Context & Key Themes
2 Kings 21 is one of the darkest chapters in the entire history of the monarchy. Manasseh son of Hezekiah reigns fifty-five years — the longest reign in Judah’s history — and every year is a catastrophe. He rebuilds the high places his father tore down. He erects altars to Baal and makes an Asherah. He worships all the host of heaven and builds altars for them in the courts of the temple. He burns his son as an offering. He practices fortune-telling, uses omens, deals with mediums and necromancers. He puts an Asherah pole in the house of the Lord itself. The Lord declares the verdict: I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. Manasseh also sheds very much innocent blood. His grandson Josiah will try to undo what he did. He cannot fully succeed. Manasseh’s evil goes too deep.
Key Verse
“And I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.”
— 2 Kings 21:13
Summary
Manasseh is twelve years old when he becomes king and reigns fifty-five years. He does evil, rebuilding the high places Hezekiah destroyed, erecting altars to Baal, making an Asherah. He worships all the host of heaven and builds altars for them in the two courts of the temple. He burns his son as an offering. He practices fortune-telling and omens and deals with mediums and necromancers. He does more evil than the nations the Lord drove out before Israel. He sets a carved image of Asherah in the house of the Lord. The Lord speaks through his servants the prophets: because Manasseh has done these things and has done more evil than all the Amorites who were before him, I will bring disaster upon Jerusalem and Judah. I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish. I will forsake the remnant of my heritage and give them into the hand of their enemies. Manasseh also sheds very much innocent blood, filling Jerusalem from one end to another. He does not listen. His servants conspire against him and kill him in his garden. His son Amon succeeds him. Amon reigns two years and does evil as his father did. His servants conspire and kill him. The people of the land kill all who conspired against Amon and make his son Josiah king.
Reflection
Manasseh is the theological explanation for everything that follows. Josiah will come and reform with more thoroughness and passion than any king before or after him, and it will not be enough to stop what Manasseh set in motion. The Lord says so plainly before Josiah even arrives: because of what Manasseh did, I will bring disaster on Judah. When Josiah hears the law read and tears his clothes and asks what can be done, the prophetess Huldah delivers both a commendation of Josiah and a confirmation that the disaster will still come, only not in his days. Manasseh’s fifty-five years of systematic spiritual destruction were more than one generation of faithfulness could repair.
The image of God wiping Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, turning it upside down, is one of the most economical and devastating images of judgment in scripture. A clean dish is turned over — no more use, no more purpose, emptied and inverted. The city that housed the name of the Lord, where the ark rested, where Solomon’s prayer filled with smoke — it will be emptied out and turned over. That this comes because of one man’s fifty-five-year reign is a warning about the weight of leadership. Manasseh did not merely fail to lead well. He actively led in the wrong direction for more than half a century, and the inertia of that was enough to carry the nation into Babylon.