03/24/2021 – Day 311 – 2 Chronicles 33 – 36 – Ending with the fall of Jerusalem and The Proclamation of Cyrus.
33:17 notes: “that the people still sacrificed on the high places, but only to the Lord their God.” We’ve seen reference to “high places” but let’s look at it through this explanation from “Never Thirsty” :
https://www.neverthirsty.org/bible-qa/qa-archives/question/what-were-the-high-places/
At the beginning of 2 Chronicles in 1:3 , Solomon called all the assembly to go up the high place at Gideon to God’s tent of meeting constructed by Moses. After the tabernacle was completed in Jerusalem, God did not authorize any other locations for sacrifices. So 33:17 notes it wasn’t authorized , but at least it was to the one true God.
I wondered with Manasseh making such a full repentance at the 11th hour, why did it still say in the introduction in verse 2 that “he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.” Well , I thank Matthew Henry and his commentary for the answer here in verses 21 -25:
“Concerning Amon, I. 1. His great wickedness. He did as Manasseh had done in the days of his apostasy, v 22. Mannasseh, when he cast out the images, did not utterly deface and destroy them, according to the law which required Isreael to burn the images with fire, Deuternonomy 7:5. How necessary that law was this instance shows; for the carved images being lonly thrown by, and not burnt, Amon knew where to find them, soon set them up, and sacrificed to the. It is added that more and more, v. 23. He humbled himself before the Lord, as his father had humbled himself.”
To state the obvious, God’s mercy here was unfathomable. Prior to him imploring the Lord in the midst of his affliction, the chapter notes that 1) he too had caused his sons to pass through the fire in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom…, and 2) in verse 9: ‘So Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.’ That is a new level of horrific!
And then in Chapter 35, we are told of the amazing revival spearheaded the boy King Josiah, largely through the good servant high priest Hilkiah, and other godly rulers of the house of God. At the end, we were told in verse 25 that Jeremiah also lamented for Josiah. Indeed, everything was downhill for there until the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Babylonians.
It wasn’t long in years after the Babylonian captivity, that the Persians conquered the Babylonians in turn. And lo and behond, Cyrus, the king of Persia becomes the messenger for God issuing the proclamation to give the Jewish people free passage back to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple. This is the trigger event that puts Daniel’s Seventy weeks Prophecy into motion as Gabriel pronounced to Daniel. And it will take us to our Ezra and Nehemiah book studies for five weeks starting a week from today.
Soli Deo Gloria!