Day 133. 2 Chronicles 33-34

Often the reigns of the Judean kings in Chronicles begin well and end badly; the reign of Manasseh begins badly and ends well—or least better than it begins. He comes to the throne young, at twelve years of age, and sets about undoing his father Hezekiah's reforms, replacing the sacred poles and erecting altars to the Baals (33:3). He even goes so far as to establish altars to the astral deities whose worship is directly forbidden in Deuteronomy 4:19—and right in the courts of the temple to boot (33:5). We are told that he encouraged the practice of child sacrifice by his own example, making his "son pass through the fire" (33:6). All in all, Manasseh leads Israel to the edge of destruction (33:9), doing even more evil than those nations the Israelites had driven out in order to possess the land.
Then something remarkable happens. Manasseh is captured by an Assyrian military expedition and taken to Babylon "in manacles" (33:11). There a prisoner and "in distress," he entreats the LORD for help and humbles himself "before the God of his ancestors" (33:12). Suffering changes him, as is often the case, and his personal Babylonian captivity becomes the occasion for a conversion experience, of sorts. He prays fervently, and the LORD hears his plea and restores "again to Jerusalem and his kingdom"—we are not told how (33:13). In any case, Manasseh now knows that the LORD is indeed God and sets about mending his evil ways.
He embarks on a program of rebuilding the spiritual as well as the material defenses of the nation. At same time that he is strengthening the fortifications of Jerusalem (33:14), we are told that Manasseh also removes the pagan altars from the temple, and throws them out of the city (33:15). He restores the altar of the LORD and offers the prescribed sacrifices on it. His reforms are not as thoroughgoing as his father's; the people go on sacrificing "at the high places" though "only to the LORD their God" (33:17) and not to idols. In spite of the best efforts of the kings, Israelite worship remains decentralized throughout its per-exilic history.
At Manasseh's death, he is succeeded by his son Amon, who does evil in the sight of the LORD and goes on "incurring more and more guilt" throughout his short reign. After only two years on throne he is assassinated by his own servants "and killed in his own house" (33:24). His death is avenged by "the people of the land" but no mention is made of his burial, a sigh of the profound disapproval the chronicler has for him.
Amon is succeeded by his son Josiah, who comes to throne when he is only eight years old, but still even as a boy begins "to seek the God of his ancestor David" (34:3). By the age of twelve he is ready order a purge of the pagan practices that had crept back into the land (34:3), and his reforms extend beyond Judah into the territory of Israel (34:6). One of the great themes of the chronicler is the unity of Israel, and this descendent of David at least symbolically reunites the whole kingdom that David had once ruled under the spiritual authority of Jerusalem.
Josiah receives encouragement in his reforms from a remarkable direction. In the course of repairing the temple, the priest Hilkiah finds a "book of the law of the LORD given through Moses" (34:6). Perhaps this is a portion of the Book of Deuteronomy, or from the way the chronicler talks about it may even be portions of the whole Pentateuch—the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures—Genesis through Deuteronomy. Whatever part of the Law of Moses it is, its reading has a profound effect upon the young king. He tears his clothes when he realizes how far Israel and Judah have gone astray from their covenant obligations, and by what a slender thread their fate now hangs (34:21). He sends for the advice of a female prophet named Huldah, who gives him a message from the LORD. Jerusalem will be destroyed for its sins as Samaria had been. But because King Josiah has humbled himself, he will be gathered to his ancestors and go to his grave "in
peace," before any of this happens (34:28).
It isn't altogether good news. Nevertheless, King Josiah presides over a covenant renewal ceremony in which he stands before God with the whole people and promises to "follow the LORD" and to "keep his commandments his decrees, and his statutes, with all of his heart and all of his soul," and "to perform the words of the covenant that" are written in the book of the Law (34:31). According to the chronicler, Josiah and the people do their best to fulfill that covenant. Under his rule, "the inhabitants of Jerusalem [act] according the covenant of God, the God of their ancestors" (34:32). As a true son of David and Solomon, Josiah extends his reforms to the whole territory of Israel, and makes the people there "worship the LORD their God" (34:33). Whether or not they are disposed to obey, they do, and at least for the lifetime of Josiah they did not turn away from the LORD.