II Chronicles 32-33; II Kings 21
Today, as in the past we have readings from Chronicles and Kings. If you are reading from The Chronological Study Bible you’ll have to move forward a few pages after II Chronicles 32 and II Kings 21 to get to II Chronicles 33. In between is material that we will cover in the next few days.
Today’s readings… For the past few days we have been reading about Hezekiah, one of the good kings of Judah. Today’s II Chronicles 32 closes out his life, then II Chronicles 33 introduces his son and grandson, Manasseh and Amon, respectively. Actually, we both introduce and close out both of their lives in II Chronicles 33 and in II Kings 21. Surprisingly though, we see different records of Manasseh in the Chronicles and Kings accounts. Kings has nothing good to say about Manasseh:
And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them … And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him to anger. And the carved image of Asherah that he had made he set in the house of … the LORD…
II Kings 21:2-3, 5-7a
The Chronicles account, however, also details Manasseh’s repentance and humility. After he had been captured by the king of Assyria and taken to Babylon,
…when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. 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.
II Chronicles 33:12-13
Seemingly his repentance was solid:
And he took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the LORD, and all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of the LORD and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside of the city. He also restored the altar of the LORD and offered on it sacrifices of peace offerings and of thanksgiving, and he commanded Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel.
II Chronicles 33:15-16
So Chronicles leaves Manasseh on a good note.
Following Manasseh and Amon we will move on to another good king, Josiah. So what we see (and as The Chronological Study Bible comments) is Ahaz bad, Hezekiah good, Manasseh and Amon bad, Josiah good. It struck me in a small way that this chronology is a picture of our own lives – certainly mine! We repent and turn it around, then go back to where we were; we repent and turn it around, then go back… Thankfully our Lord is ever-merciful and ever-forgiving! “Oh God, be merciful to me, the sinner.”
What is puzzling about all this to me is that Hezekiah was king of Judah for 29 years. He was a good king, set a good example for the people, and presumably the people
followed God faithfully.
Then his son Manasseh becomes king and promptly turns everything 180°. And presumably, the people followed him in his evil ways. Didn’t Manasseh learn anything from his father? What would cause him to make such a radical change? I realize that the biblical narrative compresses time quite a lot, but in any case this is still puzzling to me.
Like Dick, I have been puzzled about the same thing. However, on thinking about it, I’ve thought of several things that might explain it. First , the Canaanite culture is still around the region — just not in Jewish controlled towns — and there was a lot of sex in the Canaanite religion (temple prostitutes), and sex is always a temptation for humans. Also, I believe the population was encouraged to behave and believe like the king, so once the king opened the door, everyone else followed him. And then, once the Asherah poles arrive it’s easier to accept the Molech child sacrifices.
I wondered much the same thing a couple of weeks ago, when we first looked at Ahaz. I think Katey offers a few very valid clues about the problem, primarily the ongoing Canaanite practices due to the failure of the Israelites to follow God’s instructions to eliminate that culture. But all of this is offered to us for our instruction, yet I, like Fred, see the same patterns, not only “out there” in our nation but in my own life. It is encouraging that, although Manasseh is primarily known for his evil practices (as we shall see), when he repents, the LORD is still merciful. Praise God for that! There is hope for us yet!
What struck me was the polarity of the peoples’ focus. They didn’t seem to wander through the grey so much as snap from one direction to the opposite. That the Canaanite influence surrounded them makes that tendency make more sense.
In my own experience, my attention drifts and returns not so much to opposing directions, but off the path enough that neglected for long, would surely lead way astray.