April 20, 2020: Day 79 – II Kings 21

We go from really, really good to really, really bad.  Remember the name Manasseh because he set Judah back a number of years.  He ruled for 55 years so imagine the damage that he was able to do over that long period of time.  He is considered  the worst of all the Judean kings.  He followed the abominable practices of all the pagan kings that were surrounding the nation of Judah.  In the temple itself he built up high poles and he created spaces where you could worship foreign gods, in the temple.  Can you think of anything worse?  Maybe if you look at vs.6 where we see that he sacrificed his son to the fire.  Yeah, that is just as bad, if not worse.

Manasseh was as bad as you could get.  God said that because of Manasseh He would bring such evil upon the nation that it would cause the people of God to have  their ears tingle with the news.  I’m guessing that if you are someone who has the condition of tingling ears then bad things are lined up for you.  He says that he will not maintain even a remnant of the people in Jerusalem but  they will all be carted off.  What happened at the end of last chapter was  that Hezekiah was a great host and showed the visitors of Babylon what his house looked like.  One day they will inhabit his house and when that happens then all of those in Jerusalem will be deported out.

Amon succeeds his father Manasseh.  But there is a conspiracy and he is killed.  Then the conspirators are killed and the people of the land put Amon’s son in office, Josiah, who was 8 years old.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.