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In 2 Kings, Manasseh’s terrible sins are blamed for the destruction of Jerusalem. In 2 Chronicles 33, Manasseh described less harshly, where he is captured and taken to Babylon, and he repents and returns to rule as a righteous king.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
2 Kings 21:16
Hebrew Bible
15 because they have done evil in my sight and have angered me from the time their ancestors left Egypt right up to this very day!’” 16 Furthermore Manasseh killed so many innocent people, he stained Jerusalem with their blood from end to end, in addition to encouraging Judah to sin by doing evil in the sight of the Lord. 17 The rest of the events of Manasseh’s reign and all his accomplishments, as well as the sinful acts he committed, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Judah.
2 Chronicles 33:12
Hebrew Bible
11 So the Lord brought against them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria. They seized Manasseh, put hooks in his nose, bound him with bronze chains, and carried him away to Babylon. 12 In his pain Manasseh asked the Lord his God for mercy and truly humbled himself before the God of his ancestors. 13 When he prayed to the Lord, the Lord responded to him and answered favorably his cry for mercy. The Lord brought him back to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh realized that the Lord is the true God.
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Notes and References
“... King Manasseh appears in 2 Kings 21:1-18, where he is absolutely the wickedest loser king in the entire Bible. During his long fifty-five-year reign (the longest of any of the Old Testament kings), Manasseh was all kinds of stupid. ... Manasseh was so wicked that the author credits him entirely for the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians a few generations later. ... The story of Manasseh in 2 Chronicles 33 also starts out with a hefty list of Manasseh’s sins, but that’s where the similarities end and creative differences begin. According to this author, Manasseh’s sins did not lead to Judah’s exile—but to his exile: the Assyrian army took Manasseh captive to Babylon. This incident is not mentioned in 2 Kings—because it didn’t happen. ... We read next that Manasseh, while in Babylonian captivity, humbled himself and repented of his considerable list of sins. So God returned him from Babylon and restored him again to Jerusalem and to his kingdom, where he continued to live out his remaining years as a righteous king, a repentant and restored Manasseh (33:10-17). Not exactly in harmony with 2 Kings. ...”
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