Matthew Henry on 2 Kings 21:1-9
How delightful were our meditations on the last reign! How many pleasing views had we of Sion in its glory (that is, in its purity and in its triumphs), of the king in his beauty! (for Isa 33:17 refers to Hezekiah), and (as it follows there, Kg2 21:20) Jerusalem was a quiet habitation because a city of righteousness, Isa 1:26. But now we have melancholy work upon our hands, unpleasant ground to travel, and cannot but drive heavily. How has the gold become dim and the most fine gold changed! The beauty of Jerusalem is stained, and all her glory, all her joy, sunk and gone. These verses give such an account of this reign as make it, in all respects, the reverse of the last, and, in a manner, t…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 2 Kings 21:8
Neither will I make the feet of Israel move . . . out of the land which I gave their fathers--alluding to the promise (Sa2 7:10).
only if they will observe, &c.--This condition was expressed from the first plantation of Israel in Canaan. But that people not only did not keep it, but through the pernicious influence of Manasseh, were seduced into greater excesses of idolatrous corruption than even the original Canaanites.
Adam Clarke on 2 Kings 21:9
Seduced them to do more evil - He did all he could to pervert the national character, and totally destroy the worship of the true God; and he succeeded.
John Gill on 2 Kings 21:9
But they hearkened not,.... To the voice of God in his law by Moses, and were not obedient to it:
and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel: he set up more idols, and drew the people into more and greater idolatries, than the old Canaanites; and these were the more aggravated by having a law given to them, and prophets sent to instruct them in it, and by the benefits and blessings bestowed upon them by the lawgiver, which laid them under greater obligations to him; see Jeremiah 2:11.
