The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Kings — Section 383

upper hand, and secured the countenance of the king, it was sure to prevail, The earnest followers of Jehovah shrank down into a.n inconsiderable minority. II. Hrs EXCESSES IN IDOLATRY. The account given of Manasseh'e doings shows to what lengths he went in undoing the arrangements of his father. He seems, in fact, to have aimed at nothing less than a complete suppression of the worship of Jehovah, and the reorg_anization of the religious cult of the nation upon foreign models. 1. He rebuilt the high plMa. These Hezekiah had pulled down- point of attainment to conformi_ty with ~•s Law not reached by any previous king. Manasseh now reversed that action of his father, and rebuilt the shrines. The centralization of worship in Jerusalem may have been felt to be irksome; perhaps, too, the bad character of many of the priests added to its unpopularity. Manasseh may have claimed to be going back to old custom, with the end of making religion more free, popular, and joyous in its character. In this he had the mass of the people, and most of the official classes wit.h him, as "in England the bulk of the nation and of the clergy returned at once to Romanism, when restored by Mary, after the death of Edward VI." It is a sad thing to see a nation going back from any high point of attainment-Reformation or other-as, again, it is a sad thing to see one individual building again the things which he destroyed (Gal. ii. 18). 2. Eu wholesale importation of idolatries. (1) Foreign idolatries. Manasseh exceeded even Ahaz in the zeal with which he imported idolatries of every kind from foreign nations. Baal and Astarte worship, of course, was introduced after the pattern of Ahab, and the Asherah symbol again reared itself in public view in Jerusalem. The taste of Aha.z for new altars was more than surpassed under the auspices of his successor. There was imported also, in grander style than ever, the worship of the sun and moon and heavenly bodies-the white horses and cha.riots of the sun being now one of the institutions of the temple (eh. xxiii. 10, 11). "Rath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods?" asks a prophet (Jer. ii. 11); but Judah bad changed her God for senseless idols. A policy of this kind is bound to end in the dissolution of a nation. The deepest bond of nationality is religion, and when a people renounces its traditional faith, and becomes a mere receptacle for a chaos of foreign religious ideas, it is sure, ere long, to fall to pieces. The Roman Empire was in this condition before iui fall. (2) The worst idolatries. It was not merely foreign idolatries which Manasseh introduced, but the worst, the vilest, and the most cruel of these idolatries. In particular, licence was given to the practice of the worst and vilest rites of the Astarte-worship, and that close by the very house of the Lord ( eh. xxiii 6, 7); while the fearful worship of Moloch, with its human sacrifices, was revived, and the king himself gave sanction to it by devoting at least one of his sons to the fire. These were the abominations for which God had cast out the original inhabitants of the land, and now they were reintroduced in full force. (3) 'l'he attend- ant superstitions of idolatry. Idolatry here, as elsewhere, brought in its train a host of other baleful superstitions. Those who forsake God have ever been prone to fall a prey to the most childish delusions and impostures. The worship of ~he heavenly bodies brought with it the practice of astrology; the craving for communion with the unseen world led to necromancy, witchcraft, and enchantments; boasting a false freedom, the mind fell into an abject slavery to demonism (cf. the develop- ment of spiritualism in our own day). The movers in this new introduction of idolatry would no donbt claim the praise due to min<ls enlightened and emancipated from the narrow ideas in which the people of Judah hitherto had been boun~. 'l'hey were bringing in a new era of toleration, culture, breadth of view and sentiment, and the result was to be a great improvement in the state of the nation. In reality they ~ere loosening all religions and social bonds, and opening the floodgates to corruption. a. His desecration of the temple. The tale of Manasseh's iniquities is not yet ended. Not content with bringing new idolatries into vogue, Manasseh set to work system- atically to overthrow the worship of Jehovah, and put his foreign gods in the place di,voted to Jehovah's hmour. Neither Athaliah nor Ahaz had ventured to introduce idolatry int,J the temple, but Manasseh took this step beyond either of them. He set up his numerous altars in the house of the Lind. Specially he erected altars for the worship of the host of heaven in the two courts of the temple. Then, to cap all, he introduced into the very building itself an image of the Asherah he haJ made, replete u that was wit.h vile associations. Insult to Jehovah could go llO further. In that on. xxx. 1-26.J THE SECOND UOOK OF THE KINGS. 433