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"Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign; he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hephzibah. He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD ... " - 2 Kings 21:1-18
So, what is the deal with this guy that gets him assigned the reputation of doing evil in the sight of the LORD.
First cited are the abominable practices of the nations.
What were they?
First, they were practices that negated, marginalized, excluded, and violated the worship of Israel's God, YHWH, who was, over the centuries, making Himself known as the One true God to whom was due ultimate loyalty. Part of that loyalty was based on gratitude, but it was also put forth by the prophets that it was the only loyalty that made sense.
Then, there was the premise that BAAL represented the kind of local deity-based nationalism and empire-building qualities that were represented in his own mythology. He was a god who became surpreme by conquering other gods and that was translated into a religion of conquest and domination. To be fair, the early history of Israel coming into the land of Canaan and displacing the nations there has a similar tone, but a different rationale.
Next, one of the things that the people of YHWH found detestable and YHWH spoke against, was the fertility rituals of the BAAL temples. One of the practices of fertility religions was to act out the sex act to give the gods the idea of what to do to make the crops grow. This led to "sacred prostitution" which not only became a moral stumbling block to the laity, but victimized the women who were conscripted into the practices.
Manasseh encouraged this practice as well as the practice of sacrificing his own children and victimizing his people.
Remember that the Torah while having social laws in common with some of the other progressive systems in the Ancient Middle East, was one of the most liberal, fair, and just systems in its time. It insured the rights of the poor, the disenfranchised, and the alien. It regulated and restricted the severity of punishment. It set up a process for adjudicating justice between neighbors.
Manasseh abandoned the Torah and it meant that his rule was unjust for the people.
Then, we are told that he not only went astray, but he led the people astray.
He set up decentralized worship which, in his time, meant worship with no sense of center in God. It was a do-as-you-please, think-as-you-please, live-as-you-please, self-absorbed religion that was materialistic at its heart.
Not only did he proliferate this practice in various places, but he brought it into the temple.
Manasseh co-opted the religious establishment to promulgate his own power, lust, and greed.
Manasseh shed innocent blood. His attitude toward humanity was that it was dispensable. People existed, according to his despotic attitude, for his own service and ambition.
Human reign is conditional. Human power is subservient to Divine power. Manasseh violated the conditions of his reign and power. He did evil in the sight of God.
Consequently, he brought the whole nation down, not just by his own doing, but because the people went blindly along with him.
They consented to the evil.
"Manasseh misled them to do more evil than the nations had done that the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel"
Nothing could redeem Manasseh's reputation, but the people could not avoid their responsibility either, just because they were "misled."
All human power must be constantly challenged and restrained.
That acknowledged that one purpose of human power is to restrain evil. It is also the purpose of the populace to restrain the runaway potential for evil in those to whom we assign temporal power.
Even when we have power, we must constantly seek out those who will challenge and restrain us. Humility and integrity demand it.
We do have power entrusted to us and we must never trust it.
Only God is ultimately and perfectly trustworthy.God creates, through our agency, and authorizes institutions which entrust power to individuals and assemblies, but it is never unconditional.
All human power, though necessary and deserving respect, is corruptible and demanding of restraint.
We have that responsibility to require accountability of ourselves and of those who carry out our collective will.
Appreciation, accountability, and respect walk hand in hand, but the people of God must know where their ultimately loyalty lies.
Let us read, consider, and reflect upon the scripture here and decide how we will respond.
Other accounts show us the repentance of Manasseh in the 11th hours, but that is not the point we are amplifying here. While Manasseh found grace and mercy, the consequences of his sin were already in motion for the people he led astray.
2 Kings 21:1-18 tell us the story:
Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign; he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hephzibah.
He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, following the abominable practices of the nations that the LORD drove out before the people of Israel.
For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he erected altars for Baal, made a sacred pole, as King Ahab of Israel had done, worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them.
He built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, "In Jerusalem I will put my name." He built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD.
He made his son pass through fire; he practiced soothsaying and augury, and dealt with mediums and with wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.
The carved image of Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the LORD said to David and to his son Solomon, "In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever; I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander any more out of the land that I gave to their ancestors, if only they will be careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them."
But they did not listen; Manasseh misled them to do more evil than the nations had done that the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel.
The LORD said by his servants the prophets, "Because King Manasseh of Judah has committed these abominations, has done things more wicked than all that the Amorites did, who were before him, and has caused Judah also to sin with his idols; therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such evil that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle."
"I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line for Samaria, and the plummet for the house of Ahab; I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. I will cast off the remnant of my heritage, and give them into the hand of their enemies; they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies, because they have done what is evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger, since the day their ancestors came out of Egypt, even to this day."
Moreover Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides the sin that he caused Judah to sin so that they did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.
Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, all that he did, and the sin that he committed, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? Manasseh slept with his ancestors, and was buried in the garden of his house, in the garden of Uzza.
His son Amon succeeded him.
