2 Chronicles 33:14 Komentář

In this chapter we have the history of the reign, I. Of Manasseh, who reigned long. 1. His wretched apostasy from God, and revolt to idolatry and all wickedness (Ch2 33:1-10). 2. His happy return to God in his affliction; his repentance (Ch2 33:11-13), his reformation (Ch2 33:15-17), and prosperity (Ch2 33:14), with the conclusion of his reign (Ch2 33:18-20). II. Of Amon, who reigned very wickedly (Ch2 33:21-23), and soon ended his days unhappily (Ch2 33:24, Ch2 33:25).

INTRODUCTION TO 2 CHRONICLES 33 This chapter gives an account of the reign of Manasseh, of his idolatries and impieties, Ch2 33:1, of his captivity, humiliation, repentance, and reformation, Ch2 33:11 of his last end, death, and burial, Ch2 33:18 and of the wicked reign of Amon his son, and of his death by his servants, Ch2 33:21.

And he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord,.... Which he had set there, Ch2 33:7. and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem; see Ch2 33:4, and cast them out of the city; perhaps into the brook Kidron; all this he did to show the sincerity of his repentance for his idolatry, and his abhorrence of it.

Manasseh reigns fifty-five years, and restores idolatry, pollutes the temple, and practises all kinds of abominations, Ch2 33:1-9. He and the people are warned in vain, Ch2 33:10. He is delivered into the hands of the Assyrians, bound with fetters, and carried to Babylon, Ch2 33:11. He humbles himself, and is restored, Ch2 33:12, Ch2 33:13. He destroys idolatry, and restores the worship of God, Ch2 33:14-16. The people keep the high places, but sacrifice to the Lord on them, Ch2 33:17. His acts, prayer, and death, Ch2 33:18-20. His son Amon succeeds him; and after a wicked idolatrous reign of two years, is slain by his own servants in his own house, Ch2 33:21-24. The people rise up, and slay his murderers, and make Josiah his son king in his stead, Ch2 33:25.

He built a wall - This was probably a weak place that he fortified; or a part of the wall which the Assyrians had broken down, which he now rebuilt.

MANASSEH'S WICKED REIGN. (Ch2 33:1-10) Manasseh . . . did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord--(See on 2Ki. 21:1-16).

he built a wall without the city . . . on the west side of Gihon . . . even to the entering in at the fish gate--"The well-ascertained position of the fish gate, shows that the valley of Gihon could be no other than that leading northwest of Damascus gate, and gently descending southward, uniting with the Tyropœon at the northeast corner of Mount Zion, where the latter turns at right angles and runs towards Siloam. The wall thus built by Manasseh on the west side of the valley of Gihon, would extend from the vicinity of the northeast corner of the wall of Zion in a northerly direction, until it crossed over the valley to form a junction with the outer wall at the trench of Antonia, precisely in the quarter where the temple would be most easily assailed" [BARCLAY].

After his return, Manasseh took measures to secure his kingdom, and especially the capital, against hostile attacks. "He built an outer wall of the city of David westward towards Gihon in the valley, and in the direction of the fish-gate; and he surrounded the Ophel, and made it very high." The words היצונה חומה (without the article) point to the building of a new wall. But since it has been already recorded of Hezekiah, in Ch2 32:5, that he built "the other wall without," all modern expositors, even Arnold in Herz.'s Realenc. xviii. S. 634, assume the identity of the two walls, and understand ויּבן of the completion and heightening of that "other wall" of which it is said מאד ויּגבּיהה, and which shut in Zion from the lower city to the north. In that case, of course, we must make the correction החומה. The words "westward towards Gihon in the valley, and לבוא ב, in the direction to (towards) the fish-gate," are then to be taken as describing the course of this wall from its centre, first towards the west, and then towards the east. For the valley of Gihon lay, in all probability, outside of the western city gate, which occupied the place of the present Jaffa gate. But the fish-gate was, according to Neh 3:3, at the east end of this wall, at no great distance from the tower on the north-east corner. The valley (הנּהל) is a hollow between the upper city (Zion) and the lower (Acra), probably the beginning of the valley, which at its south-eastern opening, between Zion and Moriah, is called Tyropoion in Josephus. The words, "he surrounded the Ophel," sc. with a wall, are not to be connected with the preceding clauses, as Berth. connects them, translating, "he carried the wall from the north-east corner farther to the south, and then round the Ophel;" for "between the north-east corner and the Ophel wall lay the whole east wall of the city, as far as to the south-east corner of the temple area, which yet cannot be regarded as a continuation of the wall to the Ophel wall" (Arnold, loc. cit.). Jotham had already built a great deal at the Ophel wall (Ch2 27:3). Manasseh must therefore only have strengthened it, and increased its height. On the words שׂ ויּשׂם cf. Ch2 32:6 and Ch2 17:2.