundred years later the apostle declared by the Spirit what was already true of Manasseh and Judah: "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
If God said His name would be in that house forever, why did He later leave it? Commentators point to a vision God gave Ezekiel, in which He explains His own absence:
Here you have God's glory and the image that provoked Him to jealousy side by side. He has already left the land. Now He is going to show that He was right to be outside it. He lifts Ezekiel up by His almighty power and sets him again in Jerusalem. It is as though He would say to him, "I will show you the reason for My absence from that city where I promised My name should be forever."
Manasseh's fifty-five year reign raises a question about delay. Commentators answer it plainly:
Supposing Manasseh did reign for 55 years, that made no difference to the certainty of God's judgment. People too often mistake God's patience for softness or indifference. But the longer He waits, the more awesome and terrible we can expect His judgment to be.
The lesson is not only about statues. Writers tie Manasseh's image to "the image of jealousy" in Ezekiel's vision, and then to idols no one can see:
In a vision the prophet saw the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy, set up in the temple (Ezek. 8:3-5), just as Manasseh set up the carved image in the house of the Lord. But the scope of the prophecy no doubt points as well to secret idolatry mixed into the service of the temple, and to secret idols in the hearts of people who claimed to worship God. Such idols would surely provoke the jealousy of the Lord.
- Chosen — God named one house and one city as the home of His name forever. Everything else in this verse is measured against that choice.
- Claimed — He said His eyes and His heart would always be on that house. That is what makes an idol planted inside it a horror, not a small slip.
- Corrupted — the highest privilege led to the deepest fall. Judah's sin made the watching nations blaspheme God's name.
- Confronted — the same kind of image returns in Ezekiel's vision as "the image of jealousy." God showed it to Ezekiel as the reason for His absence from that city.
- Cleansed — Josiah took that metal image out, burned it, and ground it to powder. Hidden idols in the heart still need the same treatment.
neither will I any more cause the foot of Israel to wander away from the land that I gave their fathers; if they will only take heed to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them.
Manasseh filled Jerusalem with idols, yet this verse recalls God's older promise: Israel would keep the land He gave their fathers, if they obeyed all He commanded. The chapter shows what Judah lost by ignoring that condition.
The verse ties Israel's stay in the land to careful obedience. One writer notes what Manasseh thought he was doing while he broke it:
He gave himself completely to the gross wickedness of the idolatry of the nations. He even set a carved image of Asherah in the house of the Lord, the house the Lord had chosen as His centre in Israel. In doing this, his desire was to keep Israel from wandering from the Lord and being scattered! How foolish an attitude, for Israel's preservation depended on their careful obedience to the commandments of the Lord as given through Moses.
"The land that I gave to their fathers" points back to a gift. One writer separates that original gift from the terms on which Israel lived in the land:
God gave the promises to the patriarchs without any condition at all. But the Israelites have never had unconditional possession of the land of Canaan... So the Israelites never held the land on anything more than conditional terms. And a conditional gift is plainly no fulfilment of an unconditional promise.
Judah's failure under Manasseh did not cancel what God had sworn to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It cost them the enjoyment of it:
He promised them that if they would obey, He would keep His covenant which He swore to their fathers. In fact, whether they obeyed or not, God will keep that covenant made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the end, for it is unconditional. Yet if Israel had obeyed God, they would have reaped the benefits of the covenant in the land. As long as they obeyed, they would never be put out of it.
God names the standard: "all the Law that my servant Moses commanded them." One writer lists the Lord's words here among the witnesses that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible:
That Moses wrote these five inspired records is clear from the testimony of the books themselves (Deuteronomy 31:9, 24). Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, the Lord Himself (2 Kings 21:8), Josiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, Malachi, Christ (John 5:45-47) and many others all say the same.
Manasseh led the nation past the level of the peoples God had already removed from that land. One writer shows why Judah could then no longer stay:
The consequence was that Manasseh not only did evil himself. He also led the people astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord destroyed. How was it possible then for Judah to stay in the land of the Lord? It became a moral impossibility.
The land God had cleared of those nations could not hold a people who copied them.
One writer sets the account in Kings beside the account in Chronicles, which tells what God did with Manasseh himself:
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 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!
- Gift. God gave the land to the fathers as an unconditional promise. Nothing Israel did earned it, and nothing they did could cancel it.
- Condition. Living in that gift was another matter. Their stay depended on careful obedience to everything God had commanded.
- Measure. The standard was not their own judgment. It was the Law given through Moses, writings this verse shows God Himself standing behind.
- Forfeit. Manasseh led Judah past the sins of the nations God had removed from that land. Staying there became a moral impossibility.
- Grace. Kings closes the account on the king's responsibility. Manasseh's humbling shows grace working through judgment. No heart is too hard for it.
But they would not hearken, and Manasseh led them astray to do more evil than the nations that Jehovah had destroyed from before the children of Israel.
Manasseh became king of Judah, and under him the nation sank lower than the peoples God had driven out of that land. How can one king drag a whole people down, and can a nation that outdoes such evil stay in God's land?
Manasseh's sin did not stay his own. It reached the temple, and then it reached the people.
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. Instead they did worse evil than the ungodly nations whom God had destroyed so that Israel could take the land.
The verse does not present a strong man overpowering an unwilling nation. Two wills meet here, and both are guilty.
When Hezekiah died at the age of fifty-four, his son was only twelve years old. Manasseh was deceived himself, and he led the people astray. They were only too willing to commit greater wickedness than the nations who did not know God.
Position multiplies the damage a single person can do.
"One sinner destroys much good," especially when that one has a place of position and influence. When the soldier carrying the flag collapses in the day of battle, the army often loses heart and is easily defeated. In the same way, once Satan has trapped a leader in the Church of God, he often finds it easy work to ensnare many who are less prominent.
The sting of the verse is in the comparison. Judah did not merely sin; Judah outdid the nations whose sin had emptied the land.
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 records of Judah — "more evil than the nations" God had destroyed? Of Manasseh and Judah you could truly say what the apostle, by the Spirit, declared seven hundred years later: "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
Why should the people who had the temple and the law sink lower than those who had neither?
And these were not pagans; pagans were never so bad as that. It is God's people in a bad state who are worse than anybody. … The more light there is, if people are not faithful, the worse they are. … And so the nearer you are to the blessing, if the blessing is not yours, the more guilty you are.
Judah had now outdone the nations God drove out before them. That left one question about the land itself.
The result was that Manasseh did evil himself, and he also "led them astray to do more evil than the nations had done whom the LORD destroyed." How could Judah then remain in the land of the LORD? It became a moral impossibility.
Yet God did not strike at once. A delay like that is easy to misread.
You cannot judge people's condition by how severe or mild God's dealings with them are. This was exactly the mistake of Job's friends. They judged his character by his troubles, and assumed that people with no troubles must be fairly righteous. God judges what people do by what it is in relation to Himself, not by how they behave toward the world around them.
This book records the ruin and stops there. Another book of the Bible picks his story up again, and the two accounts end in very different places.
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 wonderful thought, that the hearts of the most hardened may become the objects of grace!
- Listening first. The collapse begins with a people who would not listen. Every other sin in the verse grows out of that refusal.
- Leading next. Manasseh was deceived before he deceived others, and the people followed willingly. Leaders carry more weight. Followers still answer for their own choice.
- Sinking lower. The tragedy is not ordinary evil. It is the corruption of the best: those with the temple outdid the nations who had none.
- Light measured. Light you do not live by makes you worse, not better. The nearer you stand to a blessing you refuse, the greater your guilt.
- Grace last. Kings closes the account at responsibility. Chronicles reopens it at mercy: even the hardest heart can still become the object of grace.