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In these words we have -

I. THE LAST AND WORST SYMPTOM OF DEPARTURE FROM GOD - OBDURACY. "The Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his people: but they would not hearken" (ver. 10). Sin reaches its extremity when it deliberately and determinately closes its ear against the recognized voice of God. A defiant refusal to listen when God is speaking to us is surely the ne plus ultra of iniquity; guilt can go no further (see Proverbs 2:24 33).

II. THE DESCENT OF THE DIVINE PENALTY. When other means of instruction and of influence have been tried and failed, God visits in severe discipline. To Manasseh this came in defeat, humiliation (he was bound in fetters), and captivity; he had to leave the city of David and the land of his fathers, and become a show in the distant land of the enemy. To us the Divine discipline comes in various ways, of which the most common are bodily affliction, the vision of death, substantial loss, the estrangement of those who had been near and dear to us, some form of bitter humiliation, bereavement and consequent loneliness.

III. THE RISE OF TRUE PENITENCE IN THE HUMAN HEART. At length Manasseh had his eyes opened, and he saw his folly and his sin; at length he learnt that he had not only forsaken the good way of his father Hezekiah, but had grievously and guiltily departed from the living God. We can never tell what will humble the heart of a man; one is affected and subdued by one affliction, another by another. But at length the blow falls, and the edge of the sword enters in, and the heart bleeds, and it is wounded not unto death, but unto life.

1. Then comes recognition of the truth. Then God is recognized - his nearness, his claims, his displeasure, his fatherly purpose. Then guilt also is discerned - its greatness, its heinousness.

2. Then comes acknowledgment and appeal. The heart humbles itself before God, even as Manasseh now "humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers" (ver. 12); and the soul prays for mercy, asks that its guilt may be forgiven, and itself restored.

3. And then comes self-surrender; for if there be not a willingness, a readiness to yield ourselves unto God, an exhibition of penitence is only an affectation; it is unreal and untrue. If it is genuine, it must be accompanied by a pure desire and a firm resolve to return unto him whom we have guiltily forsaken.

IV. THE BESTOWAL OF DIVINE MERCY. Manasseh soon found how immeasurable had been his mistake in his great apostasy. For the God of his fathers proved to be a God full of compassion and of great mercy, and he heard the humbled suppliant and restored him, and brought him back to his kingdom. So God now hears and pardons and restores; he forgives us our sin, and he takes us back to his Divine favour, and he restores to us our peace, our hope, our joy, our life in him and with him. For there is one invariable and inseparable sequence, viz. -

V. NEWNESS OF LIFE ON THE PART OF THE FORGIVEN. Manasseh goes back to Jerusalem, takes away the strange gods and the altars he had built, and casts them out of the city; and he repairs the altar of the Lord, and re-establishes the worship of Jehovah (vers. 15, 16). We return unto God, and at the same time to all purity, to all temperance, to all uprightness, to all reverence both in spirit and in action, to all piety of thought and of behaviour. This is precious indeed, beyond all price, this restoration to God and to our true self; yet is there -

VI. ONE SERIOUS DRAWBACK. Manasseh could not altogether undo what he had done. "Nevertheless the people did sacrifice," etc. (ver. 17). He could not, by one enactment or by a number of them, bring back the situation he had so completely broken up. It takes a long time to restore a people to the habits they have forsaken. Nor could Manasseh recall to life the brave and faithful men whom he had "done to death" with his cruelties (2 Kings 21:16). There are some things which the most genuine repentance will not effect. It will not recall the wasted years; nor undo the malign and death-bearing influences which have been at work in human hearts and lives; nor compensate the wronged for the injuries they have suffered in body or in spirit. Therefore let all remember that, while repentance and restoration are blessed, a life of holy service from the beginning is far more blessed still. - C.

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KJV: And the LORD spake to Manasseh, and to his people: but they would not hearken.

WEB: Yahweh spoke to Manasseh, and to his people; but they gave no heed.