2 Kings 21

2 Kings 21 is the twenty-first chapter of the second part of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the Second Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a Deuteronomic compiler in the seventh century BCE, with a supplement added in the sixth century BCE. This chapter records the events during the reign of Manasseh and Amon, the kings of Judah.

Text

This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language. It is divided into 26 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis, Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis.
There is also a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint, made in the last few centuries BCE. Extant ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint version include Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus.

Old Testament references

Analysis

A parallel pattern of sequence is observed in the final sections of 2 Kings between 2 Kings 11–20 and 2 Kings 21–25, as follows:

Manasseh king of Judah (21:1–18)

The passage recording the reign of Manasseh consists of the 'introductory regnal form', the body/regnal account and the 'concluding regnal form'. Manasseh's 55-year reign is the longest of all the kings of Judah, but in the Books of Kings he is considered the worst king of the southern kingdom. Manasseh behaved like Ahab, the king of Israel in Samaria:

Introducing the worship of Baal and Asherah to Jerusalem.
Shedding innocent blood
Strongly opposed by prophets.

Later, his grandson, king Josiah, must abolish all the deities reintroduced by Manasseh.
Manasseh was Assyria's vassal, that Assyrian sources mention as 'a bringer of tribute and as a military follower', without the slightest indication of resistance. This might be the reason for the length of his reign.

Verse 1

Cross reference: 2 Chronicles 33:1
"Reigned fifty-five years": in Thiele's chronology, Manasseh became coregent in September 697 BCE and became the sole king between September 687 and September 686 BCE until he died between September 643 and September 642 BCE.

Two seals appeared on the antiquities market in Jerusalem, both bearing the inscription, "Belonging to Manasseh, son of the king." As the term "son of the king" refers to royal princes, whether they eventually ascended the throne or not, the seal is considered to be Manasseh's during his co-regency with his father. It bears the same iconography of the Egyptian winged scarab as the seals attributed to King Hezekiah, recalling the alliance between Hezekiah and Egypt against the Assyrians, and may symbolize 'a desire to permanently unite the northern and southern kingdoms together with God's divine blessing'.
Jar handles bearing a stamp with a winged-beetle and the phrase LMLK ("to the king"), along with the name of a city, have been unearthed throughout ancient Judah as well as in a large administrative complex discovered outside of the Old [City of Jerusalem|old city of Jerusalem] and used to hold olive oil, food, wine, etc. – goods that were paid as taxes to the king, dated to the reigns of Hezekiah and Manasseh. These artifacts provide the evidence of 'a complex and highly organized tax system in Judah' from the time of Hezekiah extending into the time of Manasseh, among others to pay the tribute to the Assyrians.

Amon, king of Judah (21:19–26)

Amon, Manasseh's son and successor, is recorded to have 'walked in the way
which his father walked', but, unlike his father, he had a short period of reign. Then, 'the people of the land'—the same political group
who brought down the 'evil' queen Athaliah, enabling the 'good' king Joash to seize the throne —intervene to 'punish the king's murderers' and place Josiah, Amon's son, on the throne.

Verse 19

Cross reference: 2 Chronicles 33:21
"Reigned two years": in Thiele's chronology, Amon became king between September 643 and September 642 BCE and died between September 641 and September 640 BCE.

Archaeology

Manasseh and the kingdom of Judah are only mentioned in the list of subservient kings/states in Assyrian inscriptions of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. Manasseh is mentioned in the Esarhaddon Prism, discovered by archaeologist Reginald Campbell Thompson during the 1927–28 excavation season at the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh. The 493 lines of cuneiform inscribed on the sides of the prism describe the history of King Esarhaddon's reign and an account of the reconstruction of the Assyrian palace in Babylon, which reads "Together 22 kings of Hatti , the seashore and the islands. All these I sent out and made them transport under terrible difficulties"; one of these 22 kings was King Manasseh of Judah.
A record by Esarhaddon's son and successor, Ashurbanipal, mentions "Manasseh, king of Judah" who contributed to the invasion force against Egypt. This was recorded on the "Rassam cylinder", named after Hormuzd Rassam, who discovered it in the North Palace of Nineveh in 1854. The ten-faced, cuneiform cylinder contains a record of Ashurbanipal's campaigns against Egypt and the Levant, that involved 22 kings "from the seashore, the islands and the mainland", who are called "servants who belong to me", clearly denoting them as Assyrian vassals. Manasseh was one of the kings who 'brought tribute to Ashurbanipal and kissed his feet'.
In rabbinic literature on "Isaiah" and Christian pseudepigrapha "Ascension of Isaiah", Manasseh is accused of executing the prophet Isaiah, who was identified as the maternal grandfather of Manasseh.
Manasseh is mentioned in chapter 21 of 1 Meqabyan, a book considered canonical in the Ethiopian [Orthodox Tewahedo Church], where he is used as an example of ungodly king.