Chapter Twenty-One

Pagan reaction and religious syncretism under the successors of Hezekiah: Manasseh (verses 1–18) and Amon (verses 19–26).

2 Kings 21:1. Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem; his mother’s name was Hephzibah. 2 Kings 21:2. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, imitating the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the people of Israel. 2 Kings 21:3. And he rebuilt the high places which his father Hezekiah had destroyed, and he erected altars to Baal, and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done; and he worshipped all the host of heaven and served them. 2 Kings 21:4. And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem I will put my name. 2 Kings 21:5. And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord, 2 Kings 21:6. and he made his son pass through fire, and practiced divination and witchcraft, and consulted mediums and spiritists; he did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger. 2 Kings 21:7. And he set an image of Asherah, which he had made, in the house, of which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever; 2 Kings 21:8. and I will not again cause the feet of Israel to wander out of the land which I gave to their fathers, if only they will be careful to do all that I have commanded them, and the whole law that my servant Moses commanded them. 2 Kings 21:9. But they did not listen; and Manasseh led them astray to do worse than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the people of Israel. After the death of Hezekiah, his twelve-year-old son Manasseh ascended the throne of Jerusalem (regarding whether he might not have been Hezekiah’s eldest son, see the commentary on 2 Kgs 20:2-3) and reigned fifty-five years—according to the chronology accepted in biblical scholarship, from 698 to 643, and now from the Bible “we know almost nothing for an entire century concerning the external history of Judah. Manasseh was an obedient captive of the great king, and this was prudent, since during his fifty-year reign Assyria reached the height of its political power. Esarhaddon, the son of Sennacherib, and Ashurbanipal, the son of Esarhaddon, held undisputed dominion over all the land from the depths of the Tigris to the depths of Egypt, and neither in Jerusalem nor anywhere else could there arise the thought of rebellion. But this faithfulness to the Assyrians was accompanied by fateful consequences for the internal life of Judah and especially for the worship of God. After the favorable religious awakening under Hezekiah came a time of weakening of this feeling...” (History of the Israeli People. Moscow, 1903. p. 101–102). In the absence of clear biblical testimony about the external relations of Judah under Manasseh (except for the evidence of 2 Chr 33:11-13, which we shall discuss below), the hypothesis that Manasseh joined the alliance organized by the Egyptian Pharaoh Tirhakah of Western Asian states against Assyria has equal hypothetical value with the opinion just presented concerning Manasseh’s complete loyalty to the Assyrian king, and even an advantage over it, and this could have resulted in his temporary captivity (2 Chr 33:11 and further). Not touching upon the political side of Manasseh’s reign of more than half a century, the sacred writer of 4 Kings focuses exclusively on the profound religious and moral decline of Judean life under Manasseh: according to this account (vv. 2–16) the reign of Manasseh appears as the darkest epoch in the history of the southern kingdom of Judah. Manasseh not only restored all the high places that his father Hezekiah had removed (2 Kgs 18:4); not only, like Ahab (cf. 1 Kgs 16:32 and further), permitted and encouraged the performance of Canaanite cults in the land (cf. 1 Kgs 14:24; 2 Kgs 17:8), but also implanted Assyro-Babylonian cults of the heavenly bodies in Jerusalem and Judah (vv. 2–3), particularly the cult of the “Queen of Heaven” now widely practiced (see Jer 7:18; Zeph 1:5 and others). Pure paganism entered even into the very temple of Jehovah, where altars were erected “to all the host of heaven,” that is, to the heavenly bodies (see Deut 4:19; 2 Kgs 17:16). “By ‘the host of heaven’ the writer means the sun, moon, and stars” (blessed Theodoret, question 53). Besides the altars to the Assyrian deities (the heavenly bodies), the cult of the latter also included horses placed at the entrance to the temple in honor of the sun (2 Kgs 23:10-11). Like Ahaz (2 Kgs 16:3), Manasseh also performed the abominable and terrible worship of Moloch (v. 6), and was no less inclined than Ahaz to witchcraft and divination (v. 6, cf. Isa 8:19). By all this, especially by establishing pagan worship in the very temple of Jehovah (v. 7, cf. 1 Kgs 8:15), the very election of the people of Judah as the people of God was effectively destroyed, and their right to the protection and care of God was lost (v. 8, cf. 2 Sam 7:10). The people of Judah under Manasseh conducted themselves even worse than the Canaanite nations whom Jehovah had destroyed on account of his people (v. 9): the profound religious syncretism that manifested itself now with greater force than under Ahaz (cf. note on 2 Kgs 16:10), in the judgment of the sacred writer, proves to be worse than pure paganism (cf. 2 Chr 33:2-9). How are we to understand, what explains the fact that a pious, truly theocratic king had a son and successor whose direction was so sharply opposite, so that all the beneficial reforms of the former were destroyed and overthrown by the reaction of the latter? Former commentators explained this merely by pointing to Manasseh’s own wicked will and to the corrupting influence on him of the court party that had survived from the time of Ahaz. Blessed Theodoret says: “that in living beings it is not nature but will that prevails is witnessed by Manasseh, who abandoned his father’s pious example and went the opposite way” (question 53). Other commentators suppose that, upon taking the throne, Manasseh (as once Joash upon the death of Jehoiada, 2 Chr 24:17-18) fell under the influence of an impious court party that had opposed the authority of the prophets even under Hezekiah (Isa 28:7), and after his death resolved to establish pure paganism in Jerusalem and Judah. (Keil. Die Bucher der Konige. 1865, s. 348; Kleinert. Richm Handworterbuch des Biblicshen Altertums, Bd. II, s. 962). In recent times, biblical theorists of development explain the religious syncretism introduced by Manasseh by the political situation of Judah, and his time by complete vassal dependence, which completely effaced from Manasseh and his people the impression of the power of Jehovah and his victory over the Assyrian gods (in Sennacherib’s unsuccessful campaign) and led to the cultural, spiritual, and religious influence of Assyria on Judah; at the same time, Manasseh is not only carefully whitewashed of stains supposedly unjustly lying on his memory, but he is also attributed with positive merits before the history of the Israeli people, for example, with respect to the borrowing by the Hebrews of cosmogonic and other ideas from the religion, mythology, and legislation of Assyro-Babylon (Stade, Gesch. Jsr. I, s. 625–640. Cf. in Prof. A. P. Smirnov “New construction of the history of the Israeli people and new judgments on its historical persons. Addition to the works of the Holy Fathers”, 1887, part 40, p. 198 ff.). The extremeness of this view and its contradiction to the Bible are evident in themselves.

2 Kings 21:10. And the Lord spoke through his servants the prophets, saying: 2 Kings 21:11. “Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these abominations, worse than all that the Amorites did who were before him, and has led Judah into sin with his idols, 2 Kings 21:12. therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle; 2 Kings 21:13. and I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plumb line of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish—wiping it and turning it upside down; 2 Kings 21:14. and I will cast off the remnant of my inheritance, and give them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their adversaries, 2 Kings 21:15. because they have done what is evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger, from the day their fathers came out of Egypt even to this day. 2 Kings 21:16. Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, so that he filled Jerusalem from one end to the other with innocent blood, besides the sin which he caused Judah to commit, doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord. Manasseh showed himself not only as a zealous pagan, but also as a cruel tyrant, whose reign was first in biblical-Hebrew history to be marked by martyrdom for the religion of Jehovah. The guardians of the house of Israel—the prophets—did not remain silent even in this dark time of the decline of religion, enlightenment, and development of the people of God: despite the opposition of false prophets (Isa 30:10; Mic 3:3-4), they proclaimed the dreadful determinations of God’s judgment upon the kingdom of Judah, whose fate was completely equated (cf. blessed Theodoret, question 54) with that which had already befallen the kingdom of Israel, vv. 12–13, (cf. 1 Sam 3:11; Jer 19:3; Amos 7:7): “the cord and plummet are instruments used for measuring straight. By threatening to measure Jerusalem with the same cord and plummet that measured Samaria, Jehovah reveals that Jerusalem will suffer the same disasters as Samaria” (Prof. Gulyaev, p. 369) “The remnant of the inheritance of Jehovah” (v. 14), that is, the kingdom of Judah, consisting of only two tribes, will be abandoned by Jehovah and, as such, will be subjected to plunder and spoliation by other nations (cf. Isa 42:22). The response to the prophetic rebukes from Manasseh was a reign of bloodshed: Jerusalem from end to end was flooded with torrents of innocent, martyred blood (v. 16, cf. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 10:3, 1). According to Jewish tradition (Gemara, Jebamoth 4, 13; Sanhedr. f. 103), adopted by some church fathers (Tertullian. De patientia, 14. Augustine. De civitate Dei, 18, 24) the great prophet Isaiah died a martyr’s death under Manasseh, being sawn asunder with a wooden saw (cf. (Heb 11:37); blessed Theodoret, question 54). It is unknown from the Bible whether Isaiah’s prophetic ministry continued under Manasseh (cf. (Isa 1:1), where Hezekiah is named as the last king of Judah, and Manasseh is not mentioned), but the antiquity of the tradition is beyond doubt, and it possesses an inner spiritual reliability.

2 Kings 21:17. As for the other acts of Manasseh and all that he did, and the sin that he committed, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? 2 Kings 21:18. And 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. (2 Chr 33:11-20) furnishes information that substantially supplements the account in 4 Kings concerning Manasseh, namely, that Jehovah punished Manasseh for his sins with an invasion by the military commanders of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh captive and, with fetters (probably with a ring pierced through the lip (see 2 Kgs 19:28): as depicted in Assyrian monuments of captured kings), carried him away to Babylon; in captivity Manasseh repented and asked forgiveness from God and was returned to Judah, where he sought to make amends for the consequences of his grave errors: he abolished various forms of idolatry, and also restored Jerusalem and other fortified cities. This account, long subjected to doubt and dispute in scholarship (by Wiener, Hitzig, and others), is now recognized (by Ewald and others) as fully historical, as confirmed by data from Assyriology (Schracler, Kalinschr. and Alexander. comb. T., s. 366 ff. Vigouroux, Bibel und die neueren Entdeckunogen B. IV, s. 232 ff.). According to these sources, Manasseh, being a faithful tributary of Assyria under Esarhaddon (681–669), joined with other petty kings under his successor Ashurbanipal with the brother of Ashurbanipal Shamash-shum-ukin, who seized Babylon, which was then subject to the Assyrians, and rebelled there against his brother. This event is usually dated to 647 BC, thus four years before Manasseh’s death. It is probable that Ashurbanipal had the captured Manasseh brought not to Nineveh, but to Babylon (cf. Isa 39:6; 2 Kgs 20:18), where he himself was at that time after the conquest of the city and victory over his brother (cf. in Bishop Platon, cited work, pp. 260–262). A monument to the repentance and conversion of Manasseh is the non-canonical Prayer of Manasseh (not present in the Hebrew Bible, but only in the Greek and later translations; in the Slavic-Russian Bible it is placed at the end of 2 Chronicles; in the Greek text of the Bible it is placed after the Psalter among 14 hymns extracted from various places of Scripture, cf. Prof. Gulyaev, p. 578). The people, it seems, repented along with the king (2 Chr 33:17), though this repentance was short-lived. In his political activity after his return from captivity, the sacred writer (2 Chr 33:14) notes the building of an outer wall of the City of David on the western side of the Gihon, through the ravine and to the entrance of the Fish Gate, and its extension around Ophel. This is the so-called second wall of Jerusalem, traditionally associated with the names of Hezekiah (cf. 2 Chr 32:5) and Manasseh. As is evident from the points mentioned in the passage just cited from 2 Chronicles—Gihon (cf. 1 Kgs 1:39; 2 Chr 32:30), the Fish Gate (Neh 3:3; Zeph 1:10), and Ophel (2 Chr 27:3; Neh 3:26)—this wall began at the western (Gihon) or northwestern part of Jerusalem, then surrounded the entire north of the city to the Fish Gate on the northeast, and, turning then toward the south, encompassed the southeastern spur of Mount Moriah—the so-called Ophel, (cf. in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 10:3, 2). Besides the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel (in (2 Kgs 20:17)—“of the Kings of Judah”) the sacred writer of 2 Chronicles cites as a source for the history of Manasseh the records of a certain Hozai (Hebrew dibrei-Hozai), probably one of the contemporary prophets of this king. He was buried in his own garden, in the garden of a certain Uzza (v. 18; (2 Chr 33:20); Josephus “Jewish Antiquities.” Book X, ch. 3, 2), whom some (Benzinger, Kittel) identify with the well-known king Uzziah-Azariah (2 Kgs 15:1 and others), while others (Keil, Beer) see here the name of an unknown person, a former owner of the garden, in which a palace was later built; it is conjecturally placed in the Tyropoeon valley (Onomast. 700) at the foot of Ophel.

2 Kings 21:19. Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem; his mother’s name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah. 2 Kings 21:20. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, as Manasseh his father had done; 2 Kings 21:21. and he walked in all the way in which his father walked, and served the idols that his father served, and worshipped them; 2 Kings 21:22. and he abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord. 2 Kings 21:23. And the servants of Amon conspired against him, and killed the king in his own house. 2 Kings 21:24. But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead. 2 Kings 21:25. Now 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? 2 Kings 21:26. And he was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza. And Josiah his son reigned in his stead. Compare (2 Chr 33:21-25). The fifteenth king of Judah, Amon, son and successor of Manasseh, throughout his short reign, 643–641, was an adherent of the impiety of his father in its first and greater part, but did not imitate his repentance. Some saw evidence of his pagan thinking and disposition in his very name, Amon (in Josephus “Amos”), bringing it (Ewald and others) into connection with the name of the well-known Egyptian deity Amon; more likely, however, is that this is a Hebrew name (cf. 1 Kgs 22:26; Neh 7:59). Jotbah (in the LXX: ῾Ιετέβα, Vulg.: Jeteba, in Josephus: Jovata, Slav. Ieteva, Onomast. 547) is an unknown village, probably in the tribe of Judah. The king’s impiety found response and sympathy in the people, doubtless. The conspiracy of the palace officers (“servants,” v. 23) against Amon and his assassination certainly did not arise from a struggle on the ground of religious beliefs, since these palace officers were probably as alien to the religion of Jehovah as the king himself (against Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 10:4, 1). The people of the land (Hebrew am-ha-aretz; (cf. 2 Kgs 11:14)—later among the rabbis and Talmudists meant “common people”; cf. John 7:49) did not sympathize with this crime (as also with the murder of Amaziah, 1 Kgs 14:19), and placed on the throne the young son Josiah (v. 24). Amon, like Manasseh, was buried in the garden of Uzza (v. 26).