Chapter Thirty-Three

Kings of Judah: 14th – Manasseh and 15th – Amon

(See 2 Kgs 21:1-26)

1–9. The time of Manasseh’s accession and the duration of his reign; the general – impious – character of the first half of his reign; the mixture of true worship with idolatry. 10–13. The punishment of Manasseh through captivity, his repentance and the restoration to him of his kingdom. 14–20. The fortification of Jerusalem, the elimination of idols, the renewal of legitimate worship, and the death of Manasseh. 21–25. The two-year impious reign of Amon and his violent death.

2 Chronicles 33:1. Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem, 2 Chronicles 33:2. and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, following the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the sons of Israel, 2 Chronicles 33:3. and he built again the high places that Hezekiah his father had torn down, and erected altars for the Baals, and made sacred poles, and worshipped all the host of heaven and served them; 2 Chronicles 33:4. and he erected altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said: In Jerusalem shall My name be forever; 2 Chronicles 33:5. and he erected altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. 2 Chronicles 33:6. And he made his sons pass through fire in the valley of Ben-hinnom, and practiced divination and sought omens and sorcery, and appointed those who consult with mediums and spiritists; he did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. 2 Chronicles 33:7. And he set a carved image, which he had made, in the house of God, about which God 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, I will put My name forever; 2 Chronicles 33:8. and I will not again remove the foot of Israel from the land which I have appointed for your fathers, if only they will be careful to do all that I have commanded them, according to all the law and the statutes and the commandments given through Moses. 2 Chronicles 33:9. But Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray to do evil more than the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the sons of Israel. 2 Chronicles 33:10. And the Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they did not listen. See (2 Kgs 21:1-16); “Commentary on the Holy Bible,” vol. II, pp. 559–561. “On the two courts of the house of the Lord” (ver. 5), that is, the outer and inner courts (see comments on (1 Kgs 6:36); “Commentary on the Holy Bible,” vol. II, p. 392). In (2 Chr 33:6) it adds (in comparison with ver. 2 Kgs 21:6): “in the valley of Ben-hinnom” (Septuagint: ἐν γέ (ge – untranslated Hebrew word meaning “valley,” Βενεννόμ, Vulgate: in valle Benennom, Slavic: “in the valley of Beennom”). The highest manifestation of Manasseh’s religious syncretism was the setting up of a carved image of Asherah in the temple itself (ver. 7), while at the same time, apparently, the ark of the covenant was removed from the holy of holies, and was brought back there only under Manasseh’s grandson, the pious Josiah (2 Chr 35:3). Some scholars, on the basis of the enigmatic speech of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 3:16), consider it probable that Manasseh destroyed the ark of the covenant, but (2 Chr 35:3) apparently presupposes its existence during the reign of Josiah (see Prof. A. Smirnov, A New Construction of the History of the Hebrew People and New Judgments Concerning Its Historical Figures. A New Construction of the History of the Hebrew People and New Judgments Concerning Its Historical Figures. Supplement to the Edition of the Works of the Holy Fathers in Russian Translation, 1887, part 40, p. 217). The expression of that same broad religious syncretism of Manasseh was also his introduction into the temple of Solomon the Assyrian cult of the heavenly bodies (ver. 5). With the latter is associated the penetration into Judah during Manasseh’s time of Babylonian mythology, cosmogony, and cosmology (see Prof. A. Smirnov, pp. 221–224). Such apostasy of the king and the people of Judah from the religion of the Lord inevitably had to lead to the destruction of the kingdom of Judah, as this was clearly spoken of by the prophets contemporary with Manasseh (ver. 10, 18; cf. (2 Kgs 21:10-16)). But these rebukes not only failed to produce the desired effect on the king and people (ver. 10), but also provoked from the king bloody persecutions of the prophets (2 Kgs 21:16).

2 Chronicles 33:11. And the Lord brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, and they bound Manasseh in chains and shackled him, and took him to Babylon. 2 Chronicles 33:12. And when he was in distress, he besought the face of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. 2 Chronicles 33:13. And he prayed to Him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his prayer, and brought him back to Jerusalem to his kingdom. And Manasseh knew that the Lord is God. 2 Chronicles 33:14. And after this he built an outer wall for the city of David, on the west side of Gihon, down the valley and to the entrance of the Fish Gate, and carried it round about Ophel, and raised it to a great height. And he put military commanders in all the fortified cities of Judah, 2 Chronicles 33:15. and removed the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city. 2 Chronicles 33:16. And he restored the altar of the Lord and offered upon it sacrifices of peace-offerings and of thanksgiving, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel. 2 Chronicles 33:17. Nevertheless the people still sacrificed on the high places, though only to the Lord their God. What prophetic preaching could not accomplish in Manasseh was accomplished through the severe correction from God in the form of his captivity by the Assyrian king and his deportation to Babylon: there, amid the trials and sorrows of captivity, Manasseh was deeply humbled before the Lord, repented of his sins of idolatry, and through the prayer of faith was restored to his kingdom in Jerusalem, where he spent his remaining days in fortifying the city, in eliminating certain aspects of idolatry, and in restoring the practice of the cult of the Lord in complete purity and proper order (ver. 14–16). This account, found only in 2 Chronicles and absent in 4 Kings, has in modern times in Western European biblical scholarship been repeatedly doubted and denied as lacking not only historical testimony but also internal probability. It is said that already the absence of any account of Manasseh’s captivity and return in 4 Kings, as well as in the prophet Jeremiah, makes this account in 2 Chronicles very suspicious: if the author of 4 Kings had been aware of anything similar, he certainly would have included this event in his narrative; and the prophet Jeremiah not only knows nothing of Manasseh’s chastening and conversion, but indirectly denies the very possibility of this fact when he testifies that it was primarily Manasseh’s idolatry that brought about the captivity of the people of Judah in Babylon and the destruction of the kingdom of Judah (Jer 15:4). Among the internal inconsistencies of this testimony of 2 Chronicles are reckoned partly the mention in it of Babylon as the place of Manasseh’s captivity, and partly and especially the fact that, according to this testimony (ver. 15–16), the reform of the cult was begun not by Josiah, as (2 Kgs 22-23) and (2 Chr 34) testify, but already by Manasseh. The whole account (2 Chr 33:11-16), it is said, is merely an allegory of the fate of Israel, which for its sins was taken into captivity and then returned to its homeland. Nothing like this happened to Manasseh himself, and could not have happened: a faithful vassal of the Assyrian kings, he reigned peacefully for more than half a century on the throne of the kings of Judah. A later Jewish writer – the author of the Book of Chronicles – could not reconcile with his faith in retribution the fact that the most lawless of the kings of Judah reigned longer than all the other kings and died unpunished. This contradiction was resolved for the writer of 2 Chronicles by the account in question, though the occasion for it could have been provided by the prediction of the prophet Isaiah to Hezekiah about the deportation of his sons to Babylon (2 Kgs 20:18); (J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels. 3rd ed. Berlin 1886, p. 213; W. Stede, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, 1st vol. Berlin, 1897, pp. 639–664; cf. Prof. A. P. Smirnov, pp. 228–229). But all these objections have only an apparent foundation. In fact, the non-mention in the books of Kings of the fact of Manasseh’s captivity and return in no way can speak against the historical authenticity of this fact: in very numerous cases the book of Chronicles supplements the narratives of the books of Kings with new factual data drawn from chronicle documents; in particular, the account in (2 Kgs 21:1-16) of Manasseh’s reign is so noticeably fragmentary (cf. 2 Kgs 21:17-18) that it naturally requires supplementation, which is provided by (2 Chr 33:11-18). The prophet Jeremiah in his severe judgment concerning Manasseh (Jer 15:4) may have had in view the first, greater part of his reign, the baneful consequences of which extended to the time following Manasseh’s death. As for the supposed internal inconsistencies of the account, they are merely the fruit of misunderstanding on the part of biblical critics, a misunderstanding which is completely eliminated by the new data of Assyriology: according to the testimony of the latter, the captivity of the Judean king Manasseh by the Assyrian king, and specifically in Babylon, is a historical fact that stands above doubt (Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, 3rd ed., vol. 1852, p. 729). According to Assyrian records, among the vassals of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (689–661 BCE) was Manasseh, king of Judah (Minasi sar Jahudi); Esarhaddon’s son and successor Ashurbanipal carried out a harsh suppression of a coalition that had formed against him of West Asian kings headed by Shamash-shum-ukin, Ashurbanipal’s brother, and with the participation of the Egyptian pharaoh. Among these kings, vassals of Assyria, but who had rebelled against Ashurbanipal, we may naturally presume Manasseh of Judah, who was captured by the victor of the coalition, and since the center of the latter was Babylon (after Merodach-Baladan again made an Assyrian province under Esarhaddon), occupied by Shamash-shum-ukin, it is understandable that Ashurbanipal, establishing himself in Babylon, ordered Manasseh to be brought not to Nineveh but to Babylon. The event of Manasseh’s captivity is usually dated to 647 BCE, and consequently occurred in the 51st year of Manasseh’s reign, four years before his death (years of Manasseh’s reign, according to the accepted chronology: 698–643 BCE). It is more difficult to understand, judging by the historically known relations of the Assyrian kings toward defeated and captured kings, the fact of Manasseh’s restoration from captivity (the duration of captivity cannot be imagined to be considerable; it is conjectured to be not more than a year); however, there is nothing impossible here. 2 Chronicles points out (ver. 12–13) Manasseh’s repentance and conversion (a memorial of which remained in his prayer, cf. ver. 18) as the inner cause of his pardon and restoration; alongside this there could have been external circumstances favorable to him, such as some political upheaval in Assyria. That, in any case, Manasseh’s restoration was not an act of the Assyrian king’s favor is evident from the fact that Manasseh’s first action upon his restoration was to fortify Jerusalem and the other cities of Judah (ver. 14). Regarding the question of Manasseh’s captivity and restoration, see, for example, Kleinert in Riehm. Handwörterbuch des biblischen Alterthums, vol. II, pp. 962–963 (see “Commentary on the Holy Bible,” vol. II, p. 561). Regarding the “second” wall of Jerusalem, begun by Hezekiah (2 Chr 32:5) and only completed and more strongly fortified by Manasseh (ver. 14), see the comments on (2 Chr 32:5). The part of the city embraced by this wall was called the “second” (Hebrew mishneh), (2 Kgs 22:14). Regarding Gihon, see the comments on (2 Chr 32:30). Regarding Ophel, see the note on (2 Chr 27:3). “The Fish Gate” (Hebrew shaar (had) dagim), cf. (Neh 3:3; Zeph 1:10), was located in the middle of the second wall of Jerusalem, on the north of the city, approximately in the place of the present Damascus Gate; they were named thus, perhaps because the common people brought fish into Jerusalem through them (Neh 13:16). Together with the external fortification of his capital and his kingdom, Manasseh, upon his return from captivity, gave special attention to the removal from the temple and Jerusalem of the accoutrements of idolatry (ver. 15) and to the restoration of proper and devout worship of the Lord in His temple (ver. 16). But it is understandable that the people, which had been engrossed in idolatry for half a century, could not be sufficiently receptive to the king’s pious undertakings and still inclined toward the cult of the high places, albeit to the Lord (ver. 17). And Manasseh’s reform itself – already due to the brevity of the time period (from Manasseh’s restoration until his death) – could not be either wholly complete or, even more so, thorough, which is why a new, radical reform was soon required under Josiah (cf. ver. 15 with (2 Kgs 23:5-15)).

2 Chronicles 33:18. The other deeds of Manasseh, and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the Lord God of Israel, behold, they are written in the records of the kings of Israel. 2 Chronicles 33:19. And his prayer, and that God was moved by his entreaty, and all his sins and his transgression, and the places on which he built high places and set up images of Asherah and idols, before he humbled himself, these are written in the records of the seers. 2 Chronicles 33:20. And Manasseh rested with his fathers, and they buried him in his house. And Amon his son reigned in his stead. Here, in ver. 18 and 19, are named the sources of information for the history of Manasseh’s reign, namely: a) a general source – “the records of the kings of Israel,” which contained the rebukes of the seers to Manasseh (see 2 Kgs 21:10-15); b) a particular source – “the records of a certain seer Hozai,” which portrayed all the manifestations of Manasseh’s impiety (ver. 19). The Septuagint and Slavic text, instead of one person, see in the name Hozai a collective: seers (Hebrew hozim); Septuagint: ἐπὶ τῶν λόγων τῶν ὁρώντων, Slavic: “in the words of the seers.” But it is more probable to see here a reference to a particular source – the work of an individual seer, just as such references to the writings of individual persons occur elsewhere in 2 Chronicles, namely: Ahijah and Joels (2 Chr 9:29); Shemaiah and Iddo (2 Chr 12:15); Addo (2 Chr 13:22). In the Syriac translation stands Nabal, in the Arabic Saphan; c) finally, a “prayer” (Hebrew: tefillah, Greek: προςευχή, Latin: oratio, obsecratio) of Manasseh – obviously of a penitential character (“his prayer and that God was moved to him,” ver. 19) – which is not preserved in the Hebrew Bible. In place of the original text, which has not been preserved, the Greek and other translations of the Bible have an apocryphal prayer of Manasseh, placed in the Greek Bible at the end of the Psalter among 14 songs extracted from various places of Sacred Scripture, and in the Slavic-Russian translation following immediately after the last 36th chapter of 2 Chronicles. In this form the prayer of Manasseh – is of later origin (in it there is noted, as inconsistent with biblical view and teaching, the thought (ver. 8) that the patriarchs had no need for repentance). But its composition was attributed to this mention of “prayer” in (2 Chr 33:18-19). Prof. A. A. Olesnitsky, instead of the Hebrew tefillah (prayer), reads here: tifla (foolishness, temerity), and remarks: “As for the prayer of Manasseh mentioned in the citation according to the accepted reading (thephillah), it was inserted into the citation on a later correction, after the appearance of the well-known apocryphal prayer of Manasseh” (“State Chronicle of the Kings of Judah.” Works of the Kiev Spiritual Academy, 1879, No. 8, p. 455). But the correction admitted here has no support in textual tradition, and it seems more natural to explain the composition of the prayer on the basis of a general mention of it in the Bible than a tendentious correction of the text on the basis of the composed prayer. In spite of its apocryphal character, the prayer of Manasseh is an expression of ardent religious feeling, deep repentance, and humiliation, and therefore in the worship of the Orthodox Church is used as a model of a penitential prayer (the Service of the Great Compline). Manasseh was buried (ver. 20) in the garden of one Uzza, whom some identify with King Uzziah (cf. (2 Kgs 21:18); “Commentary on the Holy Bible,” vol. II, pp. 561–562).

2 Chronicles 33:21. Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. 2 Chronicles 33:22. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Manasseh his father had done; and Amon offered sacrifices to all the idols which Manasseh his father had made, and served them. 2 Chronicles 33:23. And he did not humble himself before the face of the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself; instead, Amon multiplied his transgressions. 2 Chronicles 33:24. And his servants conspired against him, and they killed him in his house. 2 Chronicles 33:25. But the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead. Concerning the reign of the 15th king of Judah, the son and successor of Manasseh – Amon (in many manuscripts of the Septuagint and in Josephus: Ἀμώς), which was very brief and apparently without significant content, 2 Chronicles reports the same information as (2 Kgs 21:19-26); see “Commentary on the Holy Bible,” vol. II, pp. 562–563. * * * Blessed Theodoret remarks “such benefit does punishment bring to those who desire it. For what (Manasseh) did not have while reigning, he acquired while being a slave.” (Questions on II Chronicles. Patrologia Graeca. vol. LXXX, col. 854, 856)