Manasseh Humbles Himself

A king sits in chains in a foreign land. His crown is gone. His palace is far away. Bronze shackles weigh on his wrists. And for the first time in his life, he begins to pray.

Manasseh was the son of good King Hezekiah, the king who had cleaned out the temple and called the whole land to Passover. But when Hezekiah died, Manasseh became king at just twelve years old. He would reign for fifty-five years, longer than any other king of Judah. And from the beginning, he went the other way. Everything his father had built up, Manasseh tore down. Everything his father had torn down, Manasseh built up again.

He rebuilt the hilltop shrines that Hezekiah had destroyed. He set up altars to Baal and made Asherah poles. He bowed down to the stars of the sky. He even built altars to them inside the courts of the LORD's temple, the house where God had said, my name will be here for ever. He turned to fortune-telling, sorcery and those who claimed to speak with the dead. Worst of all, in the Valley of Ben-hinnom he made his own sons pass through the fire, copying the cruel rites of the nations around him. And he set up a carved idol inside God's own house. The Bible says he led Judah to do more evil than the nations the LORD had driven out before them. God spoke to Manasseh and his people. But they would not listen.

So the LORD brought against them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, the great empire of the day. They captured Manasseh. They put a hook in him, bound him with bronze chains, and dragged him off to Babylon. Picture it. The most powerful man in Judah, led away like a prisoner. Everything he had trusted, all those altars and idols and fortune-tellers, could do nothing for him now. And there, in his distress, far from home, something happened that no one could have expected. Manasseh sought the favour of the LORD his God. He humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. And he prayed.

And God listened. After everything Manasseh had done, God was moved by his prayer. He heard his plea, and he brought him back to Jerusalem, to his kingdom. And then, the Bible says, Manasseh knew that the LORD is God. He did not only say sorry. He changed. He rebuilt the outer wall of the city of David. He put commanders in the fortified cities of Judah. He removed the foreign gods and took the idol out of the LORD's temple. He tore down all the altars he had built on the temple hill and in Jerusalem, and threw them out of the city. He repaired the altar of the LORD, offered thank offerings on it, and told Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel. Not everything was undone. The people still offered sacrifices on the hilltop shrines, though now to the LORD. But the worst king in Judah's story had been heard by God.

Manasseh's name appears outside the Bible too. The Assyrian king Esarhaddon left a record listing twenty-two kings who had to send building materials for his palace. One of them is Manasseh, king of Judah. His son Ashurbanipal also names Manasseh among the kings who brought him tribute. Judah's king really was a servant of the Assyrian empire.

Manasseh humbles himself. You'll find his story in Second Chronicles chapter thirty-three, verses one to twenty. A king who did more evil than anyone, who prayed in chains, and who discovered that God still hears. So here is a question to carry with you. Is there anyone you think is too far away for God to reach, even yourself?