Manasseh’s Sin and Repentance

When King Hezekiah had lived through the span of time already mentioned, and had spent all that time in peace, he died, having completed fifty-four years of his life and reigned twenty-nine. His son Manasseh, whose mother’s name was Hephzibah, of Jerusalem, took the kingdom. Manasseh departed from his father’s conduct and fell into a way of life quite contrary to it. He showed himself most wicked in every respect and left no kind of impiety untried, but imitated those sins of the Israelites by which, in offending God, they had been destroyed. He was bold enough to defile the temple of God, and the city, and the whole country. Starting from contempt of God, he barbarously killed all the righteous men among the Hebrews; nor would he spare the prophets, for every day he killed some of them, until Jerusalem overflowed with blood. So God was angry at these proceedings, and sent prophets to the king and to the people, through whom he threatened them with the very same calamities that their brothers the Israelites, who had offended God in the same way, were now suffering. But these men would not believe their words, though by believing them they might have gained the advantage of escaping all those miseries; yet they learned by what actually happened that what the prophets had told them was true. [a]

When they persisted in the same way of life, God stirred up war against them from the king of Babylon and Chaldea. He sent an army against Judea and laid the country waste; and he caught King Manasseh by treachery and ordered him brought to him, and had him in his power to inflict whatever punishment he pleased. It was then that Manasseh saw what a miserable condition he was in. Thinking himself the cause of it all, he begged God to make his enemy humane and merciful toward him. God heard his prayer and granted what he asked. So Manasseh was released by the king of Babylon and escaped the danger he was in. When he had come back to Jerusalem, he tried, if it were possible, to cast out of his memory those former sins of his against God, of which he now repented, and to devote himself to a very religious life. He purified the temple and cleansed the city, and for the rest of his days he was intent on nothing but giving thanks to God for his deliverance and keeping him favorable to him all his life long. He also taught the people to do the same, as one who had learned how near he had come to calamity through his contrary conduct. He rebuilt the altar too, and offered the sacrifices required by the law, as Moses commanded. When he had restored the worship of God as it ought to be, he saw to the security of Jerusalem. He not only repaired the old walls with great care but added another wall to the former one. He also built very lofty towers, and he strengthened the fortified places in front of the city, not only in other respects but with provisions of every kind that they lacked. And indeed, once he had changed his former course, he lived the rest of his life in such a way that from the time of his return to piety toward God he was thought a happy man and an example to imitate. So when he had lived sixty-seven years, he departed this life, having reigned fifty-five years, and was buried in his own garden; and the kingdom passed to his son Amon, whose mother’s name was Meshullemeth, of the city of Jotbah. [b]