Year 2, Week 9, Day 5 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 9, Day 5

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of 2 Chronicles 33; Nahum 1.

Today’s reading includes an additional and vital fact about Manasseh that is not recorded in Kings. The Chronicler does provide the same assessment of Manasseh’s wickedness that is also mentioned in 2 Kings: "Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel” (2 Chronicles 33:1-2). But the Chronicler records a major turning point in Manasseh’s life: “And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God” (2 Chronicles 33:12-13). The LORD chastened Manasseh by placing him into the hands of the Assyrians, who chained and imprisoned him. But the LORD heard Manasseh’s cry and released him from his captivity. Manasseh lived differently after this incident. Today’s reading also begins the Book of Nahum, which announces severe, irrevocable judgement on the Nineveh and the Assyrians: “An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh. The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies” (Nahum 1:1-2).

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading was how the flow of Manasseh’s life parallels the flow of Israel’s history: “The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention” (2 Chronicles 33:10). Manasseh as an evil, wicked king, did not listen to the LORD and sought after false gods: “For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had broken down, and he erected altars to the Baals, and made Asheroth, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them…Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel” (2 Chronicles 33:3,9). These same characteristics describe the nation Israel as Moses anticipated: “And the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them” (Deuteronomy 31:16). The prophets confirmed what Moses predicted: “Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit…for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:11-13).

Manasseh was disciplined for his unfaithfulness: “Therefore the LORD brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon” (2 Chronicles 33:11). This resulting chastisement also paralleled Israel’s experience. The LORD had warned Israel that disobedience would bring discipline: “But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you…You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity” (Deuteronomy 29:15,41). One of the primary purposes of the Book of Kings is to make the clear case that Israel’s captivity was the direct result of the hand of God chastening His covenant people. Thus, when it came to the reign of Manasseh, the emphasis was on showing how the wickedness of Manasseh was something of a breaking point in the patient mercy of the LORD toward a people who refused to listen to Him: “And I will forsake the remnant of my heritage and give them into the hand of their enemies, and 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 fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day” (2 Kings 21:14-15).

But the Chronicler, while showing that Israel’s captivity was deserved, also emphasized that calling upon the LORD would be the means through which the LORD would intervene: “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14). The LORD would hear the prayers of His people, even when their cries are the result of the LORD’s chastening. Manasseh’s life illustrates to Israel that when they would soon experience captivity as a result of their sin, they would have a way out: they could humble themselves before the LORD and the LORD would hear: “Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, behold, they are in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. And his prayer, and how God was moved by his entreaty, and all his sin and his faithlessness, and the sites on which he built high places and set up the Asherim and the images, before he humbled himself” (2 Chronicles 33:18-19a).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe