2 Chronicles 33: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Manasseh becomes king of Judah at twelve and rules fifty-five years, rebuilding the high places his father Hezekiah had torn down, setting up altars and an idol in the LORD's temple, making his own sons pass through the fire, and leading Judah into worse evil than the nations before them. Assyrian commanders capture him and take him to Babylon; there he humbles himself and prays, and God brings him back to Jerusalem, after which he removes the foreign gods and altars and tells Judah to serve the LORD, though the people keep sacrificing at the high places. His son Amon then rules two years, repeats his father's idol worship without humbling himself, and is killed by his own officials, whom the people of the land kill before making Josiah king.

Claim by Claim

1. 33:1
   • Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign.
   • Manasseh reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.
2. 33:2
   • Manasseh did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.
   • His evil was like the abominations of the nations.
   • The LORD had dispossessed those nations before the children of Israel.
3. 33:3
   • Manasseh rebuilt the high places.
   • Hezekiah his father had torn down those high places.
   • Hezekiah was Manasseh's father.
   • Manasseh raised up altars for the Baals.
   • Manasseh made Asherah poles.
   • Manasseh bowed down to all the host of heaven.
   • Manasseh served the host of heaven.
4. 33:4
   • Manasseh built altars in the house of the LORD.
   • The LORD had said concerning that house that his name would be in Jerusalem forever.
5. 33:5
   • Manasseh built altars for all the host of heaven.
   • He built those altars in the two courts of the house of the LORD.
6. 33:6
   • Manasseh made his sons pass through the fire.
   • This was done in the Valley of the son of Hinnom.
   • Manasseh practiced soothsaying.
   • Manasseh practiced divination.
   • Manasseh practiced sorcery.
   • Manasseh dealt with a medium and with a spiritist.
   • Manasseh did much evil in the sight of the LORD.
   • Manasseh's evil provoked the LORD to anger.
7. 33:7
   • Manasseh set up a carved image, the idol he had made, in the house of God.
   • God had spoken to David and to Solomon his son concerning that house.
   • Solomon was David's son.
   • God said he would put his name in that house and in Jerusalem forever.
   • God said he had chosen Jerusalem out of all the tribes of Israel.
8. 33:8
   • God said he would not again remove the foot of Israel from the land.
   • God said he had appointed that land for their fathers.
   • God's promise was conditioned on their taking heed to do all he had commanded them.
   • What was commanded was the whole law, the statutes, and the ordinances.
   • The law, statutes, and ordinances were given by the hand of Moses.
9. 33:9
   • Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray.
   • They did more evil than the nations.
   • The LORD had destroyed those nations before the children of Israel.
10. 33:10
    • The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people.
    • They did not pay attention.
11. 33:11
    • The LORD brought the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria against them.
    • The commanders captured Manasseh with hooks, or among thorns; the term is ambiguous.
    • They bound Manasseh with bronze fetters.
    • They took Manasseh to Babylon.
12. 33:12
    • When Manasseh was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God.
    • Manasseh humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.
13. 33:13
    • Manasseh prayed to God.
    • God was entreated by him.
    • God heard his supplication.
    • God brought Manasseh back to Jerusalem, to his kingdom.
    • Manasseh then knew that the LORD is God.
14. 33:14
    • After this Manasseh built an outer wall for the City of David.
    • The wall ran west of Gihon in the valley.
    • The wall ran to the entrance of the Fish Gate.
    • The wall went around Ophel.
    • Manasseh raised the wall very high.
    • Manasseh put commanders of the army in all the fortified cities of Judah.
15. 33:15
    • Manasseh removed the foreign gods from the house of the LORD.
    • Manasseh removed the idol from the house of the LORD.
    • Manasseh removed all the altars he had built on the mountain of the house of the LORD and in Jerusalem.
    • Manasseh threw them outside the city.
16. 33:16
    • Manasseh restored the altar of the LORD.
    • Manasseh sacrificed peace offerings on it.
    • Manasseh sacrificed thank offerings on it.
    • Manasseh commanded Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel.
17. 33:17
    • The people still sacrificed at the high places.
    • The people sacrificed only to the LORD their God.
18. 33:18
    • The rest of the acts of Manasseh are recorded.
    • Manasseh's prayer to his God is recorded.
    • The words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, are recorded.
    • These are written in the book of the kings of Israel.
19. 33:19
    • Manasseh's prayer is recorded.
    • How God was entreated by him is recorded.
    • All his sin and his unfaithfulness are recorded.
    • The places where he built high places are recorded.
    • The places where he set up Asherah poles and carved images are recorded.
    • He did these things before he humbled himself.
    • These are written among the sayings of the seers, or in the records of Hozai; the term is ambiguous.
20. 33:20
    • Manasseh slept with his fathers.
    • They buried Manasseh in his own house.
    • Amon his son reigned in his place.
    • Amon was Manasseh's son.
21. 33:21
    • Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign.
    • Amon reigned two years in Jerusalem.
22. 33:22
    • Amon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.
    • Amon did as Manasseh his father had done.
    • Amon sacrificed to all the carved images Manasseh his father had made.
    • Amon served those images.
23. 33:23
    • Amon did not humble himself before the LORD.
    • Manasseh his father had humbled himself.
    • Amon increased guilt.
24. 33:24
    • Amon's servants conspired against him.
    • They killed Amon in his own house.
25. 33:25
    • The people of the land struck down all who had conspired against King Amon.
    • The people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place.
    • Josiah was Amon's son.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

33:1

Fifty-five years is the longest reign recorded for any king of Judah. Since he was twelve at his accession, many historians think his first years overlapped with his father Hezekiah's, a common arrangement in which a son ruled alongside the aging king.

33:2

"The nations that the LORD had driven out" means the Canaanite peoples who lived in the land before Israel. "Did what was evil in the LORD's sight" is the fixed formula this book uses to grade each king; a good king "did what was right in the LORD's sight."

33:3

A "local worship site" (the older phrase is "high place") was an open-air shrine, often on a hilltop or raised platform, with an altar and standing stones. "The Baals" are the many local forms of Baal, the Canaanite storm and fertility god. An Asherah pole was a wooden pole or stylized tree that stood for the goddess Asherah. "All the sun, moon, and stars" translates "the host of heaven", the sky's bodies treated as divine powers, a form of worship associated with Assyria.

33:4

In Hebrew usage, putting one's name on a place was a way of claiming it and being present there. God's "name" in Jerusalem means his presence and ownership attached to that one sanctuary.

33:5

The temple had two enclosed courtyards: an inner one where the priests worked around the main altar, and a larger outer one where the people gathered.

33:6

"Put his children through the fire" renders a Hebrew phrase used for child sacrifice; some readers understand it as a dedication rite in which children passed through flames rather than being killed, and the text does not settle which. The Valley of the Son of Hinnom was the ravine running along the south and west of Jerusalem; its name later became "Gehenna." Reading omens, casting spells, and consulting mediums were all methods of getting hidden knowledge from the spirit world, and Israelite law forbade every one of them.

33:7

The parallel account in 2 Kings 21:7 identifies this carved image as an image of Asherah; Chronicles calls it simply "the idol."

33:8

"The whole law, the rules, and the regulations" translates three overlapping Hebrew terms for the instruction given through Moses. Piling them up signals completeness, everything commanded, rather than three separate law codes.

33:9

Judah was the southern part of the land of Israel. Jerusalem was its main city.

33:10

"Hearken" means listen, with the sense of listening and then obeying.

33:11

Assyria was the dominant empire of the region in this period. Babylon was a great city under Assyrian control, where the Assyrian king sometimes held court, which is why a prisoner from Judah would be taken there rather than to the Assyrian capital. "With hooks" translates an ambiguous Hebrew word that can also mean "among the thorns" or "with a hook"; Assyrian carvings show captives led by a ring or hook through the nose or lip.

33:12

"Besought" means begged or pleaded with. To "humble himself" was a public act, not just a private feeling: fasting, tearing your clothes, wearing rough sackcloth.

33:13

"He was intreated of him" is old English word order that trips modern readers. It means God allowed himself to be pleaded with and gave in, not that anyone pleaded with Manasseh.

33:14

The City of David was the oldest, southernmost part of Jerusalem. The Gihon was the spring in the valley on the city's east side, its main water supply. The Fish Gate was on the north side, named for the fish market held there. Ophel was the ridge linking the old city to the temple hill.

33:15

"Strange gods" means foreign gods, gods belonging to strangers. Strange in the King James usually means belonging to outsiders rather than odd.

33:16

A peace offering was a sacrifice partly burned on the altar and partly eaten as a shared meal by the worshiper and his household. A thank offering was one kind of peace offering, made to acknowledge help already received.

33:17

The objection is not to the sacrifices but to the location: the law required that offerings be brought to the single sanctuary in Jerusalem, so worship of the LORD at scattered local shrines still counted as a failure of the reform.

33:18

A seer was a prophet, literally "one who sees," an older term for someone who received messages from God. "The record of the kings of Israel" is a court chronicle the writer cites as his source; it no longer survives and is not the biblical books of Kings. "Israel" here means the people as a whole, including the southern kingdom of Judah.

33:19

Another source that has not survived. The Hebrew here literally reads "the words of Hozai," which may be a personal name or a variant spelling of the word for "seers"; translations differ.

33:20

"Died and joined his ancestors" translates "slept with his fathers," the standard phrase for a king's death from natural causes. Being buried "at his own palace" means in the palace grounds rather than in the royal tombs used by earlier kings of David's line.

33:22

"Carved images" are statues of gods. The point of the comparison is that Amon revived his father's early policy after his father had abandoned it.

33:23

"Trespassed" in the King James means broke faith or was disloyal, a stronger word than a modern trespass on someone's property.

33:24

"His servants" here means his royal officials and courtiers, the men closest to him in the palace, not household slaves. Palace assassinations by senior officials happen repeatedly in these books.

33:25

"The people of the land" is not a vague crowd but a recognized body in Judah, the landholding free citizens, who on several occasions stepped in to punish a king's assassins and secure the succession of David's line.