Manasseh, king of Judah
1 ① Manasseh was twelve years old when he began his reign, and he reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.
2He treated Yahweh very badly, imitating the wretched practices of the people Yahweh had driven out from the land in order to give it to the Israelites. 3He rebuilt the sanctuaries on the hills, which had been destroyed by Hezekiah his father. He built altars to the god Baal and made a sacred pillar similar to the one Ahab, king of Israel, had made. He knelt before all the stars of heaven and worshiped them. 4He built altars in the courtyard of the House of Yahweh, about which Yahweh had said, “Jerusalem shall be the dwelling place of my Name.”
5He built altars for all the stars of heaven in the two courtyards of the House of Yahweh. 6He sacrificed his son by fire. He practiced soothsaying and magic, he brought in seers and wizards, doing without ceasing what Yahweh condemned, and thus provoking his anger. 7He even put up the sacred pillar of the goddess Asherah in the House of Yahweh in spite of what Yahweh had said to David and to his son, Solomon: “I shall let my Name rest forever in this House, for I have chosen Jerusalem from among all the tribes of Israel. 8I shall no longer let Israel wander out of the land I gave to their fathers, provided that you try to live according to all the Law I gave you through my servant Moses.”
9But they did not listen, and Manasseh led them into doing things worse than those nations had done whom Yahweh had expelled before the Israelites. 10So Yahweh spoke through the mouth of his servants, the prophets, saying,
11“Manasseh, king of Judah, has multiplied the wretched practices and has acted worse than the Amorites. He has made the people of Judah sin with his repugnant images.
12Therefore, I shall bring upon Jerusalem and upon Judah an evil so great that the ears of those who hear of it shall buzz. 13Jerusalem and its kings shall suffer the fate of Samaria and of the family of Ahab. I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a plate to clean it, and then turns it upside down. 14I shall drive away the rest of my people and give them over into the hands of their enemies so that they shall become their prey and booty. 15For they did what displeased me and made me angry from the day when their ancestors came out of Egypt to this day.”
16Manasseh also shed innocent blood in such quantity that it filled up Jerusalem from one end to the other, besides the sins which he made Judah commit, doing what is wrong in the sight of Yahweh. 17The rest regarding Manasseh, all that he did and the sins he committed, is written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.
18When Manasseh died, they buried him in the garden of his house, in the garden of Uzza, and his son Amon reigned in his place.
19Amon was twenty-two years old when he began his reign, and he reigned for two years in Jerusalem; his mother’s name was Meshullemeth, daughter of Haruz, of the city of Jotbah. 20He treated Yahweh badly, as his father Manasseh had done. 21He completely followed in the footsteps of his father – he served the idols his father had served and bowed down before them. 22He abandoned Yahweh, the God of his ancestors, and did not walk in the way of Yahweh.
23The officials of Amon conspired against him, and murdered him in his house. 24But the citizens killed all who had plotted against the king, and they proclaimed his son Josiah king in his place.
25The rest regarding Amon and all that he did is written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. 26They buried him in his tomb, in the garden of Uzza, and his son Josiah reigned in his place.
- 2 K 21,1 The miraculous liberation of Jerusalem did not reverse, in fact, the decadence of the Kingdom. Even before Hezekiah's death, Judah is totally submitted to Assyrian rule. This explains partly why Manasseh, Hezekiah's son, begins refraining, and then persecuting Yahweh's party which was the living spirit of Judah's nationalism. Manasseh openly promotes idolatry and persecutes Yahweh's people as Jezebel had done in Israel a century before. With his godless, crime-filled reign, Manasseh succeeds in destroying the hope placed in David's descendant by Hezekiah's reforms. His reign lasted forty-five years, during which both faithful and prophets had to remain silent or hide. The betrayal of Yahweh's Covenant was such that after Manasseh's death, the prophets considered him responsible for the fall of Jerusalem.
