2 Chronicles 33 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~697-640 BC, the fifty-five year reign of Manasseh followed by the two-year reign of his son Amon, at the height of Assyrian domination
Location
Jerusalem and the temple courts, with a detour to Babylon where Manasseh is taken as a prisoner
Audience
Jewish families who had returned from exile in Babylon and knew firsthand what it was to be dragged away and then brought home
Situation
Manasseh fills the temple with foreign altars, practises divination and sacrifices his own sons, until Assyrian commanders take him to Babylon with a hook and bronze shackles. He repents there, is restored to Jerusalem, tears out the idols and rebuilds the city wall, and his son Amon repeats the sins without the repentance.
Key Background
The parallel account in 2 Kings records Manasseh's evil but says nothing of his capture or repentance, and Chronicles supplies it because its writer needed to explain how the worst king in Judah's history also had the longest reign. Assyrian records confirm Manasseh as a tribute-paying vassal summoned to the imperial court, and rebellious client kings really were led away by a ring through the lip or nose, a humiliation shown on Assyrian palace reliefs. Babylon rather than the Assyrian capital of Nineveh fits this period, since Assyrian kings held court there after putting down Babylonian revolts, and for the book's first readers the image of a man taken to Babylon and brought back is the entire national story in miniature.
Manasseh was twelve years old when he became and he ruled in Jerusalem for fifty-five years.
He did what was in Yahweh's eyes, following the of the nations that Yahweh had driven out ahead of the Israelites.
He rebuilt the that his father Hezekiah had torn down, set up altars for the made and bowed down to the entire of the serving them.
He built altars in — the very place where Yahweh had said, "My will be in Jerusalem forever."
He built altars for the entire army of the sky in both courtyards of Yahweh's house.
He own as in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, practiced and divination and witchcraft, and consulted and He piled up massive evil in Yahweh's eyes, provoking him.
He even placed a he had made inside God's house — the house about which God had told David and his son Solomon, "In this house and in Jerusalem, which I chose out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever."
"I will never again make Israel's feet wander from the land I gave to their ancestors — if only they are careful to do everything I commanded them through Moses: all the the and the
But Manasseh Judah and the people of Jerusalem so that they did worse things than the nations Yahweh had destroyed ahead of the Israelites.
Yahweh spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they refused to listen.
So Yahweh brought the army commanders of the king of Assyria against them. They captured Manasseh with bound him with bronze chains, and hauled him off to
When he was in deep trouble, he begged Yahweh his God for help and before the God of his ancestors.
He prayed to him, and Yahweh was by his plea and heard his cry for help. He brought him back to Jerusalem, back to his kingdom. That's when Manasseh that Yahweh was the true God.
After this, he built an outer wall for the of west of the Gihon Spring in the valley, extending to the entrance of the Fish Gate. He ran it around the Ophel and made it very high. He also stationed military commanders in all the fortified cities of Judah.
He removed the foreign gods and the idol from Yahweh's house, along with all the altars he had built on the Temple hill and in Jerusalem, and threw them outside the city.
Then he restored Yahweh's altar and offered and on it. He told Judah to serve Yahweh, the God of Israel.
The people still sacrificed at the elevated shrines, but only to Yahweh their God.
The rest of Manasseh's story — his prayer to his God, and the words of the who spoke to him in the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel — you can find all of that in the records of the kings of Israel.
His prayer, and how God was moved by it, all his and the sites where he built elevated shrines and set up Asherah poles and carved images before he humbled himself — all of this is written in the records of the seers.
Manasseh with and they buried him in own palace. son Amon became king in place.
Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for two years.
He did what was evil in Yahweh's eyes, just like his father Manasseh had done. Amon sacrificed to all the carved idols his father Manasseh had made and served them.
But unlike his father Manasseh, he before Yahweh. Instead, Amon just kept piling up more and more
His own officials conspired against him and assassinated him in his own palace.
But the of the struck down everyone who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place.