Fifty-seven years of almost complete apostasy separated the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah. During that period, Judah sank to the very depths of moral and spiritual degradation. It is true that Manasseh experienced something of a change of heart and mind as a result of his defeat and capture by the Assyrians, but the evil was not stayed. The canker of his ruinous example had eaten deeply into the character of his subjects and could not be eliminated by his half-hearted attempts at reformation.
It is only fair to him to suggest that, in one respect, his father set him a weak example. For purely political reasons, and with an obvious desire to make an impression, King Hezekiah made open boast to foreign ambassadors of the national wealth stored in the Temple. Under the rule of Manasseh, and the influence of those who guided the acts of his tender years, this courting of powerful neighbours developed into a passion for emulation. From being a personal act of doubtful political value, it became a national habit and perverted their religious and moral sense. Thus it is written, Judah did “like unto the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel.”1 The enumeration of these violations of divine law in the Book of Chronicles makes sorry reading. It depicts a nation possessed of unique divine associations — yet apostate, a nation which had shared in a divinely guided history and which had been made, with Israel, custodians of “the oracles of God.”2 Their ultimate and most infamous act was to violate flagrantly the sanctity of God’s House by the erection of altars and images of heathen deities within its precincts. Added to this were the fire-offering of their children to Moloch, and the worship of the Queen of Heaven.3
Then came Manasseh’s first contact with retributive reality and his abortive assumption of humility. He did remove some of the evil things which desecrated the House of God, but the state of Judah’s mind was almost beyond complete cleansing, for “the people did still sacrifice in the high places, yet (with audacious mendacity) unto the Lord, their God only.”4 This fitful gleam in the darkness soon expired. Amon, whose name is identical in form and sound with that of the sun-god of Egypt, ascended the throne and again led a willing Judah into disobedient ways. He transgressed more and more until his brief reign ended with the whisper of conspiracy and the shedding of his blood. How similar to decadent Rome of later date when domestic strifes and envyings soiled the imperial purple and stained it with its wearers’ blood! Then came the youthful Josiah who, in strange yet welcome contrast, “walked in the ways of his father David.”5 By the time he was sixteen, his programme of reform had been inaugurated, and when he reached his twentieth year, it decreed the wholesale destruction of idols and the forfeiture of life of their worshippers. Such was the vigour of his campaign that regions outside his jurisdiction submitted to the “purge.”6
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Author: T. Sutton
Keywords: Zephaniah, Prophet Zephaniah, minor prophets
Bible reference(s): Zephaniah 1
Source: “Zephaniah,” The Testimony, Vol. 7, No. 73, January 1937, pp. 14-8.
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