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Royalty and Ruin
33:11
. This affliction brought the king to his senses. He “humbled
himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and ... He received his
entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem
into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.”
[138]
Verses 12, 13
. But this repentance came too late to save the kingdom
from the influence of years of idol worship.
Among those whose life had been shaped beyond recall was
Manasseh’s own son, who came to the throne at the age of twenty-
two. King Amon “walked in all the ways that his father had walked.”
“He forsook the Lord God of his fathers.”
2 Kings 21:21, 22
. The
wicked king was not permitted to reign long. Only two years from
the time he came to the throne, his own servants killed him in the
palace, and “the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his
place.”
2 Chronicles 33:25
.
Josiah Resolves to Be True to His Trust
When Josiah came to the throne, where he was to rule for thirty-
one years, the faithful people began to hope that they had seen the
end of the kingdom’s downward course. The new king, though only
eight years old, “did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and
walked in all the way of his father David; he did not turn aside to
the right hand or to the left.”
2 Kings 22:2
. Warned by the errors of
past generations, Josiah chose to do right. His obedience made it
possible for God to use him as a “vessel for honor.”
At the time Josiah began to rule, and for many years before,
the truehearted were questioning whether God’s promises to Israel
could ever be fulfilled. The apostasy of former centuries had grown
stronger; ten tribes had been scattered among the heathen; only
Judah and Benjamin remained, and they seemed now to be on the
verge of moral and national ruin. The prophets had begun to predict
the destruction of their beautiful city, where the temple built by
Solomon stood. Was God about to turn aside from His plan of
bringing deliverance to those who put their trust in Him? Could
those who had remained true to God hope for better days?
Habakkuk gave voice to such anxious questions: “O Lord, how
long shall I cry, and You will not hear? even cry out to You, ‘Vi-
olence!’ and You will not save. ... Plundering and violence are