Manasseh of Judah

Michelangelo's Hezekiah-Manasseh-Amon. Traditionally Manasseh is the man on the right and Amon is the child on the left.

Manasseh of Judah (687 - c. 642 B.C.E.) was the king of Judah and only son and successor of Hezekiah. His mother's name is given as Hephzibah.

Beginning his reign at the age of 12, Manasseh ruled Judah longer than any other king. A vassal of the Assyrian Empire, he reversed the monotheistic reforms of his father, for which he is severely condemned by the biblical writers, who condemn him as an idolater who killed his religious opponents and even sacrificed his own son to a pagan deity.

The Book of Chronicles, however, reports that Manasseh later repented of his sins after being taken captive by the Assyrians, and the deuter-canonical Prayer of Manasseh records his supposed supplication to God, in which he touchingly begs for forgiveness.

Government

In the time of Manasseh's father Hezekiah, Sennacherib, the king of Assyria conquered in the northern kingdom of Israel and took every city of Judah except Jerusalem. Judah thus became a tribute-paying vassal of Assyria and remained so during the reigns of the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. In religious policy, Hezekiah had once tolerated the worship of god other than Yahweh, but under the influence of the prophet Isaiah, he instituted a major religious reform, not only banning Baal worship in the capital, but also destroying at least some of the Israelite high places outside of Jerusalem, and even doing away with the famous bronze serpent constructed by Moses on the grounds that it had become on object of idolatry.

According to 2 Kings 21:1 Manasseh was still a boy of 12 at his father's death. His reign of 53 years is the longest recorded in the annals of Judah. The Assyrian kings continued to take an active interest in their western domains shown by their sending emissaries to visit Hezekiah after an illness (2 Kings 20:12) and their settlement of colonists in Samaria (Ezra 4). Both Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal carried out military campaigns against Egypt to the south and maintained protracted sieges of the strong cities of Pheonicia to Judah's north.

Though such a long reign as Manasseh's would normally be seen as a sign of God's favor, he is strongly condemned by the biblical writers. He reversed the religious reforms of his father Hezekiah, by granting his people the freedom to worship other gods than Yahweh, even in the Temple of (Jerusalem 2 Kings 21) and reinstated the high places that Hezekiah had closed or destroyed. The Book of Kings suggests that executed supporters of his father's reforms,

The writer in Kings emphasizes three deplorable details of the reign of Manasseh: the religious reaction which followed hard upon his accession; its extension by the free adoption of foreign cults; and the bitter persecution of the prophetic party. During Manasseh's half-century the popular worship was a medley of native and foreign cults, the influence of which was slow to disappear (Ezek. viii.). The prophets were put to the sword (Jer. 2:30), and "innocent blood" reddened the streets of Jerusalem (2 Kings 24:4). For many decades those who sympathized with prophetic ideas were in constant peril. An apocryphal tradition preserved in the Lives of the Prophets and rabbinical literature holds that among the martyrs during Manasseah's reign was the prophet Isaiah, who was cut in two with a saw.

The Chronicler declares that as punishment for Judah's sins under Manasseh, God sent "the captains of the host of the King of Assyria," who took Manasseh in chains to Babylon (2 Chron. 33:11). This implies that Manasseh must have engaged in some kind of revolt against Assyria or refused to pay the customary tribute. However, in 2 Kings, written within a century or so of Manasseh's death, there is no hint of revolt or war between Judah and Assyria.

Chronicles goes on to report that, having truly repented, Manasseh was restored to his throne. He then demonstrated the genuineness of his change of heart by devoting himself to measures of defense, administration, and religious reform.

The deuterocanonical Prayer of Manasseh purports to be a penitential prayer spoken by Manasseh, in which he declares:

You, O Lord, God of the righteous, have not given repentance for the righteous, for Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, who had not sinned against You, but you have given repentance for me, the sinner. For I have sinned more than the number of sand of the sea... I have set up abominations and multiplied provocations (idols). And now I bend the knee of my heart, begging for Your clemency. I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, and I know my lawless deeds. I am asking, begging You: forgive me, O Lord, forgive me! Do not destroy me with my lawless deeds, nor for all ages keep angry with me, nor condemn me to the depths of the earth, for You, O Lord, are the God of those who repent.

Such accounts accounts, however, are difficult to square with contemporary writing of Jeremiah who insisted that the crying need in the days of Josiah, Manasseh's immediate successor, was religious reform. Jeremiah also declared (Jer. 15:4) that Manasseh's sins had yet to be expiated.

After his nation's longest reign, Manasseh died and was buried at Uzza, the "garden of his own house" (2 Kings 21:17, 18; 2 Chr. 33:20), not in the City of David, among his ancestors.

Legacy

House of David Cadet Branch of the Tribe of Judah
Regnal Titles
Preceded by: Hezekiah	King of Judah Albright: 687 B.C.E. – 642 B.C.E. Thiele: 687 B.C.E. – 643 B.C.E. Galil: 697 B.C.E. – 642 B.C.E.	Succeeded by: Amon

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

This entry incorporates text from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary, originally published in 1897.

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Manasseh of Judah  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Manasseh of Judah"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.