the face (as the part that turns) · noun, common masculine plural construct
God
אֱלֹהֵ֥י'e.lo.Hei
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct
fathers
אֲבֹתָֽיו'a.vo.Tav
H1
father · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Exodus 10:3 And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thy…
2 Chronicles 32:26 Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the LORD…
Psalms 50:15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
Luke 18:14-15 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he tha…
Deuteronomy 4:30-31 When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the LORD thy God, and shalt…
Hosea 5:15 I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.
Acts 9:11 And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, o…
James 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 2 Chronicles 33:11-20
We have seen Manasseh by his wickedness undoing the good that his father had done; here we have him by repentance undoing the evil that he himself had done. It is strange that this was not so much as mentioned in the book of Kings, nor does any thing appear there to the contrary but that he persisted and perished in his son. But perhaps the reason was because the design of that history was to show the wickedness of the nation which brought destruction upon them; and this repentance of Manasseh and the benefit of it, being personal only and not national, is overlooked there; yet here it is fully related, and a memorable instance it is of the riches of God's pardoning mercy and the power of hi…
when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God--In the solitude of exile or imprisonment, Manasseh had leisure for reflection. The calamities forced upon him a review of his past life, under a conviction that the miseries of his dethronement and captive condition were owing to his awful and unprecedented apostasy (Ch2 33:7) from the God of his fathers. He humbled himself, repented, and prayed for an opportunity of bringing forth the fruits of repentance. His prayer was heard; for his conqueror not only released him, but, after two years' exile, restored him, with honor and the full exercise of royal power, to a tributary and dependent kingdom. Some political motive, doubtless, promp…
And when he was in affliction - Here is a very large addition in the Chaldee: "For the Chaldeans made a brazen mule, pierced full of small holes, and put him within it, and kindled fires all around it; and when he was in this misery, he sought help of all the idols which he had made, but obtained none, for their were of no use. He therefore repented, and prayed before the Lord his God, and was greatly humbled in the sight of the Lord God of his fathers."
John Gill
The Church Fathers
I know of a fifth baptism also, which is that of tears and takes much more work. It is received by one who washes his bed every night and his couch with tears; whose bruises sting through his wickedness; and who goes about mourning and is of a sad disposition. It is received by one who imitates the repentance of Manasseh and the humiliation of the Ninevites upon whom God had mercy; who utters the words of the Publican in the Temple, and is justified rather than the stiff-necked Pharisee; who like the Canaanite woman bends down and asks for mercy and crumbs, the food of a dog that is very hungry.
Manasses, having exceeded all in fury and tyranny, and having subverted the legal form of worship, and shut up the temple, and caused the deceit of idolatry to flourish, and having become more ungodly than all who were before him, when he afterwards repented, was ranked amongst the friends of God. Now if, looking to the magnitude of his own iniquities, he had despaired of restoration and repentance, he would have missed all which he afterwards obtained: but as it was, looking to the boundlessness of God's tender mercy instead of the enormity of his transgressions, and having broken in sunder the bonds of the devil, he rose up and contended with him, and finished the good course.
O happy penitence which has drawn down upon itself the eyes of God, and which has by confessing its error changed the sentence of God's anger! The same conduct is in the Chronicles attributed to Manasseh, and in the book of the prophet Jonah to Nineveh, and in the gospel to the publican. The first of these not only was allowed to obtain forgiveness but also recovered his kingdom, the second broke the force of God's impending wrath, while the third, striking his breast with his hands, "would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven." Yet for all that the publican with his humble confession of his faults went back justified far more than the Pharisee with his arrogant boasting of his virtues.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Manasseh — Who makes to forget. “God hath made me forget” (Heb. nashshani), Gen. 41:51. (1.) The elder of the two sons of Joseph. He and his brother Ephraim were afterwards adopted by Jacob as his own sons…
Afflictions Made Beneficial · Exemplified: Manasseh — Exemplified: Manasseh
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
on 2 Chronicles 33:12
And when he was in affliction,.... In prison; however, in fetters; according to the Targum, the Chaldeans made an instrument of brass with holes in it, and put him in it, and fire about it, something like the brasen bull of Perillus; and the above Arabian writer (k) calls it a tower of brass:
he besought the Lord his God; by prayer and supplication:
and humbled himself greatly before the Lord God of his fathers; confessing his sins, expressing great sorrow and repentance for them.
(k) Abulph. & Suidas, ib. (Hist. Dynast. Dyn. 3. p. 67.)
Keil & Delitzsch on 2 Chronicles 33:12-13
לו וּכהצר = לו הצר וּבעת, Ch2 28:22. In this his affliction he bowed himself before the Lord God of his fathers, and besought Him; and the Lord was entreated of him, and brought him again to Jerusalem, into his kingdom. The prayer which Manasseh prayed in his need was contained, according to Ch2 33:18., in the histories of the kings of Israel, and in the sayings of the prophet Hozai, but has not come down to our day. The "prayer of Manasseh" given by the lxx is an apocryphal production, composed in Greek; cf. my Introduction to the Old Testament, 247.
Tyndale Open Study Notes on 2 Chronicles 33:12-17
The book of Kings does not mention Manasseh’s repentance, telling only of the promise of judgment resulting from his wicked deeds (see 2 Kgs 21:10-16). Chronicles tells the good things he did after he repented, following his father Hezekiah’s example. However, Manasseh’s actions were unable to turn the hearts of the people back to the Lord or to avert God’s judgment on Judah (2 Chr 33:17).
33:12 Manasseh’s response followed the requirements of Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple (7:14).
Rashi on 2 Chronicles 33:8
And I will not continue to remove Israel’s feet This refers back to the above verse, and all is a complaint; i.e., the Holy One, blessed be He, said, “So I said to David and to Solomon, ‘In this House I will place My name forever,’ and I also promised him, ‘And I will not continue to remove Israel’s feet from the land, if they will but observe, etc.’” But now And Manasseh led astray, etc. Because of him the Shechinah departed, and we are also still in exile because of him.
