MANASSES (Μανασσή B, -ῆς A).—1. 1 Es 9%= MANASSEH, No. 4 2. Judith’s husband, Jth 8%. 3. An unknown person mentioned in the dying words of Tobit as one who ‘gave alms and escaped the snare of death’ set for him by Aman (To 14", AV and RV, following LXX B Μανασσῆς). The text of &, ἐν τῷ ποιῆσαί με (sic) ἐλεημοσύνην ἐξῆλθεν, κιτιὰλ., Where the subject understood is Achia- charus, maintains the parallelism with the preced- ing clause, from which it repeats also the name Ναδάβ instead of ᾿Αμάν of A, or Addu of B (cf. 11°, where B reads Νασβᾶς, ἐξ Ναβάδ, as the name of the ungrateful nephew of Achiacharus). Cosquin i1 Rev. Biblique, Jan. 1899, p. 52f., argues strenu ously in favour of the reading of &§ in To 14 holding that Μανασσῆς is due simply to a scriba error. See, further, NASBAS, Tobit. 4,=MAN- ASSEH king of Judah in title of apocr. book. See following article. J. A. SELBIE.
MANASSES (PRAYER OF).—In place of the remote threats against Manasseh in 2 K 211-5 we have in 2 Ch 33! an account of his just punish- ment for his sins by captivity, his repentance and restoration ; and in vv.'% 15. the statement that other details of his life and his prayer were re- corded in the Acts of the Kings of Israel, and in the History of Hozai (or the Seers). Does the Greek Prayer of Manasses of our Apocrypha go back to this Prayer in the lost sources (or source) of Ch as its Hebrew original; or is it a free Greek com- position suggested by Ch? Budde, after Ewald, argues for the former view (ZA W, 1892, p. 39 f.), and Ball (in Speaker's Com.) thinks it probable. Fritzsche (Exeg. Handb. zu αἰ. Apok. i. 157) favoured the latter view, on the ground that the Greek is not a translation (so Schiirer).
The Prayer stands among the Canticles appended to the Psalter in some MSS of LXX. Swete (iii. 802 ff., cf. ii. pp. ix, xi) prints A with variants of T (Psalterium Turicense). It is never found in LXX of 2 Ch, and is often eg in Greek Psalters which include the Canticles. It is found in the Apost. Const. ii. 22. Nestle (Septuaginta Studien, iil. 1899) argues that the text of our MSS A and T comes from the Apost. Const. or from its original, the Didascalia, and that the Prayer is not, as hitherto supposed, cited in these works from a MS of LXX. It appearsin the Const. in connexion with the entire story of Manasseh as ‘ written in 4 K
* So Ewald, Wellh., Stade, and Budde, as cited above; Moore, Judges, pp. 150f., 274f.; Kittel, Gesch. ii. 69 (Eng. tr. ii. 76 f.) | see also art. HAVVOTH-JAIR.
MANASSES (PRAYER OF)
and 2Ch.’* We read that Manasseh was bound with iron in prison, that bread made of bran and water mixed with vinegar were given him in scant measure, and that in such straits he humbled himself before God and prayed. After the Prayer the narrative proceeds: ‘And the Lord heard his voice and had compassion upon him. And there came a flame of fire about him, and all the irons which were about him were melted: and the Lord healed Manasseh from his affliction,’ etc. Julius Africanus knew that ‘while M. was sayi 4 a hymn his bonds burst asunder, iron at ey were, and he escaped’ (John Damasc. Parall. iu. 15). He may therefore have read the Prayer in this setting.+ If it was written in this connexion, its author showed more liturgical sense than his- torical imagination ; for the allusions to Man- asseh’s situation are hardly more explicit than might be found, for example, in Ps 107-18,
ewish traditions show no knowledge of our Prayer, though they add details to the story of Ch. Manasseh was put into an iron mule, be- neath which a fire was kindled. He prayed to the idols which he had served, and at last to the God of his fathers. ‘Lord of the universe, wilt thou allow the man who has served idolatry and put an idol in the court of the temple to repent?’ God answered, ‘If I do not receive his repentance that will shut the door to all penitents’ (Jerus. Sanhed. x. 2. See also Midr. rab. Dt 2 and Midr. rab. Ru 24; ef. Midr. rab. Lv 30). The story of Manasseh’s conversion was rather a problem than a comfort to the Rabbis, and the Mishna (Sanhed. x. 2) decides that he was restored only to his king- dom, not to his part in the world to come (but cf. Gemara). So in Apoe. Bar θ΄, where the tradition is already known that ‘he was cast into the brazen horse, and the horse was heated’; though ‘his prayer was heard,’ yet the fire from which God then delivered him was only a sign of the fire with which the same God would afterwards torment him.
Does our Prayer itself contain any evidence which indicates a Hebrew or a Greek original, an early or a late date?
The petitioner calls on the Lord almighty, heavenly (cf. 3 Mac 6%), ‘the God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of their righteous seed,’ who created heaven and earth and bound and sealed the ocean (cf. Job 38°" οί), whose glory all things fear, and whose anger is toward sinners (vv.'®); who is yet a God of compassion and repents of evils (=J1 2%», Jon 4%), [In his goodness he has appointed to sinners repentance unto salvation (Swete (AZ) omits)]. ut ‘the God of the righteous has not spore repent- ance to the righteous, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who have not sinned,’ but ‘to me the sinner’ (vv.*§). He confesses his sins, for which he is bowed down by many an iron band (cf. Ps 107"), especially his setting up abominations and multi-