2 Kings 21:18

Manasseh—was buried—in the garden of Uzza— This garden, as some think, was made in that very spot of ground where Uzziah was struck dead for touching the ark of the Lord, 2 Samuel 6:7. But others imagine, that this was the place where Uzziah, who died a leper, was buried, 2 Chronicles 26:23 and that Manasseh chose to be buried here, as unworthy; the sense of his former miscarriages not suffering him to think himself deserving of a place among his ancestors. It has been remarked by some of the Jewish writers, that two years is the usual term to which the sons of those kings arrived who provoked God to anger by their abominations; as they instance in the present case, in the son of Jeroboam, 1 Kings 15:25., the son of Baasha, chap. 1 Kings 16:8., and the son of Ahab, chap. 1 Kings 22:51.

REFLECTIONS.—1st, We have here,

1. The charge brought against Manasseh. His vile idolatry, his infamous seduction of God's people; and, as the summit of his guilt, the blood of innocents which he shed, and even of God's prophets. This filled the measure of his iniquities to overflowing, and brought down the heavy wrath of a justly offended God. Note; (1.) The greatest kings must stand shortly as the meanest criminals at God's bar. (2.) The persecution of God's people is the crime which soonest fills the measure of a nation's sins.

2. The sentence pronounced upon him. A destruction so terrible, that the neighbour-nations should be astonished at the report. The same judgments should light on Jerusalem as Samaria, and the house of Manasseh be destroyed as the house of Ahab. The country should be thoroughly plundered, ransacked, and made desolate, spoiled of all, as a dish wiped clean, and turned upside down, and all the inhabitants removed into a strange land. Since they had forsaken God, he would forsake them, and, taking now their former sins, from the day they left Egypt, into the account, reckon with them from first to last. Note; (1.) When by our perfidious apostacy we turn from God, old guilt, which had otherwise been cancelled, is recalled, to witness against and condemn us. (2.) They who forsake God must expect to be forsaken by him. (3.) When God visits for sin in the great day, then shall indeed the ears of sinners tingle at the dreadful sentence denounced upon them.

3. Manasseh's death is recorded, and his burial. Probably, on his penitence, see 2 Chronicles 33 he judged himself unworthy to lie in the royal sepulchres, and therefore was buried in his own garden, leaving his crown to his son, the heir of his idolatry, as well as his kingdom.

2nd, 1. Amon's reign and life were short, and his end tragical. He returned to those idolatries, which, in his latter days, his penitent father had suppressed, and thus by his wickedness hastened his death. A conspiracy was formed; and, after a reign of but two years, he was slain in his own house. Note; (1.) The evil that we have occasioned to others, we can never repair. When we would wish to undeceive those whom we have seduced, to our grief we find every effort vain. (2.) It is a mercy to a nation, that the career of a wicked king is short.

2. The men of Judah revenged his death on the conspirators, and set up Josiah his son in his stead; who, being an infant, they probably designed to rob of the crown: and they buried Amon with his father, in the garden of Uzza, as unworthy of a tomb among his illustrious predecessors.