3. The lineage from which Christ came seems to suggest this: God
they had been broken down, ver. 3, and dashed in pieces the reformation his father had accomplished.
(4.) Affronting God to his very face. He sets up his idols, as it were, to taunt God, and built altars in the house of the Lord and in the two courts of his temple, where God had said he would have his name there forever, ver. 4, 5, 7. He brought in all the stars of heaven to share in that worship that was only due to the God of heaven. What!
Could he find no other place for his idols but in the very temple of God? Must God be ousted from his house to make room for Baal?
(6.) Pact with the devil. He used sorcery and witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, verse 6. Moreover, he had acquaintance with more than one devil, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards, in the plural number.
(7.) Others' sins. He not only led the people by his example but also compelled them through his commands. "So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err and to do worse than the heathen God had rooted out," 2 Chronicles 33:9, to make room for them. By doing so, he incurred the guilt of the entire nation on himself.
(8.) Refusal to heed warnings: "God spoke to him and his people, but they would not listen or change their ways," 2 Kings 21:10.
(9.) Perseverance in wrongdoing. He became king at a young age of twelve years, verse 1. It is uncertain how long he persisted in this sin.
Torniellus thinks fifteen years; Bellarmine, twenty-seven; Kimchi, fifty years, counting only five years of his life after his restoration.
What a multitude of sins, and what aggravations of them, were there in this man! Yet, God was entreated, verse 19.
3. The lineage from which Christ came seems to suggest this: God could have kept the ancestry from which Christ descended pure and untainted by any notorious sins, but we find that even among them, there were sins of a serious nature. The women mentioned in Christ's