2 Kings 21

1. MANASSEH was twelve years old when he began to reign; and he reigned five and fifty years in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was Hephzi-bah. And 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. For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as did Ahab king of Israel, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them. And he built altars in the house of the LORD, whereof the LORD said, In Jerusalem will I put my name. And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. And he made his son to pass through the fire, and practised augury, and used enchantments, and dealt with them that had familiar spirits, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. And he set the graven image of Asherah, 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 the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever: neither will I cause the feet of Israel to wander any more out of the land which I gave their fathers; if only 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. But they hearkened not: and Manasseh seduced them to do that which is evil more than did the nations, whom the LORD destroyed before the children of Israel. And the LORD spake by his servants the prophets, saying, Because Manasseh the LORD brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh in chains, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. 12 And when he was in distress, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself 13 greatly before the God of his fathers. And he prayed unto him; and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD he was God. 14 Now after this he built an outer wall to the city of David, on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, even to the entering in at the fish gate; and he compassed about Ophel, and raised it up a very great height: and he put valiant captains in all the fenced cities 15 of Judah. And he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of 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. 16 And he built up the altar of the LORD, and offered thereon sacrifices of peace offerings and of thanksgiving, and commanded Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel. 17 Nevertheless the people did sacrifice still in the high places, but only unto the LORD 18 their God. Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer unto his God, and the words of the seers that spake to him in the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, behold, they are written among the acts of the 19 kings of Israel. His prayer also, and how God was intreated of him, and all his sin and his trespass, and the places wherein he built high places, and set up the Asherim and the graven images, before he humbled himself: behold, they are written in the history of 20 Hozai. So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house: and Amon his son reigned in his stead. 21 Amon was twenty and two years old when he began to reign; and he reigned two years 22 in Jerusalem. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, as did Manasseh his father: and Amon sacrificed unto all the graven images which Manasseh his 23 father had made, and served them. And he humbled not himself before the LORD, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself; but this same Amon trespassed more and 24 more. And his servants conspired against him, and put him to death in his own house. 25 But the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against king Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead.

king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his 12 idols: therefore thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I bring such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle. 13 And 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 wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it 14 upside down. And I will cast off the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their 15 enemies; because they have done that which is evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day. 16 Moreover 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 17 evil in the sight of the LORD. Now 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 18 kings of Judah? 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. 19 Amon was twenty and two years old when he began to reign; and he reigned two years in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was Meshullemeth the daughter of 20 Haruz of Jotbah. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, as did 21 Manasseh his father. And he walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and 22 worshipped them: and he forsook the LORD, the God of his fathers, and walked not in 23 the way of the LORD. And the servants of Amon conspired against him, and put the 24 king to death in his own house. But the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against king Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in 25 his stead. 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? And he was buried in his sepulchre in the garden of Uzza: and Josiah his son reigned in his stead.

the people of the land made Josiah his son king

THE fifty-five years of Manasseh were probably 695-641 B.C. The two years of Amon were probably 640 and 639 B.C.

Contemporary History. During Manasseh’s reign, the Assyrian kings were, counting from the “first year” of each: Sennacherib, B.C. 704-681; Esarhaddon, 680-668; Assurbanipal (Sardanapalus), 667 to some unknown date; his “first year” as king of Babylon was 647 B.C.

References in the Prophets to the Reigns of Manasseh and Amon. 1. Manasseh’s shedding innocent blood (Jer. 15:4; 2:30, 34, etc.; perhaps Isa. 1:15, etc.). 2. To Manasseh’s reform, followed by the relapse under Amon, perhaps Jer. 3:10 and context, and Zeph. 1:4-6, with many like passages in Zephaniah and the early parts of Jeremiah. W. J. B.

The account in Chronicles differs chiefly from Kings in omitting (1) the names of the two queen-mothers, (2) the shedding of innocent blood by Manasseh, (3) the words of warning addressed to him, and (4) the circumstances of the burial of Amon; and, more importantly, in adding (1) the account of Manasseh’s captivity, (2) of his repentance and restoration to his kingdom, (3) of his buildings, (4) of his abolition of idolatry, and (5) of the ample records that existed of his reign. The central part of the chapter, from verse 11 to verse 19, is thus almost entirely new matter, while the earlier and the later portions correspond closely with Kings, and are, on the whole, less ample. B. C.

2 Chronicles 33:1-19; 2 Kings 21:1-18.

The longest and worst reign has the briefest record; chiefly because of the slaughter of God’s prophets, who are the principal historians. Eighteen verses in the Book of Kings and twenty verses in the Chronicles (many of which are identical in the two accounts), with hints elsewhere, comprise the written history of a reign of fifty-five years. But what is lacking in amplification is made up in conciseness. The monstrous details of Manasseh’s manifold iniquities and fearful guilt are summarily condensed in the first nine verses. No clew is given by the historian, here or in the Kings, of the influences which so utterly transformed the son of a good father into a signally destructive agent of Satan. Both at the outset of his reign and afterward he was wholly unlike Joash and Josiah, whose rule also began in childhood, and at even an earlier age. The case of Joash we understand clearly, and that of Josiah we can readily conjecture. Both of these were, in the providence of God, rescued from an evil parentage and trained under godly influence. The reasonable inference is, that Manasseh’s childhood was subjected to ungodly teaching from kindred and courtiers. The extreme contrast in character and reign between the two former and Manasseh, suggests the vital and always needed lesson of the tremendous obligation resting upon parents and friends in the forming and training of youthful character. Living illustrations abound in these days to emphasize this lesson—a lesson found in every reign of the kings of Judah and Israel; found, too, in almost every other personal history of the sacred records.

Manasseh’s wickedness was pre-eminently shameless and God-defying. All the particular iniquities of previous evil reigns he re-enacted and surpassed. Nay more, he equalled the heathen in his abominations, and far outdid them in his guilt. They sinned in comparative ignorance; he with full knowledge of God, and of His dealings with the kings and nations of Israel and Judah. A marvel of hardness of soul is he presented to us. A monster of iniquity, exceeding in daring impiety not only his grandfather, Ahaz, but even the two kings of Israel, Jeroboam and Ahab. He presents, perhaps, the foremost illustration of the extent and magnitude of possible human iniquity in all history, sacred or profane. Even a Nero had not the knowledge of God. According to the sacred record, Manasseh introduced into Judah every form of idolatrous worship and abominable vice that had been practised by heathen nations. He deliberately undid all the good work of his father. He restored the high places and the idolatrous altars which Hezekiah had removed. He re-established the foul worship of Baal, “and added to the obscene rites of Ashtaroth those unutterable abominations which made princes and subjects ‘rulers of Sodom, and people of Gomorrah.’” Nor this only. His daring went further than Ahaz, who had only closed the sanctuary, and dismissed the priesthood. Manasseh signalized his iniquity by a fearful desecration of the Holy Place, the very chamber dedicated to Jehovah and long consecrated by the symbol of His presence. In this chamber he set up a carved image as an object of supreme worship, and upon the very spot once illumined by the

Shekinah. In the courts of the Temple he reared altars for the Babylonish worship of the heavenly bodies. He erected in the valley of Hinnom a temple to the fire-god Moloch, and offered his own children in sacrifice. “He dealt with wizards and necromancers, and ‘seduced the people to do more wickedness than the nations whom Jehovah destroyed before them.’” And his was the fearful pre-eminence of inaugurating the persecution to the death of God’s saints. He made Jerusalem the arena of the first of those martyrdoms to which Paul refers in the eleventh of Hebrews. He shed the innocent blood of multitudes of devout worshippers and religious teachers. That most illustrious prophet, who had been the foremost teacher of God’s people and counsellor of kings through four reigns; he whose chapters contain the richest treasure of evangelical truth found in the Old Testament; he whose inspired vision of Christ’s suffering and glory was so wonderfully fulfilled in the Messiah’s trial, crucifixion and burial—Isaiah, the aged, the inspired seer and faithful saint, was the chief object of this monster’s cruelty, the signal victim of his murderous torture. B.

So far as foreign enemies were concerned, Judea enjoyed an interval of profound peace. Sennacherib, from the date of the destruction of his host, carefully avoided all contact with the nation of the Jews; and thus Manasseh had reigned for nearly twenty years before any necessity arose for him to consider whether he should follow the example of his father in his defiance of the Assyrian power, or, like his grandfather, should tamely submit to it. Ahaz was his model in the internal conduct of his kingdom; why should he not follow him also in its external management? Therefore, when Esarhaddon, Sennacherib’s son and successor, about the year B.C. 680, made an expedition into Palestine with the object of re-establishing Assyrian influence in the southwest, Manasseh seems to have submitted to him without a murmur, and to have resumed that position of Assyrian tributary which Hezekiah had succeeding in throwing off. On a broken cylinder of Esarhaddon’s, containing a notice of his second year, we find “Manasseh, king of Judah,” mentioned, together with the kings of Tyre, Edom, Moab, Gaza, Askelon, Ekron, Gebal, Arvad, Ammon, Ashdod, and ten Cyprian monarchs, in a connection that implies his subjection to the empire of Assyria. Later on, however, the Jewish monarch seems to have repented of his tame submission, and to have been guilty of acts which his Assyrian suzerain regarded as rebellious. About the year B.C. 672 an army was sent against him under Assyrian captains, which, according to Josephus, ravaged his territory, and got possession of his person by stratagem. His captors led him away prisoner, and brought him into the presence of Esarhaddon at Babylon. There for some time he remained in captivity, but at length, in answer (as he believed) to the fervent prayers which in his affliction he addressed to Jehovah, the royal clemency was shown to him. Not only was he released from prison, but Esarhaddon once more received him into favor, and even sent him back to Jerusalem to reign again as tributary monarch. Such clemency is not wholly unexampled in Assyrian history; but we may fairly assume that Esarhaddon was actuated in the business by policy rather than by compassion. He was contemplating a serious struggle for supremacy with Egypt, and it was of great importance to him to have so strong a fortress as Jerusalem, and one situated so near the Egyptian frontier, held for him by a trusty adherent. He must have believed in gratitude as a powerful constraining motive, and have thought that a forgiven enemy would be the surest friend. Manasseh, as far as is known, did not disappoint him. The only Palestinian power which deserted Assyria in its struggle with Egypt seems to have been Tyre. According to the author of Chronicles, the repentance of Manasseh in his captivity at Babylon was a true repentance, and was fully maintained after his return to his kingdom. But Manasseh, though he might repent of the past, could not undo it. He had slain many of the more godly among the people, and had left the profane and the idolatrous. He had made havoc of the prophetical order, silenced the warning voices, and let a generation grow up without any sound religious teaching. After the murder of Isaiah no new prophet seems to have been raised up until the reign of Josiah had begun. Hence his reformation failed to reach the hearts of the nation. In spite of his persuasions and commands, the people could not be weaned from the high place worship which he had at one time encouraged, but “did sacrifice still in the high places,” swore by the name of Malcham (Zeph. 1:5), and worshipped the host of heaven upon the housetops (ibid). There was no genuine reaction from the idolatry of Manasseh as there was from that of Ahaz, no real turning of the people to God with true and unfeigned repentance. Manasseh died after a reign of fiftyfive years, at the age of sixty-seven, and was buried in Jerusalem; but, as there was no more room in the burial-place of David, a tomb was made for him in his own palace garden, in a portion of it known as “the garden of Uzzah.” He left his throne to his son, Amon. G. R.

2. K. 21:10-18.** Here is the doom of Judah and Jerusalem read, and it is a heavy doom. The prophets were sent, in the first place, to teach them the knowledge of God, to remind them of their duty, and direct them in it; if they succeeded not in that, their next work was to reprove them for their sins, and to set them in view before them, that they might repent and reform and return to their duty; if in this they prevailed not, but sinners went on frowardly, their next work was to foretell the judgments of God, that the terror of them might awaken those to repentance who would not be made sensible of the obligations of His love, or else that the execution of them in their season might be a demonstration of the Divine mission of the prophets that foretold them. The prophets were deputed judges to those that would not hear and receive them as teachers. H.

Ewald sums up the state of things as follows: “The atmosphere of the age was poisoned from above; and the leaders of the people of every class, whose moral decline had already become a subject of lament in the preceding century, sank into an almost incredible degeneracy. The prophets, who ought to have been ever the most loyal guardians of the truth, were for the most part like dumb and greedy dogs; many of the priests allowed themselves to be seduced into offering heathen sacrifices; the judges and nobles paid little heed to the eternal right. Equivocation and hypocrisy spread among those who ought to have ministered most austerely to public truthfulness of life; while those who were engaged in commerce and trade sank into the harshest indifference to every higher aim, and thought only of the acquisition and enjoyment of wealth. So terrible was the demoralization which set in under Manasseh, that those who remained faithful to the ancient religion were either scoffed at as fools, or allowed to perish in cold contempt without any effort being made to save them, and were even derided after their death.” 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. As Stephen pointed out to the Sanhedrin (Acts 7:39-43), it began in the wilderness with the worship of the golden calf, and went on to the worship of the host of heaven, of Moloch, and of Remphan; it was shown markedly in the terrible sin of Peor (Num. 25:1-3); it stinted God’s hand when the nations had to be driven out from Caanan (Judges 2:1-5); it provoked God’s anger greatly during the whole period of the Judges (Judges 2:11-19); checked under David and Solomon, it broke out afresh on the accession of Rehoboam (1 K. 14:22-24), and showed itself, more or less, under every subsequent king, culminating at last in that fearful condition of things which has been described above. Hammond.

2. Chron. 33:10, 11.** God’s marvellous forbearance and merciful chastening exercised even toward this sacrilegious blasphemer, and persecutor of the saints. This was manifest, first, in warnings by the prophets uttered to Manasseh and his people. These warnings we read in 2 K. 21:10-15. The warning voices of the Divine messengers were silenced in their blood. The sacred history declares that this was the crowning sin, which subsequently brought the doom of destruction upon the nation. Then the Lord sent reverses upon the nation. The Philistines, Moabites and Ammonites successfully revolted. Next Sennacherib’s successor, Esarhaddon, destroyed Jerusalem, took Manasseh captive, bound him with chains, and caused him to be led to Babylon. Here he was imprisoned for an indefinite period. But God did not destroy him. He gave him a period for reflection, and an opportunity for repentance. B.

Manasseh is carried captive to a king of Assyria, not in Nineveh, but in Babylon, which when last heard of was the capital city of Merodach-baladan, an enemy of Assyria. Evidently by some great change a new state of things has been brought about. Here the inscriptions of Assyria, especially those of Esarhaddon and his son Assurbanipal (Sardanapalus), make what was otherwise obscure perfectly plain. Sennacherib tells us that he conquered Babylon, and established a son as viceroy there. Esarhaddon takes from the very beginning of his reign the double title, “king of Assyria and king of Babylon.” Bricks bearing his name have been found at Babylon, and indicate that he built himself a palace there. Assurbanipal, his son, tells us that Esarhaddon, toward the close of his life, having become infirm, relinquished the government of Assyria altogether, and retiring to Babylon, made it his constant residence, and contented himself with ruling that portion of his dominions. Thus the presentation of a captive prince to an Assyrian monarch at Babylon, which would have been strange and inexplicable at any earlier period, is natural in the time of Esarhaddon, with whom Manasseh was contemporary. Manasseh might without any strangeness have been brought to Esarhaddon at the southern capital during any period of his reign. If his capture fell, as it probably did, late in Esarhaddon’s reign, Babylon, which had then become that monarch’s permanent residence, would necessarily be the scene of the interview. G. R.

12. God’s yet more wonderful mercy in response to the prayer of this royal penitent.** Mark the impressive record. Manasseh “came to himself.” He “humbled himself greatly, and prayed unto the God of his fathers; and He was entreated of him and heard his supplication.” God made of this kingly blasphemer and persecutor a distinguished “pattern of his long-suffering to men.” As if to show the greatness of His grace, He singles him out, among the many evil kings of Israel and Judah, for forgiveness. He restored him again to his kingdom. Then, the record declares, Manasseh knew that Jehovah was the true God. B.

When he was in affliction, he besought the Lord. Manasseh might now say with his grandfather David, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted.” His prison was now a more happy place for him than his palace; Babylon a better school than Jerusalem. What fools are we to frown on our afflictions! These, how severe soever, are our best friends. They are not indeed for our present pleasure, but they are for our lasting profit.

13. And He was entreated of him.** We wonder not at Manasseh sinning or repenting; we wonder at the goodness of God, who thus graciously called him to repent and received him repenting; that as he had before been a most loathsome and monstrous spectacle of wickedness, he now became a pleasing and useful pattern of conversion. Who can despair of the mercy of God that sees the tears of a Manasseh accepted? The wickedness of men can never equal the goodness of God. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord He was God. Till his own smart and cure, Manasseh knew not that the Lord was God. The Almighty will be sure to be known for what He is, if not by His kindness, at least by His severity. If our prosperity and peace and sweet experience of His mercy can win us to acknowledge Him, it is more for our ease; but if we will needs be taught by stripes, it is more for His glory. Bp. H.

The pardon extended by Esarhaddon to Manasseh, little consonant as it is with general Oriental practice, agrees well with the character of this particular monarch, whose rule was remarkably mild, and who is proved by his inscriptions to have been equally merciful on other occasions. G. R.—While Sargon and Sennacherib were employed in extending the empire and carrying out the dreams of Tiglath-pileser by brute force, it was reserved for Esarhaddon to consolidate their conquests by a milder administration and fuller permission for the development of the national life. The vanquished nations were no longer compelled to become Assyrians and to acknowledge Assur as their god; they were allowed to retain their old habits and customs, their old religion, even their old form of government. In place of the satraps the native kings were allowed to preserve their sway over the subject populations; Manasseh of Judah was as much a servant of “the great king” as the Assyrian governor of Samaria, but so long as he acknowledged the supremacy of Nineveh and paid the annual tribute he was allowed to govern his people after the fashion of his fathers. It was only where the older lines of rulers had been replaced by satraps before the change took place in the imperial policy that the order of things established by Sennacherib and his predecessors continued to prevail; elsewhere, in Judah, in Edom, in the petty principalities of Egypt, the government was left in the hands of the native princes. Sayee.

14-16. The evidence of Manasseh’s true repentance.** He sought to undo all his evil work. He took away the idol image from the holy place, and cast out the strange gods and altars from the whole city. He further sought to remove the high places of idolatrous worship throughout the land. He reared anew the altar of sacrifice, and restored the Temple worship. Upon the great altar he sacrificed peace offerings and thank offerings, “and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel.” But we learn from verse 17 that Manasseh found it impossible to undo his own previous evil work. The people retained many of the high places. The associations of habit had made these places too familiar and dear to be given up. Nominally professing to worship Jehovah in them, they yet retained much of the spirit of the idolatrous worship. It was easy, therefore, for Amon, the son of Manasseh, to restore the whole system of idolatrous worship in the land.

We recall three prominent points, illustrated more signally here, perhaps, than elsewhere in the whole Bible. 1. A more eminent type even than Paul was Manasseh of the long-suffering of God; for Paul was not such a transgressor. He sinned ignorantly against his Lord, whom he knew not. His life was blameless. His persecuting spirit proceeded from a conscientious though wrongly taught conviction of duty. In all these points Manasseh’s evil-doing is sharply contrasted. His sin was committed with full knowledge, and in the face of clear warnings. He practised and encouraged impurity and blasphemy, notwithstanding the plain record of God’s dealings with his fathers; dealings of goodness and mercy toward the obedient and faithful kings, and of judgment upon the disobedient and unfaithful. That God should have shown mercy to Manasseh, therefore, signally illustrates His forbearance and long-suffering.

2. The same facts, in God’s dealing with Manasseh, teach us the greatness of His grace to men, in His positive exercise of that grace in Manasseh’s behalf. Not only did He forbear with this guilty king, not only did He refrain from visiting extreme judgment upon his iniquities, but by the visitation of His Spirit did He actually seek and persuade this transgressor to repentance and return to Himself. He convinced him of his sin, and renewed in him the spirit of trustful obedience. Manasseh was a sinner saved by grace. Who, then, may despair of God’s mercy with such an instance of the greatness of His grace as is here recorded?

3. When the goodness of God fails of its purposed effect in leading to repentance, He sends affliction for this end. When chastening fails, God uses no further agency of mercy. Transgressors are then abandoned to their own way, the end whereof is perdition. And this perdition is their own work. B.

We are taught by the story of Manasseh’s repentance: 1. The seeds of early instruction may blossom after many days. Who can doubt but that it was the impressions received in early days which at last revived and brought Manasseh back to Jehovah? 2. There is hope for the worst sinners. After Manasseh, surely any one. Nor did his conversion take place till his course was nearly run. We should despair of none. Miracles of grace as great as this have perhaps rarely been witnessed, but they have been witnessed. 3. God subdues men to Himself by affliction. It was while a prisoner in Babylon—taken there by the captains of the king of Assyria—that Manasseh found the Lord.

4. Repentance does not secure the reversal of the temporal effects of sin. The wickedness of Manasseh through a long reign wrought out its effects independently of him. His conversion came too late to undo them. The blood he had shed “the Lord would not pardon.” The nation was inculpated as well as he, and though he repented, it did not. It is an awful thought that no after-repentance can obliterate the effects of words spoken and deeds done while sin still had dominion over us. Nor can the effects of sin on our own health, characters, usefulness, etc., ever be completely recalled. J. O.

His life is the old story—sin, chastisement, repentance and forgiveness. We are told that in his captivity “he humbled himself greatly.” A certain proportion runs through his history. A great sinner, a great sufferer, a great penitent. God works thoroughly. He is faithful in adjusting the discipline to the exigency. Whom He loves, He chastens proportionately to His necessities. He spares not the rod at the expense of the child’s soul. He plans for eternity, not for time. So would we have it, would we not, in the experience of our children? Often is this experience repeated in common life, whether our weak souls would so have it or not. God is faithful beyond our desires. Like other wise fathers, He adjusts His dealings to the future judgment and desires of His children. He trusts to eternity for His justification in our sight. The prayers of the Christian father and mother for the wayward son are answered in waves and billows of affliction often, till the prodigal comes back, and humbles himself greatly, and says, “I have sinned against my father and my father’s God.” Phelps.

How much encouragement is here to hope and pray and labor perseveringly for the conversion of sinful men, and especially of those whose early youth has been blessed with holy prayers and pious instructions! We are not to despair of any man. Few cases ever presented a more desperate and discouraging aspect than that of Manasseh. His wickedness began early and continued long. He grew into manhood a bold transgressor. He “framed iniquity for a law.” His sin was high-handed, public and shameless. He grew hoary-headed in sin. He had not only thrown aside the restraints of truth, but he had sanctified falsehood, and found a religion to sanction his sins and turn them into a semblance of piety. Still he was not beyond repentance, not incapable of repentance, for he did repent. There were avenues to his heart still open to the approaches of the Spirit. There were resources in Divine providence sufficient to bring back his soul from the pit. May it not be so of any man who is going on still in his wickedness? Ah! let us never despair of the sinner. Let the sinner never despair of himself. God may not have given him up; it may be that He yet waits to be gracious to him. It is not ours to utter decrees of reprobation on ourselves or on others. Hallam.

Often is it said of the penitent thief on the cross, that one such case is recorded in the Scriptures, that none may despair of repentance on a death-bed; and but one, that none may presume. Similar is the twofold lesson to be learned from the recovery of this fallen monarch. He tried the fearful experiment of abandoning the God of his fathers, and becoming a monument of illustrious guilt. Through bitter disappointment and humiliating sorrow he was saved. The Scriptures expressly contradict the Jewish tradition. But he was one of a thousand. No other such is clearly declared in the Scriptures to have run that risk with safety at the last. God can save a soul in such an extremity of sin; but it is like lifting to its place again a fallen star. Fallen stars generally go out in darkness. The general law of God’s dealings with men is that strange and unnatural wickedness shall be left to itself to work out its own penalties. This it did in the case of King Ahaz. Phelps.

There is no limit to the mercy of God. Sinners the chief are welcome to complete forgiveness. If only great saints got into heaven, we who are great sinners would lose hope. But when we see Manasseh and men like him going in and getting welcome, there is hope for us. If we follow their steps in repentance, we shall be permitted to join their company in rest. Arnot.

2 Chronicles 33 : 21-25 ; 2 Kings 21 : 19-26.

The short reign of Amon, the son and successor of Manasseh, was distinguished by only two events : (1) his restoration of all the idolatrous and wicked practices which his father had upheld during the earlier portion of his reign; and (2) his untimely death, in consequence of a conspiracy which was formed against him among the officers of his court. Hammond.

The godless portion of the people and of the nobles, by the accession of Amon, were again rendered all-powerful. We learn from 2 Chron.

34 : 3 that Josiah, who succeeded Amon, did not begin till the eighth year of his reign to seek God, nor till the twelfth to purge Judah and Jerusalem from idolatry. We thus see that the fourteen years which intervened between the death of Manasseh and the twelfth year of Josiah must have been an evil time. C. G. B.—Judah was fast ripening for judgment under the two kings Manasseh (696-641) and Amon (641-639), who systematically set to work to overthrow the worship of Jehovah, and to establish the undisputed supremacy of idolatry. The conversion of Manasseh seems to have produced no decided effect upon the people, and its good results were all frustrated by Amon. O.

Though his reign lasted but two years, he turned the Temple once more into a high place for Baal, set up an Asherah there, re-established the worship of the host of heaven on altars in the two Temple courts, built altars on the upper chamber of Ahaz (2 K. 23 : 12), restored the horses of the sun to their position near one of the entrances to the Temple (ibid., verse 11), set up “houses of the Sodomites” close by the house of the Lord (ibid., verse 7), relighted the fires of Tophet in the valley of the children of Hinnom (ibid., verse 10), rebuilt the high places round about Jerusalem and in all the cities of Judah, and caused incense to be burnt on them to the sun and moon and the zodiacal signs, and all the host of heaven (ibid., verse 5), allowed the outbuildings of the Temple to fall into disrepair (2 K. 22 : 5), filled Jerusalem with altars and with molten and graven images set up above them (2 Chron. 34 : 3, 4), probably renewed the enchantments and the dealings with familiar spirits which Manasseh had first allowed (2 K. 21 : 6) and then put down—“in all the way that his father walked in he also walked,” and “served the idols that his father served, and worshipped them” (ibid., verse 21), “and humbled not himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself” (2 Chron. 33 : 23), but persisted in evil, and ever “trespassed more and more” (ibid.). The general corruption of the people under the evil influences of Amon’s reign seems in no degree to have fallen short of that reached in Manasseh’s time. The picture drawn in Zephaniah and in the early chapters of Jeremiah represents this state of corruption, which necessarily continued on into the first years of Josiah (Zeph., chaps. 1, 3 ; Jer., chaps. 5, 6, 7).

2. Chron. 24, 25. A conspiracy was formed against him among his immediate attendants, and they “slew him in his own house” (2 K. 21 : 23). The murder was certainly not caused by any general dissatisfaction with Amon’s idolatrous practices; for “the people” rose up against his murderers, “and slew all them that had conspired against King Amon,” and gave him honorable sepulture in the burial-place which Manasseh had constructed in the palace garden, in the part known as “the garden of Uzzah” (2 K. 21 : 24, 26). Here Amon rested, together with his father, Manasseh; and here was afterward interred the last king whose body found a sepulchre in Jerusalem, the brave but unfortunate Josiah. If Amon died, as is probable, at the early age of twenty-four, his sins may be to some extent excused by his youth. G. R.

Beware of turning the riches of God’s grace into a snare. As Manasseh’s case is recorded in the Bible that an aged sinner desiring to turn may not be cast into despair, Amon’s case is recorded beside it that the young may not delay an hour, lest they perish forever. None of us will be saved or lost in consequence of anything in our parents. Amon saw his father born again when he was old, but the son did not inherit his father’s goodness. Josiah was the child of an ungodly parent, and yet he became a godly child. These two lessons are plainly written in the history, the one to make the presumptuous humble, the other to give the despairing hope. A converted father cannot secure the safety of an unconverted son; and an unconverted father cannot drag down a child in his fall if that child follows the Lord. Arnot.