Introduction
In the previous three chapters we were reading about Hezekiah, this good and godly king who did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Remember? He cleansed the kingdom from the evil influence of his father Ahaz by removing the high places and by smashing the sacred stones and by cutting down the Asherah poles and by cleansing the temple of all the signs of his father’s idolatry. And our narrator said that he trusted in the Lord and there was no-one like him among all the kings of Judah because he held fast to the Lord and did not cease to follow him. And our narrator said that the Lord was with him so that he was successful in whatever he undertook. And though his faith wobbled momentarily when the Assyrians invaded the land of Judah, in the end, he turned to the Lord for the help he needed and the Lord rescued Jerusalem from the Assyrians. And when Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death, he once again turned to the Lord for the help he needed; and the Lord rescued him by raising him from his death bed. And though he Lord announced to him that one day the Babylonians will capture Jerusalem, the Lord reassured Hezekiah that it would not happen in his day, but it would happen to a future generation. Hezekiah was a good and godly king and the Lord was with him to help him. It was as if the clock had been turned back to the days of David and Solomon, when the people lived in peace and prosperity.
But then we come to today’s chapter and to Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh, and Manasseh’s son, Amon. And it seems that all the good work of Hezekiah was wiped away and Judah returned to the bad old days of Ahaz. In fact, it was worse than that. If the reign of Hezekiah was like the days of David and Solomon, the reigns of Manasseh and Amon were like the days when the pagan nations lived on the land. So, it was as if the clock had been turned back to the time before Joshua, when the Canaanites lived on the land and when idolatry and wickedness reigned.
Verses 1 to 9 and 16
As our narrator normally does, he begins his account of the reign of Manasseh by telling us when he began to reign and for how long. According to verse 1, he was 12 years old when he began to reign and he reigned for 55 years. Though he was a wicked king, his reign was the longest lasting reign of all the kings of Judah. And the narrator gives us the name of his mother before giving us his assessment of Manasseh’s reign. And he tells us that Manasseh did evil in the eyes of the Lord. With previous wicked kings in Judah, the narrator might add that they followed the practices of the kings of Israel, or they followed the practice of Jeroboam. However, our narrator says about Manasseh that he followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out of the land before the Israelites. As I said a moment ago, it was as if the clock had been turned back to the time before Joshua. In those days, the pagan nations lived on the land and they lived wicked lives. In fact, one of the reasons that Lord took the land from them and gave it to his people was to punish the nations for their wickedness. But years later, here’s one of the kings of Judah and he’s doing what the pagans used to do. He’s following their detestable practices.
And in verses 3 to 9 the narrator fills that out for us. So, whereas Hezekiah removed the high places, where the people used to worship idols, Manasseh rebuilt them. And whereas Hezekiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles, used in pagan worship, Manasseh put them back in place: he erected altars to Baal and he made another Asherah pole. And instead of worshipping the Lord, he bowed down to the starry hosts and worshipped them. He regarded the sun and moon and stars as gods to be worshipped.
What else did he do? Take a look at verse 4 where it says that he built altars in the temple of the Lord. So, the temple in Jerusalem was built for the worship of the Lord. As it says here, God put his name there. In other words, the temple in Jerusalem was associated with God. It belonged to him. It was for him. But Manasseh built these pagan altars in the temple of the Lord so that, in the place where he was meant to worship the Lord, he now worshipped other gods. And the narrator explains in verse 5 that these altars were for the starry hosts. So, God made the sun and the moon and the stars. They are part of his creation. But in his sin and unbelief, Manasseh believed that the sun and moon and stars were gods to be worshipped.
What else did he do? According to verse 6 he sacrificed his own son in the fire. You might recall that this was one of the complaints the Lord made against the Israelites back in chapter 17 to explain why the Lord sent the Israelites into exile. The Lord, of course, forbade this wicked practice, but here’s the king of Judah doing it. And he also practiced sorcery and divination and he consulted mediums and spiritists. The Lord forbade all of these practices; and yet Manasseh did them all. And as the narrator says at the end of verse 6, he did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, provoking the Lord to anger.
And that sounds like the conclusion of his assessment, doesn’t it? That sounds as if he’s come to the end of his list of the evil things Manasseh did. However, our narrator has not yet finished. There’s more to say about his wicked deeds. And so, what else did he do? Manasseh took the Asherah pole he had made and he put it in the temple of the Lord. Since the Asherah pole represented a female god, it’s possible that Manasseh was thinking that the Lord needed a wife: he needed a female god beside him. And since he had already put altars for the starry hosts in the temple, they Manasseh was saying that the Lord their God was only one God among many. Though the first commandment says that we are to have no other gods before or beside the Lord, Manasseh placed these other gods beside the Lord. He did not regard the Lord as pre-eminent, but as one God among many. And the temple, which was built for the worship of the Lord alone, became the place where the king and the people worshipped multiple gods. When we were studying chapter 17, I said that a man cannot tell his wife that he loves her while he’s having affairs with other women. The fact that he’s having affairs with other women means that he doesn’t love his wife. If he loved her, he would have no other women in his life. And since Manasseh had many gods, then that tells you that he didn’t really love or fear or worship the true God.
And look now at the ominous words in verses 8 and 9. It begins with a promise and it’s a wonderful promise. The Lord said to his people: ‘I will not again make the feet of the Israelites wander from the land I gave their forefathers….’ That’s a wonderful promise. God was promising his people that they could live in the Promised Land always. They would never have to leave it. However, the promise doesn’t end there. There’s a condition attached to it. There’s an ‘if’. What’s the ‘if’? ‘I will not again make the feet of the Israelites wander from the land I gave their forefathers, if only they will be careful to do everything I commanded them and will keep the whole Law that my servant Moses gave them.’ So, they will stay in the Promised Land so long as they obey God’s Law. And I should explain that the Lord was not expecting perfect obedience. The Lord knew that the people were sinners and were incapable of keeping his commandments perfectly. But in the Law, which he gave his people Israel, there were all the rules and regulations about the sacrifices they were to bring to him whenever they disobeyed his commandments. When they sinned, he would pardon them when they brought him the right sacrifices.
So, God was saying to his people that he would let them remain in the Promised Land so long as they kept his Law — and that means trying to walk in his ways and bringing the right sacrifices when they fell short.
But look now at verse 9 where it says: ‘But the people did not listen.’ They did not listen. And that’s why I said these are ominous words. If the people kept the Law, they would have remained on the land. But since they did not keep the Law, then that means they cannot remain on the land. God was going to send them away just as he sent away the people in the northern kingdom of Israel.
And notice this. Who did not listen? It says ‘the people’ did not listen. Up to now, we’ve been reading about the sins of Manasseh. But Manasseh did not act alone. What he did, the people did. According to our narrator, Manasseh led the people astray so that they — the people — did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites. Manasseh did wicked things and so did the people under him.
And before we go on to verses 10 to 15 to hear the Lord’s response to their wickedness, we can take here the words of verse 16 where the narrator concludes his assessment of Manasseh’s reign. He says in verse 16 that Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end. Our narrator, of course, is exaggerating. He didn’t literally fill Jerusalem with blood. However, the narrator wants us to know that he didn’t shed innocent blood once or twice, but he did it often. He put innocent people to death again and again and again. Manasseh did this as well as all the other things which he caused the people of Judah to commit.
Verses 10 to 15
So, that’s the narrator’s assessment of Manasseh’s reign. And in verses 10 to 15 we have the word of the Lord to his people in those days. And it’s a word of judgment, isn’t it?
First of all, the Lord says that Manasseh has committed these detestable sins and he has done more evil that the Amorites who preceded him. He’s referring to the pagan nations who lived in the land before the Israelites. They did evil, but Manasseh did even more evil than they did. And what’s more, he led the people of Judah into the same sins. So, he sinned and so did they.
‘Therefore’, verse 12 begins. Since this is true, since Manasseh has done evil and he’s led the people into evil, this is what the Lord will do. And he uses three images to describe what he’ll do. First he says that ears will tingle. Ears will tingle when people hear about the disaster which God will bring on Jerusalem and Judah. Normally, when someone tells us something, our ears don’t tingle. They don’t react. Our ears take in the message, but that’s all. But when people hear about the disaster which Jerusalem and Judah will suffer, their ears will react. Their ears will be affected because the news is so shocking.
Then he uses building imagery. He says that he’ll stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb-line used against the house of Ahab. He’s referring to what he did to the northern kingdom of Israel, which Ahab once ruled from Samaria. And by referring to the measuring line and plumb-line, he means that he’s planned and prepared and measured out the disaster that he will send on the people of Judah.
And then he uses the image of washing dishes. Just as you wipe a dirty dish and turn it upside down to empty it of all the leftovers, so the Lord is going to wipe Jerusalem and turn it upside down to empty it of all its people.
He says he’s going to forsake ‘the remnant of his inheritance’. Think of the northern and southern kingdoms as God’s inheritance. They were his chosen people who belonged to him. And since the northern kingdom has already been destroyed, then the southern kingdom is the remnant: all that is left. But he’s going to forsake them as well. He’s going to give them up. He’s going to hand them over to their enemies. And so, they will be looted and plundered by all their foes.
And why will they suffer like this? Verse 15: because they have done evil in his eyes and they have provoked him to anger. And in case we think the Lord is being unkind to them, notice that he says that have done evil in his eyes and they have provoked him to anger ‘from the day their forefathers came out of Egypt’. In other words, he has been patient with them. He has put up with their sins and shortcomings. He has put up with their disobedience. This is not the first time they have done evil in his sight. They have been doing evil ever since he rescued them from Egypt. Even when there was a good king over them, the people have been doing evil. And the Lord endured it all. He put up with it all. He was patient with them. But now the time has come for the Lord to act and to punish them from their wickedness. And if you were to turn over a few pages in your Bible to chapter 25, you’ll see that the NIV gives that chapter the title, ‘The Fall of Jerusalem’. The end is nigh for Jerusalem. It won’t be long before the Lord did to them all that he said he would do.
Verses 17 and 18
That’s the word of the Lord to Manasseh in those days. And in verses 17 and 18 the narrator does as he normally does and he tells us that the other events of the king’s reign are recorded in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah. And he died and was buried. And his son succeeded him as king.
Verses 19 to 26
And we don’t need to say too much about his son, because his son Amon was a carbon copy of Manasseh, because he too did evil in the eyes of the Lord. And look how the narrator emphasises that he was a carbon copy or repetition of his father: he says he did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, ‘as his father had done’; and he walked ‘in all the ways of his father’; and he worshipped the idols ‘his father worshipped’. So, he did what his father did. And therefore he forsook the Lord and did not walk in his ways.
And then our narrator tells us that Amon’s officials conspired against him and assassinated him. But then his assassinators were killed and his son, Josiah, was made king in his place. And, as we’ll see, Josiah was a breath of fresh air.
Application
That’s our chapter for today. Hezekiah was a good and godly king, who did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. But his son and grandson who succeeded him were wicked kings who did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord. It was as if they turned the clock back to the time when the pagan nations lived in the land, who did not know the Lord or his laws and who did what was evil in his sight.
We all tend to believe in progress, don’t we? We tend to believe in progress. We think that things will get better over time. The problems previous generations faced will be solved and things will get better. We believe in progress.
And, of course, in many ways, that’s true. Although people will sometimes talk about the good old days, nevertheless when we read about the past, and what people experienced and suffered, we’re glad that we weren’t around in those days, because things are so much better now.
So, think of the progress we’ve made in medicine and how we have vaccines to prevent the spread of disease which used to kill people in the past. And when we’re sick, we have medicines to take and treatments to undergo to restore our health. Think of the advances in surgery and the things surgeons can do now which were impossible in the past. Think of the progress we’ve made in sanitation and how we all have indoors toilets and running water and our waste goes down a pipe and into the sewer to prevent the spread of disease. Think of the progress we’ve made in technology and how we’re able to fly across the world and we’re able to extract resources from the earth and use them for our benefit. And most of us have little computers in our pockets to communicate with people around the world. And the homes many of you live in today are much better than the homes you grew up in. And our homes today are far, far better than the homes people had in the past before there was electricity and central heating and indoor plumbing and double-glazing in our windows and insulation in our roof spaces. And I could go on, mentioning other ways we have advanced as knowledge and technology and wealth is passed on from generation to generation and is built on. Each new generation stands on the shoulders of the previous one.
All of that is true. But here’s the thing. Human nature doesn’t advance like that. Lots of things change for the better, but our nature doesn’t. Each person who is born is born with the same human nature as Adam had in the beginning. And ever since Adam disobeyed God in the beginning, each person who is born is born with the same fallen human nature as Adam had after he sinned against God. The theologians call this ‘original sin’. And by ‘original sin’ they really mean two things. Firstly, it means we share Adam’s guilt, so that each person who is born is born guilty in the sight of God. We share Adam’s guilt, because he was acting for us in the Garden and when he became guilty in God’s sight, so did we. But then, secondly, original sin means we share Adam’s fallen nature, his corrupt nature. We come into this world as sinners who are naturally inclined to sin and to disobey God and to do what’s wrong instead of what’s right. The natural inclination of everyone who is born is to do what is evil in the sight of God.
Now, as soon as I say that, someone might want to respond and say that people do good as well as evil. People do what’s right as well as what’s wrong. People are a mixture of good and evil. And that’s true. But it’s only true because God restrains our natural inclination to do evil. He prevents us from being as bad as we might otherwise be. He holds us back. He restrains us and he enables us to do good even though our natural inclination is to do evil. But the fact remains that every person who is born shares Adam’s guilt and his fallen human nature so that our natural inclination is to do wrong. We make so much progress in other areas of life. But each new generation is born with the same fallen and sinful nature as Adam.
And that’s why a Hezekiah gives birth to a Manasseh. A good and godly king like Hezekiah can give birth to a wicked and evil son like Manasseh. One generation of the people of Judah may be careful to walk in the ways of the Lord. But the next generation turns away from the Lord and they build high places and they made Asherah poles and they worship idols. And even though God might punish the people from their wickedness, the next generation does exactly the same thing and sins in the same way, because every one of us is born with Adam’s fallen human nature and we’re naturally inclined to do evil.
But the good news of the gospel is that we have a king who is able take away our guilt and who is also able, not only to restrain us, but to change us. We have a king who is able take our guilt and who is able to renew us. He’s able to transform us so that instead of being inclined to do evil, we’re inclined more and more to do what’s right and good and pleasing in the sight of God.
Jesus Christ our King takes away our guilt because he gave up his life on the cross to pay for all that we have done wrong and he shares his own perfect goodness with us. And because he paid for all that we have done wrong by giving up his life for us on the cross, and because he shares his own perfect goodness with us, we are no longer guilty in God’s sight. When God looks at us, he no longer sees Adam’s guilt or even our own guilt. Instead he sees the perfect goodness of Christ, because Christ’s perfect goodness cover over our guilt.
And then Christ our King gives us his Spirit. And his Spirit works in us from the inside out, changing us and renewing us and restoring us to the image of God so that instead of wanting to do evil, we want to do what is good and right. He changes what we think. He changes what we desire and long for. He changes what we do. He changes what we say. Think of the mechanic who takes the broken-down car and restores it so that it is good as new. Think of the builder who takes the derelict house and renovates it so that it is good as new. So, Christ our King works in us by his Spirit to restore us and to make us as good as new.
His work will not be completed in this life, because the effects of Adam’s fall linger on in our life. But throughout our life, Christ our King changes us and he’ll finish his work in us in the life to come.
That’s what Christ the King does for his people. And we become his people through repentance and faith: by turning from our old life of sin and unbelief and by turning with faith to the Saviour–King for forgiveness and peace with God. And so, if Jesus Christ is your Saviour–King, if you’re trusting in him for salvation, then rejoice, because he has removed your guilt from you so that you have peace with God for ever; and he’s renewing you by his Spirit and restoring you to the way you were always meant to be — and all to the praise of God’s glorious grace.
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