Manasseh was born during the last 15 years of his father’s life. These were the years that God added to Hezekiah’s life when he prayed to the Lord (2 Kings 20:1-6). Manasseh’s name means “causing to forget.” And we can see why. Manasseh completely turns away from the Lord, and brought dreadful punishment on himself. It shows us that having faithful parents won’t keep us, we have to stand for Christ ourselves.
V.3-9 God names the wicked deeds — religious evils. This is the worst evil today, because it is aimed at Christ. Believers today don’t realize this, and quickly fall into his traps.
V.10 God warns before He acts in judgment. But Manasseh doesn’t hear!
V.11 The Lord did this. Do we see the Lord’s hand in the circumstances which come to us?
V.12 He did. This is the same thing his father did (2 Chron. 32:26).
V.13 The Lord personally did this too. He brought him back! So long as we persist in our own ideas, we do not understand the Lord (Prov. 28:55Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek the Lord understand all things. (Proverbs 28:5)).
V.14-16 He is in earnest now. The Lord is first. He doesn’t care what others may think. He is thankful.
V.17 Many of the people were not brought back to the Lord, they stubbornly kept to their old ideas, habits and idols.
V.18-19 Beautiful summary of his life.
V.21-25 Brief is the record of the life of this man.