(25) Slew.--Smote. The verse is identical with 2Kings 21:24, save that it has "smote" plural instead of singular, which latter is more correct. It may be that the facts thus briefly recorded represent a fierce conflict between the party of religious reform and that of religious reaction, in which the latter was for the time worsted and reduced to a state of suspended activity.

The chronicler has omitted the remarks usual at the end of a reign. See 2Kings 21:25-26 for a reference to sources, and Anion's burial place ("the garden of Uzza").

Verse 25. - The people of the land. The emphatic expression here used (as also in the parallel), with its repetition in same verse malting it more so, may either betray the unfortunate sympathy that the worse element of the nation felt with the bad king and his evil ways, or it may mean that the healthier element of the people insisted on the right respect being observed to the proper succession. The conduct of Josiah from very tender years, which could not have been entirely his own, but must be credited in part to those who taught and influenced him, throws the balance of probability, perhaps, into this latter and more charitable view. The parallel contains two closing verses (25, 26) additional to what we have, giving the authority as the "book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah," and stating that Amen also "was buried in his sepulchre, in the garden of Uzza."

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.