Theological Commentary: Click Here
2 Chronicles
33 diverges from the companion account in the book of 2 Kings. In Kings, Manasseh is an evil king who does
evil things. In 2 Chronicles, Manasseh
starts out as an evil king who has a moment of repentance after being dragged
to Assyria in captivity. For the record,
the Assyrian history doesn’t speak of Manasseh as ever having been brought to
Assyria, so it cannot help to determine if he had a moment of repentance as the
2 Chronicles 33 account indicates.
What can be
gleaned from this chapter? For all the
good that Hezekiah brought to the land, it didn’t do Manasseh much good. Manasseh was an evil king. He killed his own children in child
sacrifice. He worshipped foreign
gods. He built all the high places that
Hezekiah ripped down. Hezekiah’s own kid
undoes all the good Hezekiah brought to the land through his obedience to God.
This teaches
that human beings truly do have free will.
Of all the people in the world, it would seem like Manasseh had a great
chance of being raised in a faithful manner.
Hezekiah was a great role model.
Manasseh would have nothing to do with it, though. Manasseh rule was about him, not God.
Proximity
doesn’t equate to faithfulness. We cannot
assume that children of faithful parents will be faithful to God. We also cannot assume that children of faithless
parents will likewise be faithless. Once
more, it can be seen that each person is responsible for their own relationship
with the Lord.
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