Manasseh was only twelve years of age when his godly father died; how soon he began on the evil course which characterized his reign, does not appear, but we may at least take note of this, that the fear of God is not born in the human heart at the natural birth. Each of us must for himself be reconciled to God.
If Manasseh's mother's name — the translation of it is "My delight is in her," —was at all true of her life as God saw it, Manasseh's case is the more sad. Many a boy, growing up to manhood, has brought grief and dishonor upon his Christian parents, heedless of their warnings and their example, only to reap the fruit of his evil doings.
God was recording the ways of Manasseh (verses 2, 6, 10-15); nothing escapes that All seeing Eye. The idolatry of the heathen; altars for Baal; worshiping the host of heaven in the place for the worship of God—Solomon's temple; dealing with demons, in what in our day, has been labeled by its followers "spiritualism"—these and other things showed a heart openly in league with the enemy of God. Would God allow it to go on always? No doubt there were hearts in Judah that mourned over the king's course, and saw how his "liberal views" were influencing the people. But the end of Judah as a nation was fast approaching; not much longer was the land to be occupied by the sons of Jacob.
From 2 Chronicles 33:10-1910And the Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his people: but they would not hearken. 11Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. 12And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, 13And prayed unto him: and he was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God. 14Now after this he built a wall without the city of David, on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, even to the entering in at the fish gate, and compassed about Ophel, and raised it up a very great height, and put captains of war in all the fenced cities of Judah. 15And he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city. 16And he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed thereon peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel. 17Nevertheless the people did sacrifice still in the high places, yet unto the Lord their God only. 18Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer unto his God, and the words of the seers that spake to him in the name of the Lord God of Israel, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel. 19His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him, and all his sin, and his trespass, and the places wherein he built high places, and set up groves and graven images, before he was humbled: behold, they are written among the sayings of the seers. (2 Chronicles 33:10‑19) we learn that Manasseh was at length humbled, and it was then, as a prisoner of the king of Assyria at Babylon, that he learned something of God. His history as a whole was very bad, but if toward its close he was brought to seek God as a poor lost sinner, how thankful we may be.
This is not the experience of all, yet many a praying father and mother may take courage in regard to a wayward son or daughter, from the case of Manasseh. Christian parents take your sorrows to God; doubtless, Hezekiah, and we may hope Hephzibah too, prayed much about their boy, and the day came to answer their prayer.
Amon, Manasseh's son, was just entering manhood when he became king on his father's death. He followed his father's long established course of sin, and was cut short soon in death, his servants killing him in two years. The people of the land dealt with the murderers, and afterward— evidently a few years later, for Amon's son was eight years of age at the time he was crowned, made Josiah, son of Amon, king.