And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipeth a pan, wiping it and turning it upside down.
Manasseh's reign had filled Jerusalem with terrible evil. This verse is God's answer, spoken while the king still sat on the throne. Two builder's tools and one kitchen image carry the whole message. God will measure Jerusalem by the standard that already condemned others, and then empty her.
The measuring line and the plumb line are borrowed from two ruins the people knew well. Samaria was the northern capital. It had already fallen, and Ahab's royal family had already perished. Now God holds the same tools against Jerusalem. One writer shows how plain the warning should have been:
It was a horrifying accusation, but a completely just one, and it should have brought the nation to repentance. Its threats, if nothing else, should have shocked them out of their sins. They knew what had happened to Samaria — it had already fallen. Jerusalem would receive the same punishment. The house of Ahab had perished, and their kings would not escape a similar judgment.
Scripture takes an everyday building tool and makes it a picture of judgment:
A plumb line is a simple device: a lump of lead, a stone, or another weight tied to a string. It tests whether a building or other structure stands upright. It pictures the exactness of the judgment God brought on Israel. God had built Israel up as a wall with a plumb line, and with a plumb line He would pull it down.
The second image comes from the kitchen. You do not rinse a dish and leave it standing; you wipe it out and turn it over, empty. Manasseh's long reign of fifty-five years might have suggested God had lost interest:
This judgment of Jerusalem would be no less severe than the judgment on Samaria and the house of Ahab. Jerusalem would be wiped clean, the way someone wipes a dish and turns it upside down. Manasseh may have reigned for 55 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. Yet the longer He shows patience, the more awesome and terrible we can expect His judgment to be.
God had not stopped speaking to Judah. But His word now carried one message only:
Manasseh's deeds called for judgment, but God was not yet done with His testimony in Judah… God's Word still remains the only resource in these difficult times. Yet it says nothing except that judgment is coming on the people, judgment from which there is no appeal.
The verse names Manasseh, but the account reaches back much further:
The nation's cup of sin had been filling up for centuries. Manasseh's defiance of God's Word and his extreme evil made that cup overflow… They had provoked their God to anger "since the day their fathers came out of Egypt." So the evil was persistent and hopeless.
Josiah, Manasseh's grandson, later led a national reform. It bought time; it did not undo the sentence spoken here. "Lo-ammi" means "not my people" — the name God uses when He disowns:
The Holy Spirit shows us God's dealings with Judah, governed by the conduct of their kings, until God has said, "Lo-ammi." This had already been announced because of Manasseh's terrible sins, and Josiah's piety could not change the just judgment of God.
God did what He had said. But the God who announced the ruin also announced a return:
God had already carried out His word… Yet even as He was leaving Jerusalem, He announced deliverance and blessing, just as He did before driving our first parents out of Eden. He said: "I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel," Ezek. 11:17.
Manasseh himself met a different end:
God brought the king of Assyria against Manasseh, who bound him with chains and carried him to Babylon. There Manasseh, in his suffering, humbled himself deeply and prayed to the Lord his God. God heard his prayer and brought him back to Jerusalem… He is often held up as an example 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.
- Measured — the line and plumb line show the exactness of God's judgment. The wall He built up, He takes down by the same standard.
- Precedent — that standard had already levelled Samaria and Ahab's house. Judah could see her own future in their ruins.
- Patience — fifty-five years of evil reign showed God's patience, not His indifference. That patience reached back to the exodus.
- Emptied — the dish is wiped out and turned over. Josiah's reform could not cancel the judgment.
- Mercy — the sentence on the nation stood. Yet God promised to gather His people again, and the king who provoked the sentence found grace in captivity.
And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies;
God speaks through His prophets against Manasseh's reign. The sentence falls on more than the king. It falls on the last land and people God still called His own. Two hard questions follow. How can God forsake what He calls His inheritance? Is there any way back?
The phrase measures how little was left. Judah was the remnant, and God now says He will hand over even that. One writer sets the threat beside God's earlier care for Jerusalem under Hezekiah:
What a contrast this would be to the preserving, protecting care of God over Hezekiah when his enemies attacked him! God would forsake the remnant of His inheritance. They were the small number who had first proven faithful to Him. But they had turned away in foolish submission to the folly of their wilful king. Their enemies would defeat and plunder them. Their evil had provoked God to anger from the time He delivered them out of Egypt, and all through their history.
God had not stopped speaking to Judah. But what the prophets now brought was notice of judgment, not an offer. And the charge reached back to the exodus:
Manasseh's deeds called for judgment, but God was not yet done with His testimony in Judah. "And the Lord spoke by His servants the prophets." God's Word still remains the only resource in difficult times. But here it is nothing other than the testimony of coming judgment for the people, judgment with no appeal… The Lord links their state to their exodus from Egypt. From that time on they had been sinning. Could anyone say that God has not shown patience toward those on whom His name has been called?
This is not a sudden verdict. The verse names Manasseh's sin, but one writer reads the sentence as a cup that had been filling for centuries:
Storm-clouds were gathering over the guilty nation. Everything was breaking up. The kingdom was about to end… Its cup of sin had been filling up for centuries. Manasseh's defiance of the Lord's Word and his excessive evil made the cup overflow… He would forsake His people and cause them to "become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies." They had provoked their God to anger "since the day their fathers came out of Egypt." It was persistent and hopeless evil.
Manasseh himself later humbled himself and prayed, and God heard him. So why did the judgment still fall? Writers separate God's pardon of a person from His government of a people. They point to David as the pattern:
Although God was so merciful, the evil of Manasseh brought the government of God upon the nation. Josiah's godliness delayed the judgment. But when it came, it is written, "Surely this came upon Judah at the command of the Lord, to remove them out of His sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also for the innocent blood that he had shed" … 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 fell upon the guilty nation he had led astray.
One writer puts both sides in a single line:
Manasseh, who overfilled Israel's cup of sin, is doubtless in Heaven, a sinner saved by grace late in life. But the governmental consequences of his sins remain to this day.
Judah would lose more than land. They would lose the title that set them apart. One writer names that loss, and the promise that reverses it:
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The Lord had left Jerusalem, and the throne on earth passed to the Gentiles… If God is not there, what meaning does the title "the people of God" still have? And when will this poor but ever-loved people find their blessedness again? When will "Lo-ammi" be for ever wiped from their forehead, to make way for that precious title "Ammi"? … Already, as He left Jerusalem, He announced the deliverance and the blessing. He had done the same before He drove Adam and Eve out of Eden: "I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel."
- Inheritance — Judah was all that was left of what God owned. Now He warns that He will let even that go.
- Patience — The charge runs all the way back to Egypt. This sentence ends centuries of patience. It is not a sudden temper.
- Forsaken — God shielded Jerusalem under Hezekiah. Now He promises to hand the same city to its enemies as plunder.
- Government — God forgave Manasseh, yet the nation he had led astray still reaped. Pardon and God's government are not the same thing, as David's house also shows.
- Ammi — The sentence took the title "the people of God" away. Yet in the same breath God promised the gathering that brings it back.
because they have done evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt even to this day.
Here God explains why Jerusalem will fall, and His charge does not stop at Manasseh. It runs back through the whole story of the nation to the day Israel left Egypt — so how long will God bear with evil, and what happens when His patience runs out?
The words "since the day their fathers came out of Egypt" are the sting of the verse. One writer notes that God does not date the trouble from Manasseh's reign at all, and points to what God's Word was still doing in those days:
So God's Word still remains the only resource in these difficult times. But it is nothing other than the testimony of coming judgment for the people, judgment from which there is no appeal… The Lord links their state to their exodus from Egypt. From that time on they had been sinning. Could anyone then, or can anyone now, say that God has not been patient with the people who are called by His name?
How much does that one word "evil" cover? One writer stretches it across the whole of Israel's past:
They have done evil in the sight of Jehovah their God, to provoke Him to anger. That one word, "evil," takes all in, from the calf at Horeb to the cross at Calvary. Such is Israel's past.
The calf at Horeb was the idol Israel worshipped soon after leaving Egypt. The line from it to Calvary, the place where Jesus was crucified, marks a settled habit, not one slip.
Manasseh may have reigned 55 years (v.1). 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.
Just before this verse comes a shocking threat: God will abandon the people He had kept as His own. One writer sets that beside the way He once guarded the same city:
What a contrast this would be to God's care, when He kept and protected Hezekiah under attack! God would forsake the remnant of His inheritance. These were the few who had once proved faithful to Him, but they had turned away, foolishly giving in to the folly of their wilful king (v.14). Their enemies would defeat and plunder them. This was because of their evil in provoking God to anger, from the time He delivered them out of Egypt and all through their history.
Hezekiah was the king before Manasseh, and God shielded him when enemies came. Now the same city is left to its enemies.
Josiah was a godly king who came later. One writer weighs his devotion against a sentence God had already announced:
God had already announced this because of Manasseh's terrible sins. Josiah's godliness could not change God's just judgment.
Another writer follows the story to the day the sentence fell, and sets Manasseh beside David:
God was very merciful, yet Manasseh's evil brought the government of God upon the nation. When that judgment was carried out, Scripture says it came "at the command of the LORD, to remove them out of His sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did, and also for the innocent blood that he had shed… and the LORD would not pardon" (2 Kings 24:3-4). 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; though God heard and answered his prayer when he humbled himself, the righteous government of God fell upon the guilty nation he had led astray.
- Provocation — God dates the sin from the exodus, not from Manasseh. From the day they left Egypt they had been sinning. The charge is a national habit, not one bad reign.
- Patience — fifty-five untroubled years were no sign of God's approval. People mistake His patience for indifference. The longer it lasts, the more terrible His judgment will be.
- Pleading — God's Word was still the only resource in those dark days. But its message was judgment, and there was no appeal.
- Penalty — when patience ends, God forsakes the very people He had kept as His own. Once He shielded that city; now enemies plunder it.
- Pardon — God heard Manasseh when he humbled himself. Still the government of God ran its course over the nation he had led astray. Grace can forgive a man while the consequences fall.