1 and 2 Kings - Lesson 19

Dr. John Oswalt
1 & 2 Kings
th630-19
Manasseh, Amon and Josiah
Lesson Transcript

We come now to, in many ways, the most tragic moment in Judah's history. After the great high point of Hezekiah, which concluded with the renewal of a Passover service, it's interesting we're going to hear, again with Josiah, a Passover like never had been done in the history of the nation before. Well, there's one here with Hezekiah which hadn't been done like this before. I wonder if perhaps with Hezekiah it's just a renewal of the family services in the nation, whereas with Josiah it was with a national Passover. We don't know. But anyway, a great high point, a great renewal, and then Manasseh.

Because the confusion with Hezekiah's dates, we don't know whether he died in 696 or 686, we do know that Manasseh's reign began in 696. It may be that he was co-regent with his father for another 10 years, or it may be he became king at age 12 because his father had died. We don't know which is which, but we do know that he began to reign in 696, and reigned until 642, 54 years. 54 years of tragedy. His reign was, from the point of view of Kings at least, an unmitigated disaster. Kings gives him an unusual amount of attention because he was so bad.

Why was that? Why is he so totally opposed to the kinds of things his father did? We do not know the answer to that. The Northern Kingdom is gone, so the influence of those kings can't be used as an explanation. Is it possible because of his youth, his childhood that his father was not able to have much influence upon him? Or was his father an uninvolved father? We don't know the answer, and we'd like to, because the difference between Manasseh and Hezekiah is so, so dramatic. The catalog of his sins that we find in the 21st chapter of Kings simply is unparalleled. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, following the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. Hadn't made any progress. 

We threw out the Canaanites with their detestable practices, and should have made progress from that, but in fact we have simply reverted to them. You notice the word detestable there, this is the Hebrew word that in the King James tradition was translated abomination or abominable. Something is an abomination if it is contrary to God's creation design, and that's what idolatry is. God did not design the creation to be worshiped, but something that is not in accord with that creation design is considered to be an abomination, or in the New International Version language something that is utterly detestable. Idolatry is detestable, it is an abomination. 

He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed. He also erected alters to Baal, made an Asherah pole as Ahab King of Israel had done, he bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them, he built alters in the Temple of the Lord of which the Lord had said, "In Jerusalem, I'll put my name." In the two courts of the Temple of the Lord he built alters to all the starry hosts. Probably that's talking about the court on the north side of the temple and then again on the south side, that's probably what is meant by the two courts. He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced divination, sought omens, consulted mediums and spiritists, he did much evil in the eyes of the Lord arousing his anger. 

All those things that the Lord had said not to do, the very things that we saw in the previous lecture that the Northern Kingdom was accused of having done resulting in the destruction of the kingdom, here's Manasseh doing the same thing. We find our minds boggled by why didn't he learn the lesson? Why didn't he figure out what was going on? But I say again, as I've said several times, the idea of surrender and trust is very frightening. We would much rather devise means which seem to give the illusion of control, which seem to give the illusion that we can manage our future and supply our wants, and so in the face of 100% surrender and complete trust we say, "No, we'll do these things." These things that in fact in the past have proven deadly, nevertheless we'll do them. 

But notice we're going on, 18 verses are given over to Manasseh, Jeroboam II only got seven, because he did not, it seems, so thoroughly sell himself to Pagan practices as Manasseh, and before that Ahab, had done. He took the carved Asherah pole he had made and put it in the temple, of which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, "In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever. I will not again make the feet of the Israelites wander from the land I gave their ancestors, if only they'll be careful to do everything I commanded them and will keep the whole Torah that my servant gave them." But the people did not listen. Manasseh led them astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites. 

Sometimes this is true, sometimes the person who has known the Lord, the person who has known the Lord's blessing, the person who has given themselves over to service of the Lord, if they turn away sometimes their sin is more devilish, if I may say it that way, than those who never knew the Lord. This I believe is what is being talked about in the Book of Hebrews. When he speaks about when a person makes an open sacrifice of Christ, I think this is a person who has indeed given himself or herself to the work of Christ, given himself or herself to the love of Christ, and then has turned away. God does not stop loving that person, but that person has broken their receiver and they can no longer hear the love of God. 

So I think perhaps this is what we see here, that Israel has become more evil than the nations driven out, precisely because they have known what it is to have experienced the Lord and given their lives in service. So the Lord said through his servants, the prophets, I'm at verse 10, "Manasseh, King of Judah, has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him, and he has led Judah into sin with his idols." Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says, "I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria, and the plumb line used against the House of Ahab, I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down."

This is a picture that is painted over these days, from Hezekiah to Manasseh, and God says that Judah is going to go into captivity because of the sins of Manasseh. We want to talk more about that as we continue in this closing phase of Judah's existence. Was their destruction predetermined from the moment of Manasseh? Or did they still have a chance? So interesting to look at the prophecy of Jeremiah, which is given in the next generation after Manasseh, in which on the one hand he says, "There's no hope. Judah is condemned, Judah is going into captivity." In the next breath he says, "Oh, but if you would only repent." Here's what I've talked about several times before, choices lead to results, and God says, "Here where your choices are going to take you. That's it." 

Unless in the meantime you make other choices, and we'll see how that works out and doesn't work out in the succeeding kings. So Manasseh is pictured in Kings in this utterly dark picture. Now, Chronicles tells us that Manasseh was taken in chains into Assyria, and while there repented. When he eventually was released and came back home, he led the nation in repenting. No mention of that in Kings. Remember that we were told that Ahab repented and that God relented from the judgment to the extent that it would not fall on Ahab, it would fall on his sons. But no mention of it here. I say it that way because I don't want to suggest that, "Well, the writer of Kings knew about that, but he didn't want to say anything." I think the writer of Kings did know about that, but that in fact in the context it does not serve the purpose of the book. 

But Chronicles talks about a complete, he restored the temple to what it had been before, he got rid of the idols. If the repentance was that widespread, it's very odd that there is no evidence of it in the succeeding situation. Josiah had a great deal of work to cleanse the land of its idols. If that had already happened under Manasseh, as Amon, Manasseh's son and Josiah's father, brought it all back to quickly in just two years or less, I don't know. I think it just raises some questions for us. Did Manasseh repent? I believe so, I think we can trust what Chronicles says. Why does Kings not report it? I think because in fact it was not as general as Chronicles might make it appear, that Manasseh himself did some things, but in fact they were too little and too late, and Kings says, "In the end, they made no difference to the destiny of the nation and therefore we're not going to deal with it here." That's my take on it. 

Manasseh has set Judah on a path that it is not going to escape from. The years of Manasseh's reign coincided with the high point of the Assyrian Empire. We talked a bit before about how Tiglath-Pileser III, beginning in 745 BC, set Assyria on a century-long path of unbroken conquest, until finally they reached their goal and conquered Egypt briefly in 750. This is the years of Manasseh's reign. Now, a couple of interesting things to think about here, why does Judah retain its native king as Assyria sweeps all the other nations into its fold? I think this is the grace of God. Judah is not absorbed into the empire and given a military governor, they are allowed to have their own king on the throne. Now, this certainly suggests that Manasseh must have been a subservient client of the Assyrians, and I think we can understand that, and the interesting statement that we mentioned in Chronicles about him being taken to Assyria in chains, perhaps to reinforce that subservience. 

But there it is, that in this sea of Assyrian provinces Judah stands alone. The grace of God, the caring of god, even, even for a Manasseh. I think there are a number of questions that are raised, how was Manasseh able to raise the amount of tribute that Assyria certainly would have demanded? We don't know the answers. Again, again, Kings is not interested in giving us a full historical review, it's telling us, "Did this king keep the covenant? Did he break the covenant? Or like Manasseh, did he shatter the covenant?" He did, and God says, "Because of the sins of Manasseh, Judah is going to go into exile." 

His son was Amon, and here's this pattern that we've seen several times, after a long reign the successor only serves a short time before, as in this case, they are assassinated. I suspect that, as I've said before, tensions, disagreements, dissatisfaction built up during the old king's reign, but he was so well-established, has so well fixed himself in the power structure that his opponents were not willing to take him on. But after he died, his son, oh yes. That was the case here. Like Jeroboam II's son Zechariah, he came to the throne and died. It's possible again that politics in relation to Assyria enter into this whole discussion. By 641, when Amon came to the throne, Assyria's power was in decline. You couldn't see it obviously, but it was there. They had been expelled from Egypt and one wonders then if Amon's death has to do with pro-Assyrian or anti-Assyrian politics. 

Was Amon pro-Assyrian? Was the anti-Assyrian party coming into power and therefore Amon is removed? I want to point out something here, there were a number of assassinations in Judah, but it was always a Davidide who was put on the throne in place of the assassinated predecessor. Many lectures ago I spoke to you of the power of the Davidic promise, and the sense of the future that promise gave to the Judean people. Wow, God promised, we're going to have to do what we need to do to be sure that promise is indeed continually fulfilled, and so it is here. In that hour when the whole Davidic family was in terrible danger under Athaliah, Joash is saved. In this situation, when Amon, who forsook the Lord, not just didn't walk in the ways of David, he forsook the Lord and didn't walk in obedience to him, when he was assassinated the people killed all who plotted against him and made Josiah his son king in his place. The promise, the promise. 

The line of David, the House of David that God had promised. So Josiah comes to the throne. Like Joash, after Athaliah there is a need to repair the temple. The temple theme woven through, what's this all about? It's about walking with God. It's about the House of the Lord and God's passionate desire to dwell with his people and in his people. So in that context, the context of the repair of the temple, the Book of the Torah was found. As I said in the opening lecture, biblical criticism over the past almost 200 years has been built on a linchpin, and that linchpin is Deuteronomy was written in 621 BC. It was not lost. A prophetic group who are concerned about the direction of the nation have made this up and put it in the name of Moses, and hidden in the temple when the temple is being repaired so that it can be found. 

So the rest of the dating of the Old Testament has been made to hang on this date. Is it evidently, is this writing evidently prior to Deuteronomy? Well, then it must have been before 621. Is this writing evidently later than Deuteronomy? Well, then it must have been written after 621. Well, that position is not held quite as strongly as it was 100 years ago, but it's still very much at the core of the dating of Old Testament documents. I want to say to you, let me say that the strength of the argument is how do you lose the constitution of your nation? Could we lose the Constitution and one day rediscover it and say, "Oh, wow. We didn't know those old fellas wrote that up?" Well, think about it. 52 years of Manasseh, and as you look at the history of not only Israel, but Judah, yes, the Torah is lost effectively. It is not read, it is not pursued, it is not of any great interest. 

The covenant, yeah, lip service, but what does the covenant say? How are we conducting our lives in regard to it? No. Then during that long 52-year reign of Manasseh, it would be very easy for the Bible to be physically lost. So the idea that the writing of Moses could have been lost and rediscovered I don't think is at all out of the realm of possibility. It is clearly what the Bible says. Now, you say, "Well, how do you know it's Deuteronomy?" Because the quotations of Deuteronomy that are found in Jeremiah and not say in Isiah or Micah or some of the others, clearly he knows this book of Deuteronomy and is making use of it. To a lesser extent, the same thing is true in the Book of Kings. Were there other books of the Torah that were also found? We don't know. But Deuteronomy clearly was found. 

So it is brought to Josiah, and Josiah is clearly horrified. He is shocked to the core to discover what the covenant expects of Israel and what in the world is actually going on in his country. Is this a word from God, and not just a prophetic group? So he sends to find out. Now, his reaction, as opposed to the reaction of his son Jehoiakim to Jeremiah's Divine Word is quite instructive. Jehoiakim responds cynically, "Cut it off. Throw it away. Who needs that?" Josiah responds in a vastly, vastly different way. Here is a person who, as we're told, in his 16th year began to seek the Lord. Here is someone who wanted to know Israel's God, who wanted to walk with him, who wanted to be indeed a man of God. So when this terrifying word is discovered and read to him, he responds with repentance, he tears his clothes, and he says, "Let's authenticate this. Let's be sure that this is indeed the Word of God, that Yahweh is saying this and not a group of prophets or whoever." 

So they send an embassy to Huldah, the wife of the keeper of the wardrobe. Students regularly ask me this question, "Well, Jeremiah's alive at this time, why not Jeremiah? Why not some other well-known prophet?" The answer is I don't know. As I've said in a couple of other instances, this testifies to me of the inspiration of Scripture. If somebody were making this up, they would not have asked the wife of the keeper of the wardrobe for authentication. My guess is that this is a woman who is remarkably gifted at distinguishing true and false. I don't know whether that is the case or not, but that's my guess that among all of the prophets, male and female, who are available, this woman has been remarkably effective in being able to distinguish. I offer that to you as a possibility. 

But the point is we're not creating a story in which big important people are brought in to deal with this issue. This is someone who we do not know otherwise, but that's the way it happened, and so it is recorded. She testifies, "Yes, this is the Word of God. Yes, these things that have been predicted here are indeed going to happen. But Josiah, they're not going to happen to you. You have been genuinely repentant, you have been genuinely horrified at the breaches in the covenant behavior that have been existent in our nation. It won't happen to you." Now, again some commentators wonder, because she says that, "You will go to your death in peace." Well, normally that means a king dies in his bed. Josiah didn't die in his bed. Was she a false prophet at this point? No, the point is disaster is going to come on this nation, but you're not going to see it. "You will die before the disaster comes." That's really all that is necessary to draw from the statement that she makes. 

So what is Josiah's response? I want to call your attention now, chapter 23. The king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem, he went up to the Temple of the Lord with the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the Temple of the Lord, the king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord to follow the Lord and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. So the King Josiah has renewed his covenant with the Lord. Now, I want you to look at the next sentence, this is the King James, excuse me, this is the New International Version, "Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant." 

That's not what the Hebrew says. The Hebrew says, "All the people stood in the covenant." Very clearly Josiah renewed his covenant with God, there is no word here about the people renewing their covenant. I'm satisfied that what the text is saying is the people stood by and said, "Yeah, it's okay. It's all right. Go ahead." This relates to the question I raised earlier, was Judah's fate predetermined from the moment that Manasseh, I say moment, but from Manasseh's reign onward? Did Manasseh's sins determine the fate of the country? Many commentators will say, "Evidently. The people were revived. The people entered into the covenant and God said, 'I don't care whether you were revived or not. I don't care whether you repented or not, Manasseh did it and I said and that's that.'"

There was no national revival. I say that for two reasons, first of all I want you to look at the pronouns in what follows, not only pronouns but nouns. "The king ordered Hilkiah to remove from the Temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem." Verse five, "He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed." Verse six, "He took the Asherah pole. He ground it to powder." Verse seven, "He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes." Verse eight, "Josiah brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and desecrated the high plea." Verse 10, "He desecrated the Topheth." All the destruction of idolatry that takes place under Josiah is done by Josiah.

When Joash was appointed king, the people went and tore down the Temple of Baal. There's not a word here about the people entering into this widespread destruction, it's Josiah who does it. So first, there's no verbal statement that the people renewed their covenant, second it's Josiah who takes care of all of the destruction that's involved. Now, here's third, and this is introductory to our next lecture, how quickly did the people return to all the sins of Manasseh? As soon as Josiah was dead. There was no national revival. Yes, the sins of Manasseh brought Judah into captivity, not because Manasseh had committed them and God said, "Okay, on the basis of what Manasseh did, Judah goes into exile." No, it's on the basis of Manasseh's sins that Judah goes into exile. 

Notice how thoroughly Josiah did his work. He started with the temple, obviously if there was some sort of national repentance under Manasseh's repentance, Amon had brought it all back again, the Baal alters, the Asherah poles in the temple. He destroyed the high places that had been rebuilt, the places of sacrifice. Then in verses 15 to 18 he went up to Bethel. It's interesting, we're not told that he destroyed the bull idols. The alter at Bethel, this is verse 15, "The high place made by Jeroboam, son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin, even that alter and high place he demolished, burned the high place, ground it to powder, burned the Asherah pole also. Josiah looked around, when he saw the tombs that were there on the hillside he had the bones removed from them and burned on the alter to defile it, in accordance with the Word of the Lord proclaimed by the man of God who foretold all these things." 

Now, what's missing there? The bull idols. Why doesn't he tear them down? Oh, because the Assyrians had already taken care of those. They're not going to leave all that gold standing around. They're gone. They couldn't protect Samaria from the Assyrians for a moment. From Bethel he goes to Samaria, here's an indication, we're talking about what? 620, 619, by this time Assyria's power had been totally nullified. The Babylonians, from Southern Mesopotamia, the Medes from the Zagros Mountains, which parallel the Tigris on the east, the Babylonians and the Medes have formed a coalition and have attacked Assyria, and by 619 Assyria is on its very last legs. Most of its capital cities have been destroyed, and it is struggling for survival. So there is no barrier to Josiah going up through the former territories of Israel, even as far as Samaria and cleaning it out. 

Now, there is a national Passover. People enjoy parties. A well-known Israeli archeologist who is no believer in God was interviewed, and in the course of the interview the interviewer said, "Now, I don't suppose you keep Passover?" The man said, "Why not? I'm a Jew, I keep Passover." He doesn't believe a thing that's going on, but everybody likes a party. So there's a national Passover unlike any before. Remember in a pervious lecture we spoke about the fact that a similar thing was said of Hezekiah. My suggestion is Hezekiah restored the practice of family house Passover, Josiah, in attempting to revive these people, produces a national Passover service. 

So we're told in 15:25, "Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did." Of Hezekiah it's said, "No king before or after who trusted the Lord as Hezekiah did." This says, "No king who repented so thoroughly, and what a tragedy that the nation did not join him." So what was the significance of Josiah? If I'm right, and I admit there are perhaps many who would disagree with me, but I would ask what's the evidence? If indeed there was no national revival, what is the significance of what Josiah did? He is depicted as the finest of the Davidic kings, he is the one who more than any other, more than Hezekiah, more than Asa, walked in the ways of the Lord as his father David did with a whole heart. What's the significance of his reign?

The significance I believe is this, he made it possible for the righteous remnant to survive. If the nation as a whole did not repent, I'm confident there was a core of believers whose faith was revived, whose faith was deepened, whose faith was grounded so that what was lying ahead for them, the exile with all its terrors, with all of its desperation, with all of its despair, they would survive. They would be in a position to say, "No, our God is not out to destroy us. Our God is out to refine us. Our God is out to cleanse us, and we can and will survive this." I think that's what Josiah was all about. If there had been no Josiah, I wonder would there have been a core of people with such a vital faith as could survive even in exile? So I say, thank God for Josiah.