Manasseh

Manasseh (Hebrew Menashsheh, “making to forget”) is the name of two major biblical figures — the elder son of Joseph and a later king of Judah.

The first was the firstborn of Joseph by Asenath, born in Egypt before the famine; his name marked how God had made Joseph “forget all my hardship and all my father’s house” (Genesis 41:51). When the aged Jacob adopted and blessed Joseph’s two sons, he deliberately crossed his hands to set his right hand on the younger Ephraim, granting him the greater blessing over Manasseh the elder (Genesis 48:14; Genesis 48:19). The tribe descended from Manasseh was unusual in settling on both sides of the Jordan — the eastern half taking the rich pasturelands of Gilead and Bashan with Reuben and Gad, the western half in the hill country north of Ephraim (Joshua 17:5-6; Numbers 32:33). Among its notable members were Gideon and the daughters of Zelophehad, whose appeal secured inheritance rights for daughters (Numbers 27:1-7).

The second Manasseh was the son and successor of the godly Hezekiah, who reigned over Judah some fifty-five years (c. 697–642 BC) — the longest of any king, yet remembered as the most wicked. He undid his father’s reforms, rebuilt the high places, raised altars to Baal and the host of heaven even within the temple, practiced sorcery, sacrificed his own sons in the fire, and “shed very much innocent blood” (2 Kings 21:1-9; 2 Kings 21:16). His idolatry is named as the final cause for which the LORD determined to send Judah into exile (2 Kings 23:26-27).

Yet the Chronicler records a remarkable epilogue: the Assyrians took Manasseh captive with hooks to Babylon, where in his distress he humbled himself greatly and prayed, and God “was moved by his entreaty” and restored him to Jerusalem — after which he removed the idols and led the people back to the LORD (2 Chronicles 33:11-16). The book of Kings, focused on the consequences of his sins for the nation, records no such repentance, leaving a tension between the two portraits. Together they make Manasseh a sobering picture of how deeply a man may fall — and how far God’s mercy can reach to forgive even the chief of sinners who truly turns to him.