Manasseh reverses reform and exploits his son

A twelve-year-old king rebuilds what Hezekiah had broken

Manasseh is twelve years old when he begins to reign, and he reigns fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name is Hephzibah. He does evil after the abominations of the nations whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel. He builds again the high places his father had destroyed, rears altars for Baal, makes a grove as Ahab had done, and worships all the host of heaven.

He builds altars in the house of the LORD, and altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts. He makes his son pass through the fire, observes times, uses enchantments, and deals with familiar spirits and wizards. He sets a graven image of the grove in the house of which the LORD said to David and to Solomon, In this house and in Jerusalem will I put my name forever. The child harmed in the fire is not a policy footnote. The temple is not a neutral hall for extra altars.

Judah is led further, and this book does not pause to soften the reign

The LORD had said that Israel would not be moved from the land if they would observe all that was commanded. They hearkened not. Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the children of Israel. The charge is royal leading and popular following inside Judah's own story.

This indictment must not be collapsed into a later notice from another book that remembers Manasseh's repentance. Kings keeps the reversal, the child, the image in the house, and the seduction of Judah. It does not stigmatize neighboring peoples or living practitioners as a race of evil, and it does not treat a son's danger as a religious statistic. Violence and worship policy belong in the same paragraph because the narrator will not split them.