CHAPTER 21

(698 B.C.)

MANASSEH REIGNS OVER JUDAH

¹Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mothers name was Hephzi-bah. (As Hezekiah was at least one of the Godliest kings of Judah, his son Manasseh was the most ungodly and then, strangely enough, he would reign the longest, 55 years. But, at the last, he would come to the Lord.)

²And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out before the Children of Israel.

³For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal (the fire-god), and made a grove (this was the Asherah, the phallus; it is a Greek word, and means the male organ of procreation; it was the most debased of all forms of idolatry), as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them (the sun, moon, and stars).

⁴And he built altars in the House of the LORD, of which the LORD said, In Jerusalem will I put My Name (he created altars to other gods in the very Temple of Jehovah; this was spiritual pollution beyond anything any other evil king had ever done).

⁵And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the House of the LORD (idol gods were also set up in both the inner and outer Courts of the Temple).

⁶And he made his son pass through the fire (human sacrifice), and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards (witchcraft): he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger (sin is the one thing which angers God).

⁷And he set a graven image of the grove that he had made in the House, of which the LORD said to David, and to Solomon his son, In this House, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all Tribes of Israel, will I put My Name for ever (Manasseh was not satisfied to introduce his new religions into the land; he went further and set up the most hideous of idols, the Asherah, in the very Temple itself, and it is believed by some that he put it in the very Holy of Holies):

⁸Neither will I make the feet of Israel move any more out of the land which I gave their fathers; only if they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the Law that My servant Moses commanded them (this Verse proclaims the Lord desiring to do great things for Israel, if only they would obey Him).

⁹But they hearkened not: and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the Children of Israel (Manasseh seduced them; this is not said of any other king of Judah; he not only sinned himself, but spent time and effort to seduce others to join him in his sinning).

PROPHECY OF JUDGMENT ON MANASSEH FOR HIS EVIL REIGN

¹⁰And the LORD spoke by His servants the Prophets, saying,

¹¹Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations, and has done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and has made Judah also to sin with his idols:

¹²Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever hears of it, both his ears shall tingle. (Let it ever be known that sin will forever be punished. The punishment fell upon Christ, which He took at the Cross of Calvary and, if Christs Cross is rejected, the punishment will fall upon the sinner but fall it must!)

¹³And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipes a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down (I will do to Jerusalem as I have done to Samaria; I will execute upon it a similar judgment; the metaphor of wiping the dish expresses contempt, as well as condemnation).

¹⁴And I will forsake the remnant of My inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies (the years which immediately followed the captivity were years of terrible suffering to the remnant whom Nebuchadnezzar left in the land; every petty power in the neighborhood felt itself at liberty to make incursions into Judah at its pleasure, to plunder and ravage, and drive off captives, or massacre them in cold blood, or commit any other atrocity);

¹⁵Because they have done that which was evil in My sight, and have provoked Me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day (the moral and spiritual depravity of Judah, though it only came to a head in the time of Manasseh, had its roots in a long-distant past).

¹⁶Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; beside his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of the LORD (this was probably a bloody persecution of the faithful; Josephus declares positively that Manasseh cruelly put to death all the righteous among the Hebrews, and did not even spare the Prophets; a tradition, very widely received, declared Isaiah to have been one of the victims).

DEATH OF MANASSEH; AMON HIS SUCCESSOR

¹⁷Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and all that he did, and his sin that he sinned, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah? (Even though it is not recorded here, the captivity and restoration of Manasseh are recorded in II Chron. 33:11-19. It is a remarkable story of the Grace of God; and it can only be explained by the Grace of God!)

¹⁸And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza: and Amon his son reigned in his stead.

AMONS EVIL TWO-YEAR REIGN OVER JUDAH

¹⁹Amon was twenty and two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. And his mothers name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah.

²⁰And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his father Manasseh did.

²¹And he walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshipped them:

²²And he forsook the LORD God of his fathers, and walked not in the way of the LORD (he did not even maintain an outward observance of the Law of Moses, but set it wholly aside).

DEATH OF AMON; JOSIAH HIS SUCCESSOR

²³And the servants of Amon conspired against him, and killed the king in his own house (the Scripture doesnt say why).

²⁴And the people of the land killed all them who had conspired against king Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead (after having punished the conspirators with death, they sought out the true heir and, having found him, though he was a boy of but 8 years of age, placed him upon his fathers throne).

²⁵Now the rest of the acts of Amon which he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah?

²⁶And he was buried in his sepulchre in the garden of Uzza: and Josiah his son reigned in his stead (in the same place as his father).