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Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
21:1-26 Manasseh and Amon. The Lord has kept faith with the house of David even through the bad times because of his promise to David, but hints abound throughout chs. 16-20 that Judah will ultimately share Israel's fate and go into exile. With Manasseh, these hints of disaster give way to explicit prophetic announcements of judgment.
21:1-9 Manasseh is the very worst of the Judean kings, indulging in all that has been most reprehensible in the religion of Israel (both north and south) in the preceding chapters of 1-2 Kings, and adding to it (despicable practices of the nations). His father's reforms are reversed as the high places are rebuilt (v. 3) so that idolatry can resume there, and a new Asherah (v. 3) replaces the one that Hezekiah removed (see 18:4). Manasseh built altars for all the host of heaven (21:5; see 17:7-23) in the two courts of the temple (both in the inner court described in 1 Kings 6:36 and in the "middle court" described in 2 Kings 20:4). His grandfather Ahaz is his role model, as he sacrifices his own son in the fire (21:6) and uses fortune-telling and omens (v. 6; see 16:3, 17:7-23; also Deut. 18:10). Ahab (cf. 2 Kings 21:3) stands behind Ahaz; and King Saul's reign is also echoed in the reference to mediums and necromancers (v. 6; 1 Sam. 28:3-25), divination by inquiring of the dead. The Lord of hosts (1 Kings 18:15; 19:10; etc.) has become to Manasseh merely a god among hosts, with a consort goddess for company (Asherah) and open to manipulation by occult means. If the Lord previously drove out before the people of Israel the nations that did these things before (2 Kings 21:2, 9), what will happen now to Judah?
21:7 A decorative pitcher found at the site of Lachish dates to the On the shoulder of the vessel is a stylized tree, representing the Canaanite goddess Asherah. An inscription above the tree refers to an offering to Elat, another name for the goddess. Israel is told not to worship trees as an Asherah (cf. Deut. 16:21; Judg. 6:25-30; 1 Kings 14:15; 15:13; 2 Kings 18:4; Mic. 5:13-15).
21:8 For the feet of Israel to wander . . . out of the land would be for the people to go into exile; the biblical authors make it clear that the exile of Judah was due to moral reasons (Judah's unfaithfulness) rather than to any weakness in God.
21:12 the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. The disaster now to befall Jerusalem and Judah will cause a reaction in people who hear of it--perhaps a sensation in the ears, or more likely a shaking in terror as the news enters the body through the ears (cf. Ex. 15:14; Deut. 2:25; Isa. 32:11; 64:2).
21:13 the measuring line . . . the plumb line. The city will be assessed by the divine architect (cf. the use of the measuring line in Isa. 34:11; Lam. 2:8) and, like a dangerous building, will be condemned.
21:17-18 Manasseh's burial site lay outside the "city of David" (i.e., the original settled area of Jerusalem on the southern hill) that is noted as the resting place of preceding kings (e.g., Ahaz in 16:20). The garden of Uzza was perhaps an enclosure on the Temple Mount dedicated to the Arabian goddess al-Uzza, who was identified with Venus (notice Manasseh's worship of astral deities in 21:3), or an enclosure at the southern end of the Kidron Valley, just outside the city walls, where there was a "king's garden" (25:4; Neh. 3:15). Already in Solomon's day, the eastern slopes of the Kidron Valley were associated with idolatrous worship (1 Kings 11:7). On the Chronicles of the Kings (also 2 Kings 21:25), see note on 1 Kings 14:19.
21:19-26 Amon. See note on 2 Chron. 33:21-25.
