Manasseh: The King of Judah

Meaning of Name:

The one who causes to forget

Reign

55 years (697 - 642 B.C.)

History

It's hard to imagine that someone as righteous as Hezekiah could turn out a son as evil as Manasseh. The wicked monarch reigned longer than any other king in Israel's history - 55 years. Among his transgressions (and there were many) was Manasseh's blatant worship of idols and his practice of pagan rituals. "And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom; also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger" (II Chronicles 33:6). When God's patience had run out, he sent the Assyrians to punish Jerusalem. They put a hook in Manasseh's nose and bound him in bronze shackles and carried him off to prison in Babylon.

It was sometime in his dank and dreary cell that he came to his senses and called upon the Lord, "and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God" (II Chronicles 33:13).

Manasseh displayed his conversion by instituting repairs to the city wall and ridding the city of foreign gods. However, the damage to the people was too great to repair, for Manasseh's sins were recalled years later during the righteous reighn of his grandson Josiah: "Notwithstanding the LORD turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindles against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal" (II Kings 23:26).