Chapter 33
Manasseh begins to reign at the age of 12. First 9 verses are about the evil that Manasseh did, in some detail. He was very much into astrology, necromancy, fortune telling, omens, sorcery, and mediums. He worshiped the occult. He seems to have been obsessed with such thing. Why do people go there when it is God with the proven track record of prophecy and foretelling? And when it is God that wipes out these pretenders and the nations that follow their ways? As this reads, it wasn't just one of his sons that Manasseh sacrificed to the fire, but several of them. Why did he reign for 55 years?
I note that this whole chapter reads very much like the chapter about Manasseh in 2Kgs, also restating the covenant conditions that Manasseh was breaking.
2026 - It is interesting in vs 2 that Manasseh is not accused of being evil in the same way as the Kings of Israel, which is the charge leveled against several Kings of Judah, but this King was evil in the wqays of the nations that Yahway had dispossessed under Joshua. Remember Dt 18:9-14, and all the occult things that resulted in those people being driven out. We see in the next several verses that it was these same things that Manasseh adopted, or played around with...or trusted. God really hates this kind of thing. Really really! 2 And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. [2Ch 33:2 ESV]
Then this:
10 The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention. 11 Therefore the LORD brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon. [2Ch 33:10-11 ESV]
I did not read about this (yet?) in 2K. Assyria came back after Sennacherib was murdered, and Manasseh is captured. Did he open the doors? How did he get captured? Did Jerusalem fall at this time??? MSB says Babylon had rebelled against Assyria, and possibly Manasseh had supported Babylon, and was therefore taken to Assyria for trial. But we see nothing about how they got to him?
Manasseh repents in his distress - truly repents - and God hears him, and the Assyrians let him return to Jerusalem. This verse:
13 He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God. [2Ch 33:13 ESV]
He finally accepted the truth. He had to have know it in his head, but now it is in his heart.
He sets about trying to undo the evil he had put in place, removing idols from the Temple, starting the sacrifices again, and he also did some building, adding an outer wall to part of the city for defense. Even so, the people continued to make sacrifices on the high places, but only to God. Problem was, this was not the procedure God established and still required.
2026 - This is a great story of repentance. After his captivity by Assyria, Manasseh comes to depend entirely on God. He eschews all the garbage he was into before, and return the county to worshiping Yahweh.
Manasseh dies, and his son Amon reigns in his place.
I had in my head that it was the sins of Manasseh that finally broke across the line and brought wrath on Jerusalem itself, and resulted in the Babylonian captivity. I thought it said several places, in so many words, that Manasseh was the straw that broke it all down. But this chapter doesn't indicate that at all. It says Manasseh repented, and tried to do good, possibly for a majority of his reign. So this is why he was allowed to stay in power for so long. He truly repented. If one who has killed his own children by burning them as sacrifices to an idol can be saved, who can God not save? This was a truly evil man, repented, converted by the 2x4 method of being captured and taken to a foreign land and having everything stripped away from him. In Manasseh's case, this brought him back. But it does not always work.
Amon only reigns for two years, and repeats his father's early errors. His servants conspire and kill him, then the people kill the servants who killed the king. Amon's son Josiah reigns in his place.