2 Kings 21 · a question people ask
Did Manasseh ever turn back to the LORD?
2 Kings doesn't say. After the LORD's word by the prophets (21:10-15) and the innocent blood (21:16), it closes his reign with no word of him turning back, and none that he never did: "Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and all that he did, and his sin that he sinned, aren’t they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?" (21:17), and "Manasseh slept with his fathers" (21:18). 2 Chronicles tells more. There, "The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they didn’t listen" (2 Chronicles 33:10), and "the LORD brought on them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh in chains, bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon" (2 Chronicles 33:11). "When he was in distress, he begged the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers" (2 Chronicles 33:12). "He prayed to him; and he was entreated by him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God" (2 Chronicles 33:13). Afterward "He took away the foreign gods and the idol out of the LORD’s house" (2 Chronicles 33:15). Later, 2 Kings says of Judah after Josiah's reform (23:25): "the LORD didn’t turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, with which his anger burned against Judah, because of all the provocation with which Manasseh had provoked him" (23:26), and Judah was removed "for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did" (24:3), "and also for the innocent blood that he shed" (24:4). Each book tells what it tells. These notes set them side by side and don't try to fit them together.
The verses
“Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and all that he did, and his sin that he sinned, aren’t they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? Manasseh slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza; and Amon his son reigned in his place.”
“The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they didn’t listen. Therefore the LORD brought on them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh in chains, bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. When he was in distress, he begged the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him; and he was entreated by him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.”
“He took away the foreign gods and the idol out of the LORD’s house, and all the altars that he had built in the mountain of the LORD’s house and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city.”
“There was no king like him before him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; and there was none like him who arose after him. Notwithstanding, the LORD didn’t turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, with which his anger burned against Judah, because of all the provocation with which Manasseh had provoked him.”