Week 20 2 Chronicles
The story of Manasseh got me puzzling over how the Lord operates.
Manasseh was one of the worst kings of Judah. Maybe the very worst.
The chronicler says that Manasseh: did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. And then he lists those things.
The Lord warned Manasseh. Manasseh just ignored the Lord. What wasn’t so easy to ignore was the Assyrian army when they arrived in Jerusalem. Manasseh was taken captive – led away with a chain hooked through his nose.
It was there in captivity that Manasseh had a serious change of soul: Manasseh sought the Lord his God and cried out humbly to the God of his ancestors.
The chronicler says Manasseh’s prayer was recorded in The Book of the Kings of Israel & in The Record of the Seers. I couldn’t find either of them but I found the prayer online.
It’s fifteen verses long and Manasseh prayed it from a place of abject hopelessness. For example:
The sins I have committed are more in number than the sand of the sea…
I have provoked your wrath and have done what is evil in your sight…
I earnestly implore you, forgive me, Lord, forgive me!
And what-do-you-know…the Lord did forgive Manasseh.
After all that he’d done it seems like a pretty big forgive.
Makes me wonder why; wonder if he should have. Manasseh was one of the very worst.
Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 33:2 & 12 (NLT). Manasseh’s prayer 9, 10, 13 at biblegateway.com (May 20, 2021)