Read 2 Kings 20 and 21 at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraph divisions:
2 Kin 20:1-3 {s} Hezekiah’s sickness and prayer for remembrance before the LORD
2 Kin 20:4-11 {p} Isaiah’s word: YHVH will heal you on the third day/ the sign of the sundial
2 Kin 20:12-21 {p} Hezekiah received the embassy from Babylon/ prophecy of future conquest by them/ his death
2 Kin 21:1-11 {s} Manasseh’s evil reign/ filled Jerusalem + Judah with more idolatry than the Amorites before them
2 Kin 21:12-18 {p} YHVH decrees calamity upon Jerusalem + Judah: He will deliver them into the hand of their enemies
2 Kin 21:19-26 {p} Amon’s evil reign, but he was killed by conspirators/ his son Josiah reigned in his place
The chiastic structure of Manasseh’s reign:
1a) 2 Kin 21:1, Manasseh 12 years old when he became king + reigned 55 years + his mother’s name;
1b) 2 Kin 21:2-9, Manasseh did evil in the sight of YHVH: his acts and abominations;
1a) 2 Kin 21:2, He did evil in the sight of YHVH as the abominations of the nations which were cast out before them;
1b) 2 Kin 21:3-4, Rebuilt high places + Baal altars + worshiped heaven/ defiled the house of YHVH’s name;
1c) 2 Kin 21:5-6a, Built altars in the house of YHVH/ his son through the fire + soothsaying + witchcraft + mediums;
central axis) 2 Kin 21:6b, He did much evil in the sight of YHVH, to provoke Him to anger;
2c) 2 Kin 21:7a, He even set a carved image of Asherah that he had made;
2b) 2 Kin 21:7b-8, In the house of which YHVH had said: I will put My name forever;
2a) 2 Kin 21:9, They paid no attention/ they did more evil than the nations which were destroyed before them;
1c) 2 Kin 21:10-11 {s} Because Manasseh has done these abominations + has made Judah to sin with his idols;
central axis) 2 Kin 21:12-15, “Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab; I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. So I will forsake the remnant of My inheritance and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become victims of plunder to all their enemies, because they have done evil in My sight, and have provoked Me to anger since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day;’”
2c) 2 Kin 21:16, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood besides his sin by which he made Judah sin;
2b) 2 Kin 21:17, The rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his sin, are written in the book of the chronicles;
2a) 2 Kin 21:18 {p} Manasseh rested with his fathers + was buried + his son Amon reigned in his place.
He even set a carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever; and I will not make the feet of Israel wander anymore from the land which I gave their fathers—only if they are careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that My servant Moses commanded them.”2 Kin 21:7-8
When the nation is sick, and on a path leading toward destruction, as Judah was, there is a way back to health: it is in the repentance of its people, to forsake sin, and do all that YHVH commands according to the Law of Moses, for the Torah is the dictionary of the Bible, to define righteousness and sin. In Manasseh’s day, the very next verse says, “But they paid no attention …”
Let it not be said of us! Our nation is sick, but I believe by the grace of God, its people are waking up and paying attention, for repentance is sweeping the nation, and many are coming to the realization that, just as Jesus taught us, the Law of God still applies. Let us continue to walk in repentance, in humility, and in wisdom before God and man, for then the LORD will hear us from heaven, will forgive us our sins, and will heal our land.
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