Words in italic type have been added for clarity. They are not found in the original Hebrew or Aramaic.

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See: Topic Kings of Israel and Judah
See: Timeline 501 BC – 770 BC

II Chronicles 33

Manasseh Reigns in Judah

II Chronicles 33:¹ Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned 697 BC.

The name/word me’na’sheh means “forgotten.”

• ^{Reference verse: Joseph called the name of his first-born Manasseh, “For,” he said, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father’s house.” (Genesis 41:51)}

II Chronicles 33:² But he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.

A list of his evils:

	Rebuilt the places of pagan worship
	Built altars for the Baals which he, himself, made from wood
	Worshiped the god of the Assyrians (host of the heavens)
	He served them (listened to them)
	Built altars in the temple
	He built altars for the host of heaven in the two courts of the temple
	He caused his own sons to pass through the fire in the valley of Hinnom (hell fire) (morphed into the word “Gehinnom” “Gehenna”)

II Chronicles 33:³ For he rebuilt the high places (places of pagan worship) which Hezekiah his father had broken down; he raised up altars for the Baals, and made wooden images; and he worshiped all the host of heaven (The gods of the Assyrians) and served them.

II Chronicles 33:⁴ He also built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem shall My name be forever.”

II Chronicles 33:⁵ And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.

II Chronicles 33:⁶ Also he caused his sons (probably also including Amon who became king after him) to pass through the fire in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom; he practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft and sorcery, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.

Hinnom, hin’-nom (Heb.)–sorrow; groaning, i.e., of the afflicted; wailing; lamentation; purifying fires. Always with reference to the sacrifice of children by fire. An inhuman and idolatrous practice abhorred by priest & prophet H2011

1. Hinnom = “lamentation”
   1. A valley (deep and narrow ravine) with steep, rocky sides located southwest of Jerusalem, separating Mount Zion to the north from the hill of evil counsel’ and the sloping rocky plateau of the ‘plain of Rephaim’ to the south.
   2. Note: the hill of evil counsel is so called from a tradition that the house of the high priest Caiaphas, when the rulers of the Jews resolved to put Christ to death, stood there.

• ^{[Hand-drawn] map showing the “Valée des enfans d’Ennon” (Valley of children of Hinnom)
  Hierusalem – Deshayes Louis Baron De Courmenin – January 1, 1631}
  1631 AD
  
  
  
• ^{Valley of Hinnom 1899 AD Showing the Jewish Colony in Palestine
  Photograph shows a Yemenite Jewish man with sidecurls (peyot) standing in front of Mishkenot Sha’ananim colony with a windmill in distance. (Source: L. Ben-David, Israel’s History – A Picture a Day website, July 26, 2011)}
  1899 AD
  
  

• ^{Valley of Hinnom}
  ~1900 AD
  

• Jerusalem from the south, looking across the valley of Hinnom to Mt. Zion & Ophel
  Jerusalem
  –1931 AD
  
  
  

• ^{The Valley of Hinnom identified with the Wadi er Rababi, in a 1940s Survey of Palestine map}
  1940
  
  

• ^{Valley of Hinnom Five months before the Land became a nation: Israel}
  1948 AD

• ^{Tombs in the Valley of Hinnom}
  2007
  
  

• Valley of Hinnom
  2007 AD
  ^{Attributed: By Deror avi – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2944917}

Below:
Mt Olives on Right: Bethany on top. Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Mt. Moriah: The site of Abraham binding Isaac. The site of the Jewish Temple.
Mt. Zion below is understood to be on the Left although some attribute the name to include the temple mount.
Valley of Jehoshaphat below right.
Valley of Hinnom on Left.

Evil:

• To pass through the Fire (To damage innocence children in order to gain favor with an “idol” Satan).
• Soothsaying (fortune-telling).
• Witchcraft (intercourse with the devil-Satan).
• Sorcery (Pharmaceuticals-Drugs)
• Mediums (speak to the dead) (intercourse with the dead)
• Spiritist (partake in gaining supernatural dark powers by all of the above)

II Chronicles 33:⁷ He even set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house (temple) of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever;

II Chronicles 33:⁸ and I will not again remove the foot of Israel from the land which I have appointed for your fathers—only if (it’s conditional on … ) they are careful to do all that I have commanded them, according to the whole law and the statutes and the ordinances by the hand of Moses.”

• Manasseh made a idol.
  • He is his god’s creator.
  • He is greater than his idol.
  • He makes it in his image, and then worships it.
  • Resulting in Manasseh worshiping himself.
  • (Man?) (Ass?)(Eh?)

II Chronicles 33:⁹ So Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.

Manasseh Restored After Repentance

II Chronicles 33:¹⁰ And the Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they would not listen (obey).

• ^{Zechariah 7:11 But they refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear.}

II Chronicles 33:¹¹ Therefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with hooks (nose hooks II Kin. 19:28), bound him with bronze fetters (chains), and carried him off to Babylon.

II Chronicles 33:¹² Now when he was in affliction, he implored the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, ¹³ and prayed to Him; and He received his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.

• An exemplary metaphor illustrating the Jewish situation during the prophetic seven year tribulation.
  When they are in great affliction they will cry out to God. He will hear their cries and save them from annihilation as He descends from heaven with His army of saints and angels. The Jews will look on Him whom their ancestors had pierced.
  They will recognize Jesus as their Messiah and God as they are brought back to their homeland
• Like Manasseh … also Israel, the nation.

II Chronicles 33:¹⁴ After this he built a wall outside the City of David on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, as far as the entrance of the Fish Gate; and it enclosed Ophel, and he raised it to a very great height. Then he put military captains in all the fortified cities of Judah.

II Chronicles 33:¹⁵ He took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem; and he cast them out of the city. ¹⁶ He also repaired the altar of the Lord, sacrificed peace offerings and thank offerings on it, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel.

• Manasseh repented (did a You-Turn).

II Chronicles 33:¹⁷ Nevertheless the people still sacrificed on the high places (places of pagan worship), but only to the Lord their God.

Death of Manasseh

II Chronicles 33:¹⁸ Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the Lord God of Israel, indeed they are written in the book (words) of the kings of Israel.

II Chronicles 33:¹⁹ Also his prayer and how God received his entreaty, and all his sin and trespass, and the sites where he built high places (places of pagan worship) and set up wooden images and carved images, before he was humbled, indeed they are written among the sayings of Hozai (seers).

II Chronicles 33:²⁰ So Manasseh rested with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house. Then his son Amon reigned in his place.

Amon’s Reign and Death

II Chronicles 33:²¹ Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem.

II Chronicles 33:²² But he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done; for Amon sacrificed to all the carved images which his father Manasseh had made, and served them.

II Chronicles 33:²³ And he did not humble himself before the Lord, as his father Manasseh had humbled himself; but Amon trespassed more and more.

II Chronicles 33:²⁴ Then his servants conspired against him, and killed him in his own house.

II Chronicles 33:²⁵ But the people of the land executed all those who had conspired against King Amon. Then the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his place.

Summary: Amon was killed by his servants, the servants were killed by the people of the land, then the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his stead. Amon was an evil king but Josiah was a good king. Josiah fulfilled a prophecy made ~300 years earlier calling him out by his name.
See topic: Kings of Israel and Judah.