Manasseh / 2 Chronicles 33:1-20
Growing up as a kid in the late seventies and early eighties, my favorite movie franchise was the Star Wars saga. I remember seeing Darth Vader walk across the screen for the very first time with the ominous music and that terrifying suit. Looking back now, it might look a little dorky, but back then, to a little kid, he was the embodiment of ultimate evil.
In the very first scene he appears in, he picks up a rebel commander, chokes him out, and tosses him across the room. Later, he oversees the destruction of Princess Leia’s entire home planet, strikes down Obi-Wan Kenobi, and chops off Luke’s hand in The Empire Strikes Back. He was pure evil. But then, at the end of Return of the Jedi, something remarkable happens: you find yourself cheering for Darth Vader. He saves Luke from the Emperor, taking all those electric blasts, and throws the Emperor down the shaft. By the end of the original trilogy, you are actually rooting for him.
Tonight, we are going to look at a king named Manasseh whose entire life was marked by notorious evil. Yet by the end of his story, we might find ourselves cheering for him too.
Manasseh was on the throne in the Southern Kingdom of Judah for fifty-five years—the longest tenure of any king in Israel or Judah. His father was King Hezekiah, one of the most godly kings to ever sit on the throne in Jerusalem. Yet Manasseh became known as the most evil king in Judah’s history. In modern terms, he could be compared to dictators like Kim Jong Un, Saddam Hussein, Hitler, or Stalin. But if there is any redemption to be found in Manasseh’s life, it is this: sin always has its consequences, but God’s grace is greater than our sin.
Let’s look at three observations from Manasseh’s life, beginning in 2 Chronicles 33.
2 Chronicles 33:1-6 (NASB)
Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. He did evil in the sight of the LORD according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD dispossessed before the sons of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down; he also erected altars for the Baals and made Asherim, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. He built altars in the house of the LORD of which the LORD had said, ‘My name shall be in Jerusalem forever.’ For he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. He made his sons pass through the fire in the valley of Ben-hinnom; and he practiced witchcraft, used divination, practiced sorcery and dealt with mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him [to anger].
1. Pursuing Perversion and Committing Atrocities
Here is our first observation: Manasseh pursues perversion and commits atrocities at an unprecedented level. He acts like a sociopath who has been given unbridled power and resources to indulge every wicked impulse in his heart. When you look at the list of what he did, it is as if he opened the Old Testament law—specifically passages like Deuteronomy 18—and identified every single practice God forbade Israel from doing, determined to do all of them and more.
His father, Hezekiah, had accomplished incredible reforms for God, but Manasseh quickly undoes and reverses them all. Most Bible commentators believe they shared a co-regency for about ten years, so Manasseh had every opportunity to learn about loving, worshiping, and obeying God from his father. Yet as soon as absolute power is at his fingertips, he rebuilds the high places, erects altars to Baal, and constructs Asherah poles.
He goes even further: he takes altars dedicated to false gods and sets them up directly inside the temple courts of the Lord. He dabbles in witchcraft, divination, and sorcery, seeking power from demonic spirits and attempting to consult the dead through mediums.
Most horrific of all, verse 6 tells us that he sacrificed his own sons in the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. This is the Valley of Gehenna, which Jesus later used as a vivid picture of hell. Manasseh revived the ancient, grotesque worship of Molech, where infants and children were slaughtered in the fire. Imagine coming to church and seeing an altar to Satan on the stage, only to find out the church was sponsoring child sacrifices down the street and inviting you to participate. That is the magnitude of his depravity and perversion.
The parallel account in 2 Kings gives us even more insight into the bloodshed of his reign.
2 Kings 21:16 (NASB)
Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; besides his sin with which he made Judah sin, in doing evil in the sight of the LORD.
He slaughtered the innocent and defenseless, filling Jerusalem with blood from one end to the other. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus recorded that Manasseh murdered the prophets of God daily. Early church tradition and rabbinic writings even indicate that he had the great prophet Isaiah sawn in two—the very Isaiah who penned the book of Isaiah and ministered alongside Hezekiah during times of national crisis.
Manasseh believed he was accountable to no one. With ultimate power, wealth, and no fear of God, he believed he was entirely free to pursue evil beyond known limits.
2 Chronicles 33:7-9 (NASB)
Then he put the carved image of the idol which he had made in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, ‘In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever; and I will not again remove the foot of Israel from the land which I have appointed for your fathers, if only they will observe to do all that I have commanded them according to all the law, the statutes and the ordinances [given] through Moses.’ Thus Manasseh misled Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the sons of Israel.
2. Rejecting the Presence and Promises of God
Our second observation is that Manasseh blatantly rejects the presence and promises of God. God had made a covenant with David and Solomon, promising to establish His name in the temple forever if the people would walk in obedience. By placing a carved idol inside that very temple, Manasseh was effectively declaring, “God, we don’t want You here. We don’t need You. Get out.”
It reminds me of the reports where people repeatedly vandalized murals of LeBron James when he first came to the Lakers in LA. Throwing paint over those murals was a public way of saying, “We don’t want you here.” That is what Manasseh did, but directly against the living God. In rejecting God’s presence, he also forfeited the promises and privileges of God’s protection. Under his leadership, Judah became more wicked than the pagan Canaanite nations God had driven out centuries before.
Yet, remarkably, God still did not immediately abandon them.
2 Chronicles 33:10 (NASB)
The LORD spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention.
God reached out through His prophets—men like Hosea, Joel, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Isaiah—giving Manasseh and the people decades of opportunities to listen and turn back. But they paid no attention. Manasseh led the charge, and the people happily followed.
When we wander away from God, He actively works to get our attention. He speaks through His Word, through the convicting promptings of the Holy Spirit, through other believers, and through our circumstances. Yet so often, like Judah, we ignore the warnings because we do not want to change. We want to keep living on our own terms.
2 Chronicles 33:11-13 (NASB)
Therefore the LORD brought the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria against them, and they captured Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze [chains] and took him to Babylon. When he was in distress, he entreated the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. When he prayed to Him, He was moved by his entreaty and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD [was] God.
3. Humble Repentance Through God’s Discipline
Our third observation is that God’s discipline brought Manasseh to a place of genuine, humble repentance. Having exhausted God’s patience, Manasseh received a severe wake-up call. The Assyrian army captured him, placed a bronze hook through his nose, bound him in chains, and paraded him like a humiliated criminal on a long, grueling march of hundreds of miles to Babylon.
Stripped of his power and sitting in agony, he had plenty of time to reflect on his wickedness and the countless lives he had destroyed. Miraculously, in his deep distress, he humbled himself and cried out to the God of his fathers. Even more miraculously, God heard his supplication, was moved by his prayer, and restored him to his throne in Jerusalem.
This was not mere remorse over getting caught. Anyone can feel sorry about the mess they have created, but Manasseh demonstrated authentic repentance through concrete life change.
2 Chronicles 33:15-17 (NASB)
He also removed the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the LORD, as well as all the altars which he had built on the mountain of the house of the LORD and in Jerusalem, and he threw [them] outside the city. He set up the altar of the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings and thank offerings on it; and he ordered Judah to serve the LORD God of Israel. Nevertheless the people still sacrificed in the high places, [although] only to the LORD their God.
True repentance always produces a change in behavior. Manasseh immediately tore down the foreign idols, removed the pagan altars from the temple and the surrounding hills, and threw them out of the city. He put an end to witchcraft and child sacrifice, restored the altar of the Lord, offered peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to worship the one true God.
While he could not undo all the evil of his past fifty years, he did everything in his power to make things right. It was a true “Darth Vader comes to Jesus” moment.
If God has ever brought your life to a standstill because of your sin, if He has escalated His discipline until you had no choice but to stop and listen, count it as an act of mercy. He is not trying to destroy you; He is trying to bring you home.
Lesson 1: We Choose Our Sin, but Never the Consequences
From Manasseh’s life, we can draw three critical lessons for our own walk with God. The first is that we can choose our sin, but we can never choose the consequences.
As remarkable as Manasseh’s late-life transformation was, the tragic reality remains: after fifty-five years on the throne, the nation was left in spiritual ruin. The people continued to sacrifice at the high places. During Manasseh’s reign, the Scriptures were lost entirely, leaving the priests to minister without the Word of God until his grandson Josiah rediscovered the Book of the Law decades later.
Furthermore, the innocent lives Manasseh took could not be brought back, and the prophetic judgment upon Judah remained sealed.
2 Kings 24:3-4 (NASB)
Surely at the command of the LORD it came upon Judah, to remove [them] from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also for the innocent blood which he shed, for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; and the LORD would not forgive.
Because of Manasseh’s decades of rampant sin and innocent bloodshed, judgment on Jerusalem was delayed, but not canceled. His conversion also came too late to positively impact his son Amon, who imitated his father’s wickedness and was assassinated after only two years on the throne.
Sin always carries consequences. Sometimes we fail to recognize that the turmoil in our lives is the natural fruit or divine discipline resulting from our rebellion. God’s discipline is designed to make us miserable in our sin so that we return to Him. While repentance brings forgiveness and restores our fellowship with God, it does not automatically erase every earthly consequence.
When we turn to Christ, we may go to those we have wronged and offer heartfelt apologies, only to find that trust has been deeply broken. Some people may need years to see if our change is real, and others may never reconcile with us. We must accept that while we have freedom of choice in our actions, we do not get to manage or dictate the fallout.
Lesson 2: Authentic Repentance Leads to Real Life Change
The second lesson is that authentic repentance leads to genuine, lasting life change. Repentance is not just a momentary wave of emotion; it is a fundamental shift in direction. It means turning away from sin and turning toward Jesus as an ongoing lifestyle.
We do not continually repent to secure our legal justification before God—our salvation is fully secured the moment we place our faith in Christ. Rather, we practice ongoing repentance to deepen our intimacy with the Lord and allow Him to shape our character.
Matthew 3:8 (NASB)
’Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance;
Mark 4:8 (NASB)
‘Other [seeds] fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.’
2 Corinthians 7:10 (NASB)
For the sorrow that is according to [the will] [of] God produces a repentance without regret, [leading] to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.
Godly sorrow produces a zeal for righteousness that surpasses our previous pursuit of selfish desires. True believers will stumble and fall—as the Apostle James reminds us, we all stumble in many ways. But the mark of someone who walks with God is that when they fall, they desire to get back up, confess, and pursue Christ again.
If God’s transforming grace could reach the most depraved king in Judah’s history, His grace can reach anyone in this room. Manasseh shows us that as long as you have breath in your lungs, it is never too late to turn back to God.
Lesson 3: God’s Grace Is Deeper Than Any Depravity
Our final lesson is that no matter the depth of our depravity, God’s grace and forgiveness is deeper still.
The original audience reading Chronicles consisted of Jewish exiles returning from captivity in Babylon. Manasseh’s story gave them immense hope: just as God redeemed and restored a captive king from Babylon, He could restore them.
Manasseh’s eleventh-hour conversion mirrors the criminal hanging beside Jesus on the cross.
Luke 23:39-43 (NASB)
One of the criminals who were hanged [there] was hurling abuse at Him, saying, ‘Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!’ But the other answered, and rebuking him said, ’Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? ‘And we indeed [are suffering] justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.’ And he was saying, ‘Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!’ And He said to him, ‘Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.’
That dying criminal recognized his guilt, acknowledged that Jesus was the sinless King, and asked simply to be remembered. Jesus responded with absolute grace: “Today you will be with Me in paradise.”
If you have never placed your faith in Jesus, you need to know that forgiveness is found in Him alone. Jesus took the full penalty of our sin upon Himself on the cross, died in our place, and rose again. You do not have to clean yourself up before coming to Him; He invites you to come just as you are.
And for those of us who have walked with Christ for years, we must never look at people like Manasseh with self-righteous pride. Untethered from the grace of God, with absolute power and zero accountability, any one of us is capable of terrible things. We need Jesus every single day just as desperately as Manasseh did.
Grace for the Sufferer
Earlier this week, I was discussing this passage with Pastor Dave, and he made a profound observation: “It is essential to talk about grace for our own sin, but what about the people who have suffered at the hands of modern-day Manassehs?”
All of us are sinners, but all of us are also sufferers. Many in this room carry deep wounds from the abuse, betrayal, addiction, or abandonment of others. You are living in the painful wake of someone else’s evil.
My wife, Chris, was deeply hurt as a child by someone who acted like a modern-day Manasseh, and she gave me permission to share a portion of her story tonight:
“When I was nine years old, I was sexually molested by a friend of a friend. I was involved with the Girl Scouts, and this man was a friend of our troop leader who had a swimming pool we all used to visit. I was terrified to come forward, but my mom could tell something was wrong, and I finally told her what happened. She was devastated and called the police immediately.
“Sitting at our kitchen table, I had to recount everything to the police. The Girl Scout leader told my mom that I should stop lying, and my mom told her exactly what she could do with that advice.
“When the court date arrived in sixth grade, I remember walking up the courthouse steps with my dad. The man who had molested me was walking right behind us with his wife, giving me a hateful, intimidating glare. He pled guilty, so I never had to testify, but I found out years later that despite other victims coming forward, he received only probation.
“After coming to faith in Jesus at age nineteen, I began to experience God’s love and healing. One day, I heard a message explaining that holding onto unforgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. I knew I needed to forgive this man—not by seeking him out, but by releasing him before the Lord and leaving justice in God’s hands. When I did, I felt a tremendous, supernatural peace and experienced God’s healing in a profound new way.”
The capacity to forgive an abuser—and the capacity to receive forgiveness for our own terrible sins—is utterly impossible in our own strength. It is only made possible through the supreme, redeeming love of King Jesus.
Let’s pray together.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for our King, Jesus Christ, who conquered sin, death, and the power of darkness to give us new life. We pray tonight for the power of Your transforming grace across this room. For those who need to trust in You for the first time, give them the faith to step forward. For those who feel too far gone, remind them that Your grace is deeper than their deepest failure. Keep us humble, Lord, recognizing our continuous need for Your mercy. And for those carrying deep wounds from the sins of others, grant supernatural healing and the strength to release that pain into Your hands. We love You, Lord, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.