2 Chronicles 33

My Notes Authors

My Notes Authors Matthew Henry - Commentary on the Whole Bible We have here an account of the great wickedness of Manasseh. It is the same almost word for word with that which we had 2 Kings xxi. 1-9, and took a melancholy view of. It is no such pleasing subject that we should delight to dwell upon it again. This foolish young prince, in contradiction to the good example and good education his father gave him, abandoned himself to all impiety, transcribed the abominations of the heathen (v. 2), ruined the established religion, unravelled his father’s glorious reformation (v. 3), profaned the house of God with his idolatry (v. 4, 5), dedicated his children to Moloch, and made the devil’s lying oracles his guides and his counsellors, v. 6. In contempt of the choice God had made of Sion to be his rest for ever and Israel to be his covenant-people (v. 8), and the fair terms he stood upon with God, he embraced other gods, profaned God’s chosen temple, and debauched his chosen people. He made them to err, and do worse than the heathen (v. 9); for, if the unclean spirit returns, he brings with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself. That which aggravated the sin of Manasseh was that God spoke to him and his people by the prophets, but they would not hearken, v. 10. We may here admire the grace of God in speaking to them, and their obstinacy in turning a deaf ear to him, that either their badness did not quite turn away his goodness, but still he waited to be gracious, or that his goodness did not turn them from their badness, but still they hated to be reformed. Now from this let us learn, 1. That it is no new thing, but a very sad thing, for the children of godly parents to turn aside from that good way of God in which they have been trained. Parents may give many good things to their children, but they cannot give them grace. 2. Corruptions in worship are such diseases of the church as it is very apt to relapse into again even when they seem to be cured. 3. The god of this world has strangely blinded men’s minds, and has a wonderful power over those that are led captive by him; else he could not draw them from God, their best friend, to depend upon their sworn enemy.

My Notes Authors

My Notes Authors Matthew Henry - Commentary on the Whole Bible We have seen Manasseh by his wickedness undoing the good that his father had done; here we have him by repentance undoing the evil that he himself had done. It is strange that this was not so much as mentioned in the book of Kings, nor does any thing appear there to the contrary but that he persisted and perished in his son. But perhaps the reason was because the design of that history was to show the wickedness of the nation which brought destruction upon them; and this repentance of Manasseh and the benefit of it, being personal only and not national, is overlooked there; yet here it is fully related, and a memorable instance it is of the riches of God’s pardoning mercy and the power of his renewing grace. Here is,

My Notes Authors

My Notes Authors

My Notes Authors

My Notes Authors

My Notes Authors

My Notes Authors Matthew Henry - Commentary on the Whole Bible We have little recorded concerning Amon, but enough unless it were better. Here is, I. His great wickedness. He did as Manasseh had done in the days of his apostasy, v. 22. Those who think this an evidence that Manasseh did not truly repent forget how many good kings had wicked sons. Only it should seem that Manasseh was in this defective, that, when he cast out the images, he did not utterly deface and destroy them, according to the law which required Israel to _burn the images with fire, _Deut. vii. 2. How necessary that law was this instance shows; for the carved images being only thrown by, and not burnt, Amon knew where to find them, soon set them up, and sacrificed to them. It is added, to represent him exceedingly sinful and to justify God in cutting him off so soon, 1. That he out-did his father in sinning: _He trespassed more and more, _v. 23. His father did ill, but he did worse. Those that were joined to idols grew more and more mad upon them. 2. That he came short of his father in repenting: He humbled not himself before the Lord, as his father had humbled himself. He fell like him, but did not get up again like him. It is not so much sin as impenitence in sin that ruins men, not so much that they offend as that they do not humble themselves for their offences, not the disease, but the neglect of the remedy.