Chapter 32—Manasseh and Josiah
The kingdom of Judah, prosperous throughout the times of
Hezekiah, was once more brought low during the long years of Man-
asseh’s wicked reign, when paganism was revived, and many of the
people were led into idolatry. “Manasseh made Judah and the in-
habitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen.”
2
Chronicles 33:9
. The glorious light of former generations was fol-
lowed by the darkness of superstition and error. Gross evils sprang up
and flourished—tyranny, oppression, hatred of all that is good. Justice
was perverted; violence prevailed.
Yet those evil times were not without witnesses for God and the
right. The trying experiences through which Judah had safely passed
during Hezekiah’s reign had developed, in the hearts of many, a stur-
diness of character that now served as a bulwark against the prevailing
iniquity. Their testimony in behalf of truth and righteousness aroused
the anger of Manasseh and his associates in authority, who endeav-
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ored to establish themselves in evil-doing by silencing every voice of
disapproval. “Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had
filled Jerusalem from one end to another.”
2 Kings 21:16
.
One of the first to fall was Isaiah, who for over half a century had
stood before Judah as the appointed messenger of Jehovah. “Others
had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds
and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were
tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins
and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (of whom the
world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains,
and in dens and caves of the earth.”
Hebrews 11:36-38
.
Some of those who suffered persecution during Manasseh’s reign
were commissioned to bear special messages of reproof and of judg-
ment. The king of Judah, the prophets declared, “hath done wickedly
above all ... which were before him.” Because of this wickedness,
his kingdom was nearing a crisis; soon the inhabitants of the land
were to be carried captive to Babylon, there to become “a prey and a
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