2 Kings 21

2 Kings 21:10-18

In this chapter we have a short but sad account of the reigns of two of the kings of Judah, Manaseth and Amos. 1. Manaseth devoted himself to all manner of unleashed, ver. 1—9. God therefore devoted him and Jerusalem to ruin, ver. 10—18. 2. Amos followed his father’s steps, ver. 19—22. Was there done by the sword, and left good Judah his successor, ver. 23—26.

observed times, and used in departments, and dealt with familiar spirits, and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the fight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. 7. And he let a graven image of the grove 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. 8. Neither will I make the feet of Israel move any more out of the land which I gave their fathers; only if 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. 9. But they heathened not: and “Manaffeh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations, whom the LORD destroyed before the children of Israel.

c. 1—9. Like the seven years famine of Egypt, that made the former plenty forgotten, the wickedness of Manaffeh blest out all the glorious work his father had to proudly accomplished.

1. Manaffeh was young when he began his reign, and continued forcibly of any of the kings of Judah, reckoning the years of his captivity in Babylon. Whether he was immediately corrupted by those at court, who, amidst their pretended information, retained their love for the old abominations; and by flattery, gained the ear of the unexperienced king, or whether only after he had children, v. 6. he adulterated, is uncertain. Note, It is very dangerous to come too young to the possession of honour and greatness, so many are in wait to flatter such to their ruin.

2. His wickedness was beyond all his predecessors. Not warned by Israel’s punishment, he adopted all their sins with circumstance of peculiar aggravation; deipsing, or rather as if designing as cult reproach on his father’s proceedings, he began with rebuilding the high places Hezekiah had destroyed. Haal and Aftonach (translated a grove) once more reared up than handful heads, and the lofts of heaven were the objects of his worship, instead of that God who made them. To pro-fore God’s holy temple, he dared there erect his idol altars, filled the house and courts with these abominations, and there far-freeced to his gods. In the temple itself he placed the image of Aftonach, v. 7. in opposition and defiance to God, provoking him to cast them off for ever; whom, on their fidelity, he had promised ever to protect and preserve. Mad upon his idols, he made his son to pass through the fire, in honour to these false deities; and superstitious as impious, he trusted on charms, and consulted wizards, as if the devil wore a better oracle than the God that spoke from between the cherubims. Seduced by their king’s example, the people in general followed him, and Judah was filled with idolatry, worse than the very heathen nations around them. Note, (1.) They who have had a religious education, when they give themselves up to evil, usually grow of all others the most profligate. (2.) Irreligion and fe-puthism are nearly allied. They who cast off all fear of God, are often seen to be the greatest slaves to the illusions of the devil. (3.) A bad example is deadly infectious, and especially in kings: how much will they have to answer in the day of God, who are chargeable not only with their own blood, but with the murder of thousands of souls, whom they have seduced and destroyed?

3. ¶ And the LORD spoke by his servants the prophets, saying, 11. ¶ Because Manaffeh 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 idols: 12. Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing 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 upside down. 14. And I will forsake 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 enemies: 15. Because they have done that which was evil in my fight, and have provoked me to anger since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day. 16. Moreover, ¶ Manaffeh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem I from one end to another, beside his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the fight of the LORD. 17. ¶ Now the rest of the acts of Manaffeh, and all that he did, and his sin that he sinned, are they not written in the book of the chroni-Vox. I.

cles of the kings of Judah? 18. And Manaffeh slept before Christ 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.

Though their provocations were so great, God did not strike without warning. Joel, Nahum, Habakkuk prophesied, it is supposed, under Manaffeh, and the tradition is, that Isaiah was sawn afunder by him, Heb. xi. 37. At last, when incorrigible, the threatened judgment came; of which we shall hear more, I Chom. xxxiii. We have here.

1. The charge brought against Manaffeh. His vile idolatry, his infamous delusions of God’s people; and, as the foount of his guilt, v. 16. the blood of innocents which he shed, and as above hinted, of God’s prophets: this filled the measure of his iniquities from full, and brought down the heavy wrath of a justly offended God. Note, (1.) The greatest king’s most bland shortly as the meanest criminels at God’s bar. (2.) The persecution of God’s people is the crime which falls soonest the measure of a nation’s sins.

2. The sentence pronounced upon him. A destruction so terrible, that the neighbour nations should be astonished at the report. The same judgment should light on Jerusalem as Samaria, and the house of Manaffeh be destroyed as the house of Ahab. The country should be thoroughly plundered, ramacked, and defolate, fended of all, in a dish wiped clean, and turned upside down, and all the inhabitants removed into a strange land. Since they had forsaken God, he would forsake them; and taking now their former sins, from the day they left Egypt, into the account, reckon with them from first to last. Note, (1.) When by our perfidious apology we turn from God, old guilt that had otherwise been cancelled is recalled, to witness against and condemn us. (2.) They who forsake God, must expect to be forsaken by him. (3.) When God visits for sin in the great day, then shall indeed the ears of sinners tingle at the dreadful sentence denounced upon them.

3. Manaffeh’s death is recorded, and his burial. Whether on his penitence, see 2 Chron. xxxiii. he judged himself unworthy, or others thought an idolater ought not to lie there, he was not buried in the royal sepulchres, but privately in his own garden, leaving his crown to his son, the heir of his idolatry, as well as his kingdom.

4. ¶ 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 Mishullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of Jofbah. 20. And he did that which was evil in the fight of the LORD, as his father Manaffeh did. 21. And he walked in all the way that his father walked in, and ferred the idols that his father ferred, and worshipped them: 22. And he forsook the LORD God of his fathers, and walked not in the way of the LORD. 23. ¶ And the servants of Amon conspired against him, and flew the king in his own house. 24. And the people of the land flew all them that had conspired against king Amon, and the people of the land made Jofiah his son king in his stead. 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? 26. And he was buried in his sepulchre, in the garden of Uzza: and Jofiah his son reigned in his stead.

2 Kings 21:19-26

1. Amon’s reign and life were short, and his end tragical. He returned to these idolatries, which, in his latter days, his penitent father had hypocritical; and thus by his wick-ends, hastened his death. A conspiracy was formed; and, after a reign of but two years, he was slain in his own house. Note, (1.) The evil we have occasioned to others, we can never repair. When we would wish to undeceive those we have seduced, to our grief, we find every effort vain. (2.) It is a mercy to a nation, that the career of a wicked king is short.

2. The men of Judah revenged his death on the conspirators, and set up Jofiah his son in his stead; who being an infant, probably they designed to rob him of the crown: and they buried Amon with his father, in the garden of Uzza, as unworthy a tomb among his illustrious predecessors.