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2 Kings 24 · a question people ask

Manasseh was long dead, and Josiah had turned to the LORD. Why does the chapter name Manasseh's sins?

In the text

The chapter says it plainly: "Surely at the commandment of the LORD this came on Judah, to remove them out of his sight for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did" (24:3). The chapter before said the same after Josiah's reform: "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" (23:26). But 2 Kings doesn't give Manasseh as the only reason. The LORD's word by his servants the prophets in Manasseh's days (21:10) spoke of the people too: "because they have done that which is evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day" (21:15). Of Manasseh's reign the book says, "But they didn’t listen" (21:9). And Jehoiachin and Zedekiah each "did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight" (24:9, 24:19), as the book had said of Jehoiakim (23:37). When Samaria fell, the book had already said, "Also Judah didn’t keep the commandments of the LORD their God" (17:19). 2 Kings sets these side by side and doesn't weigh one against another.

The verses

“Surely at the commandment of the LORD this came on Judah, to remove them out of his sight for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did,”
2 Kings 24:3 · World English Bible
“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.”
2 Kings 23:25-26 · World English Bible
“But they didn’t listen, and Manasseh seduced them to do that which is evil more than the nations did whom the LORD destroyed before the children of Israel. The LORD spoke by his servants the prophets, saying,”
2 Kings 21:9-10 · World English Bible
“because they have done that which is evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.’””
2 Kings 21:15 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 2 Kings 24

2 Kings 24: As the LORD had said

The king of Babylon carried Jerusalem away, but the chapter says whose word it was: the bands came "according to the LORD’s word" (24:2), and the treasures went "as the LORD had said" (24:13), the word Isaiah gave Hezekiah (20:17). And Matthew counts Jesus' line by the exile to Babylon: "from the carrying away to Babylon to the Christ, fourteen generations" (Matthew 1:17).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions