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Easton's Bible Dictionary
who makes to forget. "God hath made me forget" (Hebrew
nashshani), Genesis 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 ( Genesis 48:1 ). There is an account of his
marriage to a Syrian ( 1 Chronicles 7:14 ); and the only thing afterwards recorded
of him is, that his grandchildren were "brought up upon Joseph's knees" ( Genesis
50:23 ; RSV, "born upon Joseph's knees") i.e., were from their birth adopted by
Joseph as his own children.
(2) The tribe of Manasseh was associated with that of Ephraim and Benjamin during
the wanderings in the wilderness. They encamped on the west side of the tabernacle.
According to the census taken at Sinai, this tribe then numbered 32,200 ( Numbers
1:10 , 1:35 ; 2:20 , 2:21 ). Forty years afterwards its numbers had increased
to 52,700 ( Numbers 26:34 , 26:37 ), and it was at this time the most distinguished
of all the tribes.
The half of this tribe, along with Reuben and Gad, had their territory assigned
them by Moses on the east of the Jordan ( Joshua 13:7 - 14 ); but it was left
for Joshua to define the limits of each tribe. This territory on the east of Jordan
was more valuable and of larger extent than all that was allotted to the nine
and a half tribes in the land of Palestine. It is sometimes called "the land of
Gilead," and is also spoken of as "on the other side of Jordan." The portion given
to the half tribe of Manasseh was the largest on the east of Jordan. It embraced
the whole of Bashan. It was bounded on the south by Mahanaim, and extended north
to the foot of Lebanon. Argob, with its sixty cities, that "ocean of basaltic
rocks and boulders tossed about in the wildest confusion," lay in the midst of
this territory.
The whole "land of Gilead" having been conquered, the two and a half tribes left
their wives and families in the fortified cities there, and accompanied the other
tribes across the Jordan, and took part with them in the wars of conquest. The
allotment of the land having been completed, Joshua dismissed the two and a half
tribes, commending them for their heroic service ( Joshua 22:1 - 34 ). Thus dismissed,
they returned over Jordan to their own inheritance. (See ED .)
On the west of Jordan the other half of the tribe of Manasseh was associated with
Ephraim, and they had their portion in the very centre of Palestine, an area of
about 1,300 square miles, the most valuable part of the whole country, abounding
in springs of water. Manasseh's portion was immediately to the north of that of
Ephraim ( Joshua 16 ). Thus the western Manasseh defended the passes of Esdraelon
as the eastern kept the passes of the Hauran.
(3) The only son and successor of Hezekiah on the throne of Judah. He was twelve
years old when he began to reign ( 2 Kings 21:1 ), and he reigned fifty-five years
(B.C. 698-643). Though he reigned so long, yet comparatively little is known of
this king. His reign was a continuation of that of Ahaz, both in religion and
national polity. He early fell under the influence of the heathen court circle,
and his reign was characterized by a sad relapse into idolatry with all its vices,
showing that the reformation under his father had been to a large extent only
superficial ( Isaiah 7:10 ; 2 Kings 21:10 - 15 ). A systematic and persistent
attempt was made, and all too successfully, to banish the worship of Jehovah out
of the land. Amid this wide-spread idolatry there were not wanting, however, faithful
prophets (Isaiah, Micah) who lifted up their voice in reproof and in warning.
But their fidelity only aroused bitter hatred, and a period of cruel persecution
against all the friends of the old religion began. "The days of Alva in Holland,
of Charles IX. in France, or of the Covenanters under Charles II. in Scotland,
were anticipated in the Jewish capital. The streets were red with blood." There
is an old Jewish tradition that Isaiah was put to death at this time ( 2 Kings
21:16 ; 24:3 , 24:4 ; Jeremiah 2:30 ), having been sawn asunder in the trunk of
a tree. Psalms 49 , 73 , 77 , 140 , and 141 seem to express the feelings of the
pious amid the fiery trials of this great persecution. Manasseh has been called
the "Nero of Palestine." Esarhaddon, Sennacherib's successor on the Assyrian throne,
who had his residence in Babylon for thirteen years (the only Assyrian monarch
who ever reigned in Babylon), took Manasseh prisoner (B.C. 681) to Babylon. Such
captive kings were usually treated with great cruelty. They were brought before
the conqueror with a hook or ring passed through their lips or their jaws, having
a cord attached to it, by which they were led. This is referred to in 2 Chronicles
33:11 , where the Authorized Version reads that Esarhaddon "took Manasseh among
the thorns;" while the Revised Version renders the words, "took Manasseh in chains;"
or literally, as in the margin, "with hooks." (Compare 2 Kings 19:28 .)
The severity of Manasseh's imprisonment brought him to repentance. God heard his
cry, and he was restored to his kingdom ( 2 Chronicles 33:11 - 13 ). He abandoned
his idolatrous ways, and enjoined the people to worship Jehovah; but there was
no thorough reformation. After a lengthened reign extending through fifty-five
years, the longest in the history of Judah, he died, and was buried in the garden
of Uzza, the "garden of his own house" ( 2 Kings 21:17 , 21:18 ; 2 Chronicles
33:20 ), and not in the city of David, among his ancestors. He was succeeded by
his son Amon.
(4) In Judges 18:30 the correct reading is "Moses," and not "Manasseh." The name
"Manasseh" is supposed to have been introduced by some transcriber to avoid the
scandal of naming the grandson of Moses the great lawgiver as the founder of an
idolatrous religion.
Hitchcock's Dictionary of Bible Names
forgetfulness; he that is forgotten
Smith's Bible Dictionary
(forgetting), The eldest son of Joseph, ( Genesis 41:51
; 46:20 ) born 1715-10 B.C. Both he and Ephraim were born before the commencement
of the famine. He was placed after his younger brother, Ephraim, by his grandfather
Jacob, when he adopted them into his own family, and made them heads of tribes.
Whether the elder of the two sons was inferior in form or promise to the younger,
or whether there was any external reason to justify the preference of Jacob, we
are not told. In the division of the promised land half of the tribe of Manasseh
settled east of the Jordan in the district embracing the hills of Gilead with
their inaccessible heights and impassable ravines, and the almost impregnable
tract of Argob. ( Joshua 13:29 - 33 ) Here they throve exceedingly, pushing their
way northward over the rich plains of Jaulan and Jedur to the foot of Mount Hermon.
( 1 Chronicles 5:23 ) But they gradually assimilated themselves with the old inhabitants
of the country, and on them descended the punishment which was ordained to he
the inevitable consequence of such misdoing. They, first of all Israel, were carried
away by Pul and Tiglath-pileser, and settled in the Assyrian territories. ( 1
Chronicles 5:25 , 5:26 ) The other half tribe settled to the west of the Jordan,
north of Ephraim. ( Joshua 17:1 ) ... For further particulars see EPHRAIM.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
(COMBINED FROM MANASSEH 1, 2, 3)
ma-nas'-e (menashsheh, "causing to forget"; compare Genesis 41:51; Man(n)asse):
(1) The firstborn of Joseph by Asenath, daughter of Poti-phera, priest of On.
1. Son of Joseph:
Following the Biblical account of Manasseh (patriarch, tribe, and territory) we
find that he was the eider of Joseph's two sons by Asenath, the daughter of Poti-phera,
priest of On (Genesis 41:51). The birth of a son marked the climax of Joseph's
happiness after the long bitterness of his experience. In the joy of the moment,
the dark years past could be forgotten; therefore he called the name of the firstborn
Manasseh ("causing to forget"), for, said he, God hath made me to forget all my
toil. When Jacob was near his end, Joseph brought his two sons to his father who
blessed them. Himself the younger son who had received the blessing of the firstborn,
Jacob preferred Ephraim, the second son of Joseph, to Manasseh his elder brother,
thus indicating the relative positions of their descendants (Genesis 48). Before
Joseph died he saw the children of Machir the son of Manasseh (Genesis 50:23).
Machir was born to Manasseh by his concubine, an Aramitess (1 Chronicles 7:14).
Whether he married Maacah before leaving for Egypt is not said. She was the sister
of Huppim and Shuppim. Of Manasseh's personal life no details are recorded in
Scripture. Acccording to Jewish tradition he became steward of his father's house,
and acted as interpreter between Joseph and his brethren. |
(2) The tribe named from Manasseh,
half of which, with Gad and Reuben, occupied the East of Jordan (Numbers 27:1,
etc.).
1. The Tribes in the Wilderness and Portion in Palestine:
At the beginning of the desert march the number of Manasseh's men of war is given
at 32,200 (Numbers 1:34). At the 2nd census they had increased to 52,700 (Numbers
26:34). Their position in the wilderness was with the tribe of Benjamin, by the
standard of the tribe of Ephraim, on the West of the tabernacle. According to
Targum Pseudojon, the standard was the figure of a boy, with the inscription "The
cloud of Yahweh rested on them until they went forth out of the camp." At Sinai
the prince of the tribe was Gamaliel, son of Pedahzur (Numbers 2:20). The tribe
was represented among the spies by Gaddi, son of Susi (Numbers 13:11, where the
name "tribe of Joseph" seems to be used as an alternative). At the census in the
plains of Moab, Manasseh is named before Ephraim, and appears as much the stronger
tribe (Numbers 26:28). The main military exploits in the conquest of Eastern Palestine
were performed by Manassites. Machir, son of Manasseh, conquered the Amorites
and Gilead (Numbers 32:39). Jair, son of Manasseh, took all the region of Argob,
containing three score cities; these he called by his own name, "Havvoth-jair"
(Numbers 32:41 ; Deuteronomy 3:4,14). Nobah captured Kenath and the villages thereof
(Numbers 32:42 ; Joshua 17:1 , 5). Land for half the tribe was thus provided,
their territory stretching from the northern boundary of Gad to an undetermined
frontier in the North, marching with Geshur and Maacah on the West, and with the
desert on the East. The warriors of this half-tribe passed over with those of
Reuben and Gad before the host of Israel, and took their share in the conquest
of Western Palestine (Joshua 22). They helped to raise the great altar in the
Jordan valley, which so nearly led to disastrous consequences (Joshua 22:10).
Golan, the city of refuge, lay within their territory.
The possession of Ephraim and Manasseh West of the Jordan appears to have been
undivided at first (Joshua 17:16). The portion which ultimately fell to Manasseh
marched with Ephraim on the South, with Asher and Issachar on the North, running
out to the sea on the West, and falling into the Jordan valley on the East (Joshua
17:7). The long dwindling slopes to westward and the fiat reaches of the plain
included much excellent soil. Within the territory of Issachar and Asher, Beth-shean,
Ibleam, Dor, Endor, Taanach and Megiddo, with their villages, were assigned to
Manasseh. Perhaps the men of the West lacked the energy and enterprise of their
eastern brethren. They failed, in any case, to expel the Canaanites from these
cities, and for long this grim chain of fortresses seemed to mock the strength
of Israel (Joshua 17:11)
Ten cities West of the Jordan, in the portion of Manasseh, were given to the Levites,
and 13 in the eastern portion (Joshua 21:5 , 6).
Manasseh took part in the glorious conflict with the host of Sisera (Judges 5:14).
Two famous judges, Gideon and Jephthah, belonged to this tribe. The men of the
half-tribe East of Jordan were noted for skill and valor as warriors (1 Chronicles
5:18 , 23). Some men of Manasseh had joined David before the battle of Gilboa
(1 Chronicles 12:19).
2. Its Place in Later History:
Others, all mighty men of valor, and captains in the host, fell to him on the
way to Ziklag, and helped him against the band of rovers (1 Chronicles 12:20).
From the half-tribe West of the Jordan 18,000 men, expressed by name, came to
David at Hebron to make him king (1 Chronicles 12:31); while those who came from
the East numbered, along with the men of Reuben and Gad, 120,000 (1 Chronicles
12:37). David organized the eastern tribes under 2,700 overseers for every matter
pertaining to God and for the affairs of the king (1 Chronicles 26:32). The rulers
of Manasseh were, in the West, Joel, son of Pedaiah, and in the East, Iddo, son
of Zechariah (1 Chronicles 27:20 , 21). Divers of Manasseh humbled themselves
and came to Jerusalem at the invitation of Hezekiah to celebrate the Passover
(2 Chronicles 30:11). Although not cleansed according to the purification of the
sanctuary, they ate the Passover. Pardon was successfully sought for them by the
king, because they set their hearts to seek God (2 Chronicles 30:18).
Of the eastern half-tribe it is said that they went a-whoring after the gods of
the land, and in consequence they were overwhelmed and expatriated by Pul and
Tiglath-pileser, kings of Assyria (1 Chronicles 5:25). Reference to the idolatries
of the western half-tribe are also found in 2 Chronicles 31:1 ; 34:6.
There is a portion for Manasseh in Ezekiel's ideal picture (Ezekiel 48:4), and
the tribe appears in the list in Revelation (7:6).
The genealogies in Joshua 17:1 ; Numbers 26:28 - 34 ; 1 Chronicles 2:21 - 23 ;
7:14 - 19 have fallen into confusion. As they stand, they are mutually contradictory,
and it is impossible to harmonize them.
The theories of certain modern scholars who reject the Biblical account are themselves
beset with difficulties: e.g. the name is derived from the Arabic, nasa, "to injure
a tendon of the leg." Manasseh, the Piel part., would thus be the name of a supernatural
being, of whom the infliction of such an injury was characteristic. It is not
clear which of the wrestlers at the Jabbok suffered the injury. As Jacob is said
to have prevailed with gods and men, the suggestion is that it was his antagonist
who was lamed. "It would appear therefore that in the original story the epithet
Manasseh was a fitting title of Jacob himself, which might be borne by his worshippers,
as in the case of Gad" (EB, under the word, par. 4).
It is assumed that the mention of Machir in Judges 5:14 definitely locates the
Manassites at that time on the West of the Jordan. The raids by members of the
tribe on Eastern Palestine must therefore have taken place long after the days
of Moses. The reasoning is precarious. After the mention of Reuben (Judges 5:15
, 16), Gilead (Judges 5:17) may refer to Gad. It would be strange if this warlike
tribe were passed over (Guthe). Machir, then probably the strongest clan, stands
for the whole tribe, and may be supposed to indicate particularly the noted fighters
of the eastern half.
In dealing with the genealogies, "the difficult name" Zelophehad must be got rid
of. Among the suggestions made is one by Dr. Cheyne, which first supposes the
existence of a name Salhad, and then makes Zelophehad a corruption of this.
The genealogies certainly present difficulties, but otherwise the narrative is
intelligible and self-consistent without resort to such questionable expedients
as those referred to above.
W. Ewing |
(3) The "Manasseh" of Judges 18:30 , 31 the King James Version
is really an intentional mistake for the name Moses. A small nun ("n"), a Hebrew
letter, has been inserted over and between the first and second Hebrew letters
in the word Moses, thus maNesheh for mosheh. The reason for this is that the individual
in question is mentioned as priest of a brazen image at Dan. His proper name was
Moses. It was felt to be a disgrace that such a one bearing that honored name
should keep it intact. The insertion of the nun hides the disgrace and, moreover,
gives to the person a name already too familiar with idolatrous practices; for
King Manasseh's 55 years of sovereignty were thus disgraced.
(4) King of Judah.
A king of Judah, son and successor of Hezekiah; reigned 55 years (2 Kings 21:1;
2 Chronicles 33:1), from circa 685 onward. His was one of the few royal names
not compounded with the name of Yahweh (his son Amon's was the only other if,
as an Assyrian inscription gives it, the full name of Ahaz was Jehoahaz or Ahaziah);
but it was no heathen name like Amon, but identical with that of the elder son
of Joseph. Born within Hezekiah's added 15 years, years of trembling faith and
tender hope (compare Isaiah 38:15 f), his name may perhaps memorialize the father's
sacred feelings; the name of his mother Hephzibah too was used long afterward
as the symbol of the happy union of the land with its loyal sons (Isaiah 62:4).
All this, however, was long forgotten in the memory of Manasseh's apostate career.
I. Sources of His Life.
The history (2 Kings 1 - 18) refers for "the rest of his acts" to "the book of
the chronicles of the kings of Judah," but the body of the account, instead of
reading like state annals, is almost entirely a censure of his idolatrous reign
in the spirit of the prophets and of the Deuteronomic strain of literature. The
parallel history (2 Chronicles 33:1 - 20) puts "the rest of his acts" "among the
acts of the kings of Israel," and mentions his prayer (a prayer ascribed to him
is in the Apocrypha) and "the words of the seers that spoke to him in the name
of Yahweh." This history of Chronicles mentions his captive journey to Babylon
and his repentance (2 Chronicles 33:10 - 13), also his building operations in
Jerusalem and his resumption of Yahweh-worship (2 Chronicles 33:14 - 17), which
the earlier source lacks. From these sources, which it is not the business of
this article either to verify or question, the estimate of his reign is to be
deduced.
II. Character of His Reign.
1. Political Situation:
During his reign, Assyria, principally under Esar-haddon and Assur-banipal, was
at the height of its arrogance and power; and his long reign was the peaceful
and uneventful life of a willing vassal, contented to count as tributary king
in an illustrious world-empire, hospitable to all its religious and cultural ideas,
and ready to take his part in its military and other enterprises. The two mentions
of his name in Assyrian inscriptions (see G.A. Smith, Jerusalem, II, 182) both
represent him in this tributary light. His journey to Babylon mentioned in 2 Chronicles
33:11 need not have been the penalty of rebellion; more likely it was such an
enforced act of allegiance as was perhaps imposed on all provincial rulers who
had incurred or would avert suspicion of disloyalty. Nor was his fortification
of Jerusalem after his return less necessary against domestic than foreign aggression;
the more so, indeed, as in so long and undisturbed a reign his capital, which
was now practically synonymous with his realm (Esar-haddon calls him "king of
the city of Judah"), became increasingly an important center of wealth and commercial
prosperity. Of the specific events of his reign, however, other than religious,
less is known than of almost any other.
2. Reactionary Idolatry:
That the wholesale idolatry by which his reign is mainly distinguished was of
a reactionary and indeed conservative nature may be understood alike from what
it sought to maintain and from what it had to react against. On the one side was
the tremendous wave of ritual and mechanical heathen cults which, proceeding from
the world-centers of culture and civilization (compare Isaiah 2:6-8), was drawing
all the tributary lands, Judah with the rest, into its almost irresistible sweep.
Manasseh, it would seem, met this not in the temper of an amateur, as had his
grandfather Ahaz, but in the temper of a fanatic. Everything old and new that
came to his purview was of momentous religious value--except only the simple and
austere demands of prophetic insight. He restored the debasing cults of the aboriginal
Nature-worship which his father had suppressed, thus making Judah revert to the
sterile Baal-cults of Ahab; but his blind credence in the black arts so prevalent
in all the surrounding nations, imported the elaborate worship of the heavenly
bodies from Babylon, invading even the temple-courts with its numerous rites and
altars; even went to the horrid extreme of human sacrifice, making an institution
of what Ahaz had tried as a desperate expedient. All this, which to the matured
prophetic sense was headlong wickedness, was the mark of a desperately earnest
soul, seeking blindly in this wholesale way to propitiate the mysterious Divine
powers, his nation's God among them, who seemed so to have the world's affairs
in their inscrutable control. On the other side, there confronted him the prophetic
voice of a religion which decried all insincere ritual (`wickedness and worship,'
Isaiah 1:13), made straight demands on heart and conscience, and had already vindicated
itself in the faith which had wrought the deliverance of 701. It was the fight
of the decadent formal against the uprising spiritual; and, as in all such struggles,
it would grasp at any expedient save the one plain duty of yielding the heart
to repentance and trust.
3. Persecution:
Meanwhile, the saving intelligence and integrity of Israel, though still the secret
of the lowly, was making itself felt in the spiritual movement that Isaiah had
labored to promote; through the permeating influence of literature and education
the "remnant" was becoming a power to be reckoned with. It is in the nature of
things that such an innovating movement must encounter persecution; the significant
thing is that already there was so much to persecute. Persecution is as truly
the offspring of fear as of fanaticism. Manasseh's persecution of the prophets
and their adherents (tradition has it that the aged Isaiah was one of his victims)
was from their point of view an enormity of wickedness. To us the analysis is
not quite so simple; it looks also like the antipathy of an inveterate formal
order to a vital movement that it cannot understand. The vested interests of almost
universal heathenism must needs die hard, and "much innocent blood" was its desperate
price before it would yield the upper hand. To say this of Manasseh's murderous
zeal is not to justify it; it is merely to concede its sadly mistaken sincerity.
It may well have seemed to him that a nation's piety was at stake, as if a world's
religious culture were in peril.
4. Return to Better Mind:
The Chronicler, less austere in tone than the earlier historian, preserves for
us the story that, like Saul of Tarsus after him, Manasseh got his eyes open to
the truer meaning of things; that after his humiliation and repentance in Babylon
he "knew that Yahweh he was God" (2 Chronicles 33:10 - 13). He had the opportunity
to see a despotic idolatry, its evils with its splendors, in its own home; a first-fruit
of the thing that the Hebrew exiles were afterward to realize. On his return,
accordingly, he removed the altars that had encroached upon the sacred precincts
of the temple, and restored the ritual of the Yahweh-service, without, however,
removing the high places. It would seem to have been merely the concession of
Yahweh's right to a specific cult of His own, with perhaps a mitigation of the
more offensive extremes of exotic worship, while the toleration of the various
fashionable forms remained much as before. But this in itself was something, was
much; it gave Yahweh His chance, so to say, among rivals; and the growing spiritual
fiber of the heart of Israel could be trusted to do the rest. It helps us also
the better to understand the situation when, only two years after Manasseh's death,
Josiah came to the throne, and to understand why he and his people were so ready
to accept the religious sanity of the Deuteronomic law. He did not succeed, after
all, in committing his nation to the wholesale sway of heathenism. Manasseh's
reactionary reign was indeed not without its good fruits; the crisis of religious
syncretism and externalism was met and passed. |
John Franklin Genung |
(5) Son of PAHATH-MOAB
(which see), who had married a foreign wife (Ezra 10:30). Manaseas in 1 Esdras
9:31.
(6) The Manasses of 1 Esdras 9:33.
A layman of the family of Hashum, who put away
his foreign wife at Ezra's order (Ezra 10:33).
In the Revised Version (British and American) of Matthew 1:10 and Revelation 7:6
the spelling "Manasseh" is given for the King James Version "Manasses." The latter
is the spelling of the husband of Judith (Judith 8:2,7; 10:3; 16:22,23,24); of
a person named in the last words of Tobit and otherwise unknown (Tobit 14:10),
and also the name given to a remarkable prayer probably referred to in 2 Chronicles
33:18, which Manasseh (4) is said to have uttered at the end of his long, unsatisfactory
life. See MANASSES, THE PRAYER OF. In Judges 12:4, the Revised Version (British
and American) reads "Manasseh" for the King James Version "Manassites."
Henry Wallace
Tags:
bible commentary, bible history, bible reference, bible study, define, judges 18:30 (moses), king of judah, longest reigning king of judah (55 years), manasseh, nero of palestine
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