2 Kings 21 Study Notes

21:1-18 These verses cover the fifty-five-year reign of Manasseh, including a co-regency with his father, which left him a sole regency of about forty-three years. (Some reigns or periods can gain or lose a year both at the beginning and ending due to changing conventions in counting parts of a year.) If Manasseh was twelve when he began his co-regency, then he was twenty-two to twenty-four years old at the beginning of his sole rule. He would have been born before God’s grant of fifteen extra years of life to his father Hezekiah.

21:2 We are told Manasseh did what was evil, but this statement hardly describes the depths of his apostasy. His wickedness was certainly associated with rejecting Hezekiah’s anti-Assyrian policy. Manasseh is listed as a loyal vassal king who supplied troops for Ashurbanipal’s expedition against Thebes in Egypt (ca 663 BC, see Nah 3:8). Assyrian vassals were expected to display religious loyalty to Asshur, the chief Assyrian god (see note at 16:10-11). Manasseh’s acceptance of Assyrian deities evolved even further into a tolerant acceptance of any and all pagan deities.

21:3-6 Manasseh’s restored high places may have included the illegal shrines of Yahweh, which Hezekiah had suppressed, and those altars devoted to other pagan deities. They included the gods of the skies and heavens. Even worse, he desecrated the Lord’s temple by worshiping these deities in the temple itself. Recent scholars have taken the word mediums as referring to a ritual pit for bringing up spirits serviced by the spiritists (1Sm 28:7).

21:7a Asherah was originally a tree or a wooden pole that represented any divine consort of the chief fertility god. Since the word here is not associated with any local Baal, it seems to refer to a particular female deity. In setting up this image, Manasseh came close to assigning the Lord another female consort (see comments on Ashima in note at 17:29-34).

21:7b-9 The Lord had ceased his wanderings (2Sm 7:6) to dwell in the temple in Jerusalem. The covenant associated with it gave the Hebrews rest from wanderings. The corrupting of this temple would return the Israelites to wandering among the nations.

21:10-14 Just as Manasseh’s list of sins is the longest of the kings of Judah, the judgment for those sins is one of the longest in the individual records.

21:13 The builder’s measuring instruments symbolized God’s judgment of a corrupt society.

21:15 The people’s failure and rebellion dated from the day their ancestors came out of Egypt. This implied a more profound failure than the occasional transgressions of kings and individuals. There was a deeper, systemic problem that demanded a radically different solution: the new covenant written in their hearts (Jr 31:31-34).

21:16 The Bible gives no more specific data about Manasseh’s filling Jerusalem with innocent blood, and 2 Kings mentions nothing about Manasseh’s captivity, repentance, and building operations (2Ch 33:10-14).

21:17-18 This conclusion to Manasseh’s reign highlights the sin that he committed.

21:19-22 Manasseh’s son Amon learned nothing from God’s judgment of his father.

21:23-24 Amon was assassinated by his own servants, probably a victim of the internal struggle between the pro-Assyrian and anti-Assyrian parties. The common people (lit “people of the land”) emerged as the group that maintained loyalty to David’s dynasty.

21:25-26 Appropriately, Amon was buried in the tomb of his father Manasseh.