Manasseh (II)

II. MANASSEH. The fifteenth King of Judah, being the Son and Successor of Hezekiah¹. He was twelve Years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty five 2 Kings xx. 21. xxi. 1, 2. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 1, 2, 3, 4.Years; wherefore he lived in all sixty seven Years. His Mother’s Name was Hephzibah. He did that which was Evil in the Sight of the Lord, and worshipped the Idols of those Nations, that the Lord had destroyed when the Children of Israel took Possession of the Land of Canaan. He rebuilt the high Places that his Father Hezekiah had destroyed. He set up Altars to Baal, and planted Groves in Honour of false Gods, as Ahab King of Israel had done. He worshipped the Host of Heaven, and sacrificed to ‘em. He also built profane Altars in the Temple of the Lord. He raised Altars to the whole Host of Heaven; in the two Courts of God’s House. He made his Son pass through the Fire in Honour to Moloch. He was addicted to Magick, Divinations, Auguries, and other Sort of Superstitions and magical Curiosities. He set up the Idol of Astarta in the House of God. Finally, he involved his People in all the Abomination of the idolatrous and strange Nations, and perverted them to that Degree, that Israel committed more Wickedness than all the Canaanites had done, which the Lord had drove out before them. To all these Crimes Manasseh added that of Cruelty also. He shed Rivers of innocent Blood in Jerusalem, to fill up the Measure of his other Iniquities.

Therefore the Lord being provoked by so many Crimes of Manasseh, sent this threatning Message to him, by the Mouth of his Prophets: ” I am going to pour out ” upon Jerusalem and Judah such Calamities, that the Ears of those shall tingle, ” that shall but hear them mentioned. I ” will stretch out upon Jerusalem the Line ” of Samaria, and of the House of Ahab; ” I will deal with it as I have dealt with ” Samaria, and I will reject Manasseh as I ” have rejected Ahab and his House. I ” will blot out Jerusalem as a Writing is ” blotted out of a Writing-table, and I shall ” often draw the Pen over and over, that ” nothing may remain of it. I shall forsake the Remains of my Inheritance, I ” shall deliver my People into the Hand ” of their Enemies, and all those that hate ” them shall ravage and pillage them.

‘Tis believed that the Prophet Isaiah was one of those, that raised his Voice loudest against all these Enormities. This Prophet had the Honour of being Father-in-Law to the King². He had been in great Credit at Court, in the Reign of Hezekiah the King’s Father. He was a Man of high Birth, being of the Blood Royal. He thought it more incumbent upon him than any other, to endeavour to reclaim the King from his wicked Courses, and to denounce God’s Judgments against him. But this so exasperated him against Isaiah, that instead of hearkening to these Remonstrances, he caused him to be apprehended, and put him to Death, by sawing him in two with a wooden Saw³. The Calamities with which God had threatned this 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11, 12, &c.impious Prince began to appear towards the twenty second Year of his Reign⁴. The King of Assyria sent the Princes of his Army against him, who seizing him among the Briars and Brambles where he was hid, and taking him Prisoner, put Fetters on his Hands and Feet, and carried him to Babylon. We think it was Sargon or Esar-haddon King of Assyria, who sent Tartan into Palestine, and who taking Azoth, attacked Manasseh, and having put him in Irons, led him away, not to Nineve, but to Babylon, of which Esar-haddon had made himself Master, and had thus reunited the two Empires of the Assyrians and the Chaldæans.

Homil. i. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 15, 16. Deut. iv. 29, 30.Manasseh being in Bonds at Babylon, confessed his Sins, and humbled himself before God, who heard his Prayers and Lamentations. He brought him back to Jerusalem, and Manasseh acknowledged the powerful Hand of the Lord. He redressed as much as he could the Evils he had caused at Jerusalem and in Judah. We have a Prayer which, ‘tis pretended, he made in Prison. The Church does not receive it as Canonical, but it has a Place among the Apochryphal Pieces. However it is to be found in the Euchologium, or the Book of Prayers of the Greeks. The Rabbins⁵ relate, that Manasseh was cast into a great brazen Vessel full of Holes, and exposed to a great Fire. That in this Extremity he had Recourse to all his false Deities, to whom he had been used to sacrifice. But receiving no Assistance from any of them, he then soon found the Vanity of his Hopes. Then he remembered what he had heard his Father King Hezekiah say, ” When you shall invoke me in your Misfortunes, and convert your selves to me, ” I will hear you.” He therefore was converted to the Lord, and was presently delivered, and carried in a Moment into his Kingdom; after the Manner that Habbakkuk afterwards was transported from Judæa to Babylon, and then back again from Babylon to Judæa. The Author of the Homil. imperfect Comment upon Saint Matthew relates his Deliverance in another Manner. He says that Manasseh being in Bonds, had only every Day a little Barley-bread, and some Water mixed with Vinegar, and this by Measure, just enough to keep him alive. In the Midst of his Affliction he had Recourse to the Lord, when a miraculous Flame encompassed him on a sudden, and melting his Chains, set him at Liberty. But these are Fables.

Manasseh was very probably delivered out of Prison by Saosduchin the Successor of Esar-haddon. Being returned to Jerusalem he restored the Worship of the Lord in his Temple, broke down the Altars 2 Chron. xxxiii. 13, 14, &c.of the false Gods, and abolished all the Foot-steps of that idolatrous Worship, that had been given to strange Gods. But he did not destroy the high Places, where the People went to worship the Lord; whether it was that he had not Power enough to suppress so ancient and inveterate a Custom, or that out of Weakness he made this Con-descension to the Humours of the People. ‘Tis the only Thing that the Scripture reproaches him with, after his Return from Babylon. He caused Jerusalem to be fortified, and repaired its Walls. He also inclosed with a Wall another City, which in his Time was erected to the West of Jerusalem, and which goes by the Name of the second City ever since his Reign. See 2 Chron. xxxiii. 14. He put Garrisons into all the strong Places of Judah, and gave Orders to all his People to worship and serve the Lord.

The rest of the Actions of Manasseh, the Prayer that he made to God, and the Remonstrances that had been made to him by the Prophets in the Name of God, were related at large in the publick Registers of the Kings of Judah; and also the Prayer that he made in Prison, the Manner in which God was pleased to answer his Prayer, the Crimes he had committed, the Statues he had set up, and the profane Groves he had planted; in a Word, his Sin and his Prevarication were related in Full in the Book of the Prophet Hozaï, which is the same as Isaiah according to some. The Seventy take this in a general Sense; in the Writings of the Seers. The Syriack calls him Hanan, and the Arabic Saphan. Manasseh died at Jerusalem, and was buried in the Garden of his House, in the Garden of 2 Kings xxi. 18.Uzza. His Son Amon succeeded him, in the Year of the World 3361, before Christ 639, and before the Vulgar Æra 643.

Many believe that the History of Judith and Holofernes happened under the Reign of Manasseh, and after his Return from Babylon. This Prince does not at all appear in this History, whether out of Reasons of State he did not think proper to declare himself on this Occasion, or that upon a Principle of Penitence he concerned himself little or nothing with the Affairs of Government. See the Preface to Judith.

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