Judah’s wicked king Manasseh
21
📚Manasseh was twelve 📖 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hephzibah. 2 📚And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, following the abominations of the nations whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.21:2 Instead of following his father, he followed his grandfather (2 Kings 16:2-3).⚜
3 📚For he rebuilt the high places 📖 which his father Hezekiah had destroyed, and he raised up altars for Baal 📖, and made a grove 📖, like Ahab 📖 king of Israel did, and he worshipped all the starry host 📖 of heaven and served them. 4 📚And he built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD said, “In Jerusalem I will put my name 📖”. 5 📚And he built altars for all the starry host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD.
6 📚And he made his son pass through the fire 📖, and practiced witchcraft, and used divination, and had dealings with spiritists and mediums. He did much wickedness in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger 📖.
21:6 He seemed determined to do everything that God hated and commanded not to be done – Lev 18:21; 19:26, 31; 20:2; Deut 18:10-14.⚜
7 📚And a carved image of Asherah that he had made, he set up in the temple of which the LORD said to David and to his son Solomon, “I will put my name forever in this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel. 8 📚Nor will I make the feet of Israel move any more out of the land which I gave their fathers, if only they will be careful to do all that I have commanded them, and in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded them”. 9 📚But they did not listen, and Manasseh led them astray to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed 📖 before the children of Israel.
21:1-9 2 Chron 33:1-9. Manasseh reigned longer than any other king of Judah, and during the first part of his reign he was the worst of all Judah’s kings. At that time evil came to its dreadful climax in that kingdom. He finally repented (2 Chron 33:10-16), but his repentance could not undo all the evil he had done.⚜
10 📚And the LORD spoke by his servants the prophets, saying, 11 📚“Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations, and has acted more wickedly than all the Amorites 📖 who were before him, and has also caused Judah to sin with his idols, 12 📚thus says the LORD God of Israel: See, I am going to bring such a disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that both ears of whoever hears of it will tingle. 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 like a man wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. 14 📚And I will forsake 📖 the remnant of my inheritance, and deliver them into the hands of their enemies; and they will become a prey and plunder to all their enemies, 15 📚because they have done what is evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came out of Egypt 📖 to this day”.
16 📚Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood until he filled Jerusalem from one end to the other, besides his sin with which he caused Judah to sin, doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD.
21:16 2 Kings 24:3-4. After all that, was it possible for Manasseh to repent, turn to the Lord and be saved? See 2 Chron 33:11-16.⚜
17 📚Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh and all that he did, and his sin that he committed, are they not written in the book of The Annals 📖 of the Kings of Judah? 18 📚And Manasseh slept 📖 with his ancestors, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza; and his son Amon reigned in his stead.
Judah’s evil king Amon
19 📚Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Meshullemeth; she was the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah. 20 📚And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his father Manasseh had done. 21 And he walked in all the way in which his father walked, and served the idols that his father served and worshipped them, 22 📚and he forsook the LORD God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the LORD.
21:22 He followed his father’s evil ways, but not his good ways which Manasseh displayed after his repentance.⚜
23 📚And the servants of Amon conspired against him, and killed the king in his own house. 24 📚And the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his place.
25 📚Now the rest of the acts of Amon which he did, are they not written in the book of The Annals of the Kings of Judah? 26 📚And he was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza, and his son Josiah reigned in his stead.