(26, 27) The historian naturally adds these remarks to prepare the way for what he has soon to relate--the final ruin of the kingdom; and probably also to suggest an explanation of what must have seemed to him and his contemporaries a very mysterious stroke of providence, the untimely end of the good king Josiah.

(26) The fierceness of his great wrath . . . kindled.--The great heat of his wrath, wherewith his wrath burnt.

Because of all the provocations that Manasseh . . .--Comp. the predictions of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 15:4; Jeremiah 25:2 seq.) and Zephaniah; and see the Note on 2Chronicles 34:33.

Verse 26. - Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath. It was too late, not for God to forgive upon repentance, but for the nation to repent sincerely and heartily. Sin had become engrained in the national character. Vain were the warnings of Jeremiah, vain were his exhortations to repentance (Jeremiah 3:12-14, 22; Jeremiah 4:1-8; Jeremiah 7:3-7, etc.), vain his promises that, if they would turn to God, they would be forgiven and spared. Thirty years of irreligion and idolatry under Manasseh had sapped the national vigor, and made true repentance an impossibility. How weak and half-hearted must have been the return to God towards the close of Manasseh's reign, that it should have had no strength to resist Amon, a youth of twenty-two, but should have disappeared wholly on his accession! And how far from sincere must have been the present conformity to the wishes of Josiah, the professed renewal of the covenant (ver. 3), and revival of disused ceremonies (vers. 21-23)! Jeremiah searched in vain through the streets of Jerusalem to find a man that executed judgment, or sought the truth (Jeremiah 5:1). The people had "a revolting and rebellious heart; they were revolted and gone" (Jeremiah 5:23). Not only idolatry, but profligacy (Jeremiah 5:1) and injustice and oppression everywhere prevailed (Jeremiah 5:25-28). "From the least to the greatest of them, every one was given to covetousness" (Jeremiah 6:13); even the prophets and the priests "dealt falsely" (Jeremiah 6:13), The state of things was one which necessarily brought down the Divine judgment, and all that Josiah's efforts could do was a little to delay it. Wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal. Manasseh's provocations lived in their consequences. God's judgment upon Israel was not mere vengeance for the sins that Manasseh had committed, or even for the multitudinous iniquities into which he had led the nation (2 Kings 21:9). It was punishment rendered necessary by the actual condition of the nation - the condition whereto it had been reduced by Manasseh's evil doings.

23:25-30 Upon reading these verses, we must say, Lord, though thy righteousness be as the great mountains, evident, plainly to be seen, and past dispute; yet thy judgments are a great deep, unfathomable, and past finding out. The reforming king is cut off in the midst of his usefulness, in mercy to him, that he might not see the evil coming upon his kingdom: but in wrath to his people, for his death was an inlet to their desolations.Notwithstanding, the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah,.... Notwithstanding the great reformation wrought among them; for though Josiah was a sincere reformer, and did what he did heartily, as to the Lord, according to his will, and for his glory; yet the people were not sincere in their compliance, they turned to the Lord not with their whole heart, but feignedly, Jeremiah 3:10.

because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal; by shedding innocent blood and committing idolatry, which the people consented to and approved of, and even now privately committed idolatry, as the prophecies of Jeremiah and Zephaniah show; and it may easily be concluded that their hearts were after their idols, by their openly returning to them in the days of the sons of Josiah.