Hezekiah had finally yielded to the admonitions of Isaiah, and had
taken a wife unto himself, (93) the daughter of the prophet. But he
entered upon marriage with a heavy heart. His prophetic spirit foretold
to him that the impiousness of the sons he would beget would make their
death to be preferable to their life. These fears were confirmed all
too soon. His two sons, Rabshakeh and Manasseh, showed their complete
unlikeness to their parents in early childhood. Once, when Hezekiah was
carrying his two little ones on his shoulders to the Bet ha-Midrash, he
overheard their conversation. The one said: "Our father's bald head
might do for frying fish." The other rejoined: "It would do well for
offering sacrifices to idols." Enraged by these words, Hezekiah let his
sons slip from his shoulders. Rabshakeh was killed by the fall, but
Manasseh escaped unhurt. (94) Better had it been if Manasseh had shared
his brother's untimely fate. He was spared for naught but murder,
idolatry, and other abominable atrocities. (95)
After Hezekiah had departed this life, Manasseh ceased to serve the God
of his father. He did whatever his evil imagination prompted. The altar
was destroyed, and in the inner space of the Temple he set up an idol
(96) with four faces, copied from the four figures on the throne of
God. It was so placed that from whatever direction one entered the
Temple, a face of the idol confronted him. (97)
As Manasseh was sacrilegious toward God, he was malevolent toward his
fellows. He had fashioned an image so large that it required a thousand
men to carry it. Daily a new force was employed on this task, because
Manasseh had each set of porters killed off at the end of the day's
work. All his acts were calculated to cast contempt upon Judaism and
its tenets. It did not satisfy his evil desire to obliterate the name
of God from the Holy Scriptures; (98) he went so far as to deliver
public lectures whose burden was to ridicule the Torah. (99) Isaiah and
the other prophets, Micah, Joel, and Habakkuk, (100) left Jerusalem and
repaired to a mountain in the desert, that they might be spared the
sight of the abominations practiced by the king. Their abiding-place
was disclosed to the king. A Samaritan, a descendant of the false
prophet Zedekiah, had taken refuge in Jerusalem after the destruction
of the Temple. But he did not remain there long; charges were made
against him before the pious king Hezekiah, and he withdrew to
Bethlehem, where he gathered hangers-on about him. This Samaritan it
was who traced the prophets to their retreat, and lodged accusations
against them before Manasseh. (101) The impious king sat in judgment on
Isaiah, and condemned him to death. The indictment against him was that
his prophecies contained teachings in contradiction with the law of
Moses. God said unto Moses: "Thou canst not see My face; for man shall
not see Me and live"; while Isaiah said: "I saw the Lord sitting upon a
throne, high and lifted up." Again, Isaiah compared the princes of
Israel and the people with the impious inhabitants of Sodom and
Gomorrah, and he prophesied the downfall of Jerusalem and the
destruction of the Temple. (102) The prophet offered no explanation. He
was convinced of the uselessness of defending himself, and he preferred
Manasseh should act from ignorance rather than from wickedness.
However, he fled for safety. When he heard the royal bailiffs in
pursuit of him, he pronounced the Name of God, and a cedar-tree
swallowed him up. The king ordered the tree to be sawn in pieces. When
the saw was applied to the portion of the bark under which the mouth of
Isaiah lay concealed, he died. His mouth was the only vulnerable part
of his body, because at the time when he was called to his prophetical
mission, (103) it had made use of the contemptuous words "a people of
unclean lips," regarding Israel. Isaiah died at the age of one hundred
and twenty years, (104) by the hands of his own grandchild. (105)
God is long-suffering, but in the end Manasseh received the deserved
punishment for his sins and crimes. In the twenty-second year of his
rulership, the Assyrians came and carried him off to Babylon in
fetters, him together with the old Danite idol, Micah's image. (106) In
Babylonia, the king was put into an oven which was heated from below.
Finding himself in this extremity, Manasseh began to call upon god
after god to help him out of his straits. As this proved inefficacious,
he resorted to other means. "I remember," he said, "my father taught me
the verse: 'When thou art in tribulation, if in the latter days thou
shalt return to the Lord thy God, and hearken unto His voice, He will
not fail thee.' Now I cry to God. If He inclines His ear unto me, well
and good; if not, then all kinds of god are alike." The angels stopped
up the windows of heaven, that the prayer of Manasseh might not ascend
to God, and they said: "Lord of the world! Art Thou willing to give
gracious hearing to one who has paid worship to idols, and set up an
idol in the Temple?" "If I did not accept the penance of this man,"
replied God, "I should be closing the door in the face of all repentant
sinners." God made a small opening under the Throne of His Glory, and
received the prayer of Manasseh through it. Suddenly a wind arose, and
carried Manasseh back to Jerusalem. (107) His return to God not only
helped him in his distress, but also brought him pardon for all his
sins, so that not even his share in the future world was withdrawn from
him. (108)
The people of this time were attracted to idolatry with so irresistible
a force that the vast learning of Manasseh, who knew fifty-two
different interpretations of the Book of Leviticus, (109) did not give
him enough moral strength to withstand its influence. Rab Ashi, the
famous compiler of the Talmud, once announced a lecture on Manasseh
with the words: "To-morrow I shall speak about our colleague Manasseh."
At night the king appeared to Ashi in a dreams, and put a ritual
question to him, which the Rabbi could not answer. Manasseh told him
the solution, and Ashi, in amazement at the king's scholarship, asked
why one so erudite had served idols. Manasseh's reply was: "Hadst thou
lived at my time, thou wouldst have caught hold of the hem of my
garment and run after me." (110)
Amon, the son of Manasseh, surpassed his father in wickedness. He was
in the habit of saying: "My father was a sinner from early childhood,
and in his old age he did penance. I shall do the same. First I shall
satisfy the desires of my heart, and afterward I shall return to God."
(111) Indeed, he was guilty of more grievous sins than his predecessor;
he burned the Torah; under him the place of the altar was covered with
spiderwebs; and, as though of purpose to set at naught the Jewish
religion, he committed the worst sort of incest, a degree more heinous
than his father's crime of a similar nature. (112) Thus he executed the
first half of his maxim literally. For repentance, however, he was
given no time; death cut him off in the fulness of his sinful ways.