ii. 15, quotes from Julius Africanus, that while Manasseh was saying a

psalm his iron bonds burst, and he escaped. See _Speakers Commentary_, on Apocrypha, ii. 363.

[646] Such pardon from a king of Assyria was rare, but not unparalleled. Pharaoh Necho I. was taken in chains to Nineveh, and afterwards set free (Schrader, _K. A. T._, p. 371).

[647] See 2 Chron. xxvii. 3. The "fish gate" was, perhaps, a weak point (Zeph. i. 10).

[648] 2 Chron. xxxiii. 19. Heb., _dibhrî Chozai_; A.V., "the story of the Seers"; R.V., "in the history of Hozai"; LXX., ἐπὶ τῶν λόγων τῶν οὐρανιῶν; Vulg., _in sermonibus Hozai_. The elements of doubt suggested by the name "Babylon," and by the liberation of Manasseh, have been removed by further knowledge. See Budge, _Hist. of Esarhaddon_, p. 78; Schrader, _K. A. T._, 369 ff.

[649] Since the Council of Trent this prayer has been relegated to the end of the Vulgate with 3, 4, Esdras. Verse 8 (the supposed sinlessness of the Patriarchs) at once shows it to be a mere composition.

[650] 2 Kings xxiii. 12.

[651] 2 Kings xxi. 20.

[652] 2 Chron. xxxiii. 15.

[653] 2 Kings xxiii. 26.

[654] Jer. xv. 1-9.

[655] The later Jews certainly took no account of his repentance. His name was execrated (see the substitution of Manasseh for Moses in Judg. xviii. 30), and he was denied all part in the world to come. The Apocryphal "Prayer of Manasses" has no authority, though it is interesting (Butler, _Analogy_, pt. ii., ch. v.).

[656] In estimating the Chronicler's story, we cannot wholly forget the fact that a number of Haggadic legends clustered thickly round the name of Manasseh in the literature of the later Jews. He is charged with incest, with the murder of Isaiah, the distortion of Scripture, etc., and is represented as having got to heaven, not by real repentance, but by challenging God on His superiority to idols. The Targum, after 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11, adds, "And the Chaldees made a copper mule, and pierced it all over with little holes, and put him therein. And when he was in straits, he cried in vain to all his idols. Then he prayed to Jehovah and humbled himself; but the angels shut every window and lattice of heaven, that his prayer might not enter. But forthwith the pity of the Lord of the world rolled forth, and He made an aperture in heaven, and the mule burst asunder, and the Spirit breathed on him, and he forsook all his idols." "No books," says Dr. Neubauer, "are more subject to additions and various adaptations than popular histories." See Mr. Ball's commentary (_Speaker's Commentary_, ii. 309, and _Sanhedrin_, f. 99, 2; 101, 1; 103, 2).

_AMON_[657]

B.C. 641-639

2 KINGS xxi. 19-26

The brief reign of Amon is only a sort of unimportant and miserable annex to that of his father. As he was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, he must have witnessed the repentance and reforming zeal of his father, if, in spite of all difficulties, we assume that narrative to be historical. In that case, however, the young man was wholly untouched by the latter phase of Manasseh's life, and flung himself headlong into the career of the king's earlier idolatries. "He walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshipped them"--which was the more extraordinary if Manasseh's last acts had been to dethrone and destroy these strange gods. He even "multiplied trespass," so that in his son's reign we find every form of abomination as triumphant as though Manasseh had never attempted to check the tide of evil. We know nothing more of Amon. Apparently he only reigned two years.[658] He is the only Jewish king who bears the name of a foreign--an Egyptian--deity.

For pictures of the state of things in this reign we may look to the prophets Zephaniah and Jeremiah, and they are forced to use the darkest colours.

This is Zephaniah's picture:--

"Woe to her that is rebellious and polluted, to the oppressing city! She obeyed not the voice; she received not instruction; She trusted not in the Lord; she drew not near to her God. Her princes in the midst of her are roaring lions; Her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones on the morrow. Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: Her priests have profaned the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law."[659]

He tells us that Baal and his black-robed _chemarim_[660] are still prevalent--that men worshipped on their house-tops the host of heaven, and swore by "Moloch their king." Therefore would God search Jerusalem with candles, and would visit the men who had sunk, like thick wine on the lees, and who said in their infidel hearts, "Jehovah will not do good, neither will He do evil." He is an Epicurean God, a cypher, a _fainéant_. "Men make all kinds of fine calculations," says Luther, "but the Lord God says to them, 'For whom, then, do you hold Me? For a cypher? Do I sit here in vain, and to no purpose? You shall know that I will turn their accounts about finely, and make them all false reckonings.'"

Not less dark is the view of Jeremiah.[661] Like Diogenes in Athens, Jeremiah in vain searches Jerusalem for a faithful man. Among the poor he finds brutish obstinacy, among the rich insolent defiance. They were like fed horses in the morning--lecherous and unruly. They are slanderers, adulterers, corrupters, murderers. They worship Baal and strange gods. "They set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. They are waxen fat, they shine; yea, they overpass in deeds of wickedness."[662] "An astonishment and horror is done in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and My people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?"[663]

"From the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. They have treated also the hurt of My people lightly, saying, 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abominations? Nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall."[664]

The wretched reign ended wretchedly. Amon met the fate of Amaziah and of Joash. He was murdered by conspirators--by some of his own courtiers--in his own palace. He was not the victim of any general rebellion. The people of the land were apparently content with the existent idolatry, which left them free for lives of lust and luxury, of greed and gain. They resented the disorder introduced by an intrigue of eunuchs or court officials. They rose and slew the whole band of conspirators. Amon was buried with his father in the new burial-place of the Kings in the garden of Uzza, and the people placed his son Josiah--a child of eight years old--upon the throne.

FOOTNOTES:

[657] The name Amon is unusual. Some identify it with the name of the Egyptian sun-god (Nah. iii. 8). If so, we see yet another element of Manasseh's syncretism, and (as some fancy) an attempt to open relations with Psammetichus of Egypt. But perhaps the name may be Hebrew for "Architect" (1 Kings xxii. 26; Neh. vii. 59).

[658] 2 Kings xxi. 19. The LXX. reads "twelve years," but not so Josephus (_Antt._, X. iv. 1), or 2 Chron. xxxiii. 21.

[659] Zeph. iii. 1-11. Comp. i. 4.

[660] _Chemarim_, 2 Kings xxiii. 5; Hos. x. 5. The root in Syriac means "to be sad," but Kimchi derives it from a root "to be black." The Vulgate renders it _æditui_ and _aruspices_.

[661] We are told in the titles of their books that both these prophets prophesied in the days of Josiah; but such pictures can only apply to the earliest years of his reign.

[662] See Jer. v., vi., vii., _passim_.

[663] Jer. vi. 13-15.

[664] Jer. v. 30, 31.