In Second Kings, chapter twenty-one, verse nine, during his long reign of fifty-five years, Manasseh plunged Judah into its darkest era of idolatry. This wicked king had nothing but contempt for the God of his father, Hezekiah. He led God’s people into greater evil than the pagan nations that Joshua had destroyed. Why did God allow Manasseh to influence Judah to do such great wickedness? The answer: God does not consistently remove ungodly leaders from their position of influence.
He holds his people responsible for requiring their leaders to align with His Word. God expects them to reject as false any leader who is not faithful to the teaching of His Word. In this way, God tests His people’s loyalty to Him, to His revelation, and to His godly standards.
Partly because they were not content with those idols that the Canaanites worshipped but either invented or borrowed from other nations many new deities, and because as their light was far clear, their obligations to God infinitely higher, and their help against idolatry much stronger than the Canaanites had; so that their sins, though the same, were unspeakably worse in respect of these dreadful aggravations.
The people, and not Manasseh alone, were disobedient. Had they remained faithful, Manasseh’s sin would not have affected their future. And Manasseh seduced them. The influence of a young and gay king is in the East immense. When such a king succeeds one of strict and rind principles, he easily carries away the multitude and leads them to any excess of extravagance and irreligion. The beginnings of sin are delightful, and the votaries of pleasure readily beguiled into evil courses, know not where to stop.
The sin of Israel exceeded that of the Canaanitish nations, not so much in any outward and tangible features as committed against light, despite the Law, and against all the warnings and denunciations of the prophets.