(22) For Amon sacrificed.--Literally, and to all the carven images which Manasseh his father had made did Amon sacrifice. (Comp. 2Kings 21:21, "and he walked in all the way wherein his father had walked, and served the idols which his father had served, and worshipped them." Idols in the above passage is gillulim, "dunglings," a term nowhere used by the chronicler.) The statement of our text seems to imply that the "carven images" made by Manasseh had not been destroyed, but only cast aside. (See Note on 2Chronicles 33:15.) It argues a defect of judgment to say with Reuss that the reforms of Manasseh are rendered doubtful by it. The whole history is a succession of reforms followed by relapses; and the words of the sacred writer need not be supposed to mean that the images which Amon worshipped were the very ones which his penitent father had discarded, but only images of the same imaginary gods.33:21-25 Amon's father did ill, but he did worse. Whatever warnings or convictions he had, he never humbled himself. He was soon cut off in his sins, and made a warning for all men not to abuse the example of God's patience and mercy to Manasseh, as an encouragement to continue in sin. May God help us to be honest to ourselves, and to think aright respecting our own character, before death fixes us in an unchangeable state.So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house,.... That is, in the garden of his house; see Gill on 2 Kings 21:18; there; to which may be added, that the Jews (s) in later times buried in a garden; though it was the custom of the ancients, both Greeks (t) and Romans (u), to bury the dead in their own houses; hence sprung the worship of the Lares and Penates, the household gods: from hence to the end of the chapter is the same with 2 Kings 21:18. (s) Cippi Heb. p. 43. (t) Plato in Minoe. (u) Servius in Virgil. Aeneid. 5. "praeterea si nova", & in l. 6. "sedibus hunc refer", &c. |