“Then Manasseh knew that the LORD he was God.” (2 Chronicles 33:13b)
This verse is the point on which Manasseh’s life pivots. Before this, he was an idolater of the worst sort. In verses 33:1-9, he sets up images in the house of God, sacrifices his children, rears up the altars that his father had broken down, until he becomes more sinful than the nations around him. What a familiar scene! We’ve all seen this to some degree, when children are raised by godly parents but refuse to walk in the path set before them. Those who know the truth and walk in open rebellion to it often become worse than even the unbelievers around them.
Yet our story is a positive one. Although Manasseh had forgotten the God of his father Hezekiah, God had not forgotten Hezekiah or his rebellious son. So what does God do? He sends the same nation that humbled Hezekiah against him. It seems that Manasseh is a bit more hard-headed than his father because the means that brought him to repentance and this "then" moment in his life were more extreme. However, God did not resort to these extreme measures at first. At first, God speaks to him (vs 10), then when he would not hearken to him, he sends the Assyrian host against him. He hides himself in a briar thicket, and they capture him from there, bind him with fetters, and carry him to Babylon and afflict him. This hardly sounds like a positive thing, but rest assured it is. It was in this affliction that he "Besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him."
What a picture of one of God’s lost children running from his call. At first, he speaks to us, which is a mercy in itself. After all our rebellion and becoming worse than the heathens around us, he still remembers and loves us enough to call us to repentance. Yet some are still so hard-hearted that his tender voice is ignored, so his chastening hand of providence must be exercised on us. We run deeper and deeper into the thorns and hurts of our sinful life until we are consumed in a sea of hurts, and yet we are found there and captured. When the thorns of our sinful life have caught up to us and yet we are still hard-hearted, then the chains must be placed upon us. Now, even if we desire to be free, we cannot be; this sinful life has bound us to our consequences, and we are afflicted day and night. For how long, you ask? Until like Manasseh, our heart cries out to the LORD our God, and we are humbled and then “He was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom” (vs. 13a). That is what is behind that little word “Then.”
“Then Manasseh knew the LORD that he was God.” God is so gracious that he will bring many hurtful fetters, thorns, and afflictions into our lives that through them we might be brought to a place of repentance and humility. After this "then" there were many more positive outcomes, He tore down his altars, he built up Jerusalem, and repaired the altars of the Lord. Manasseh’s life is separated into two sections, before he was humbled and after and the change is like night and day. So it is when a man gives his life to the Lord, Jesus Christ. It may be chains and thorns and afflictions that bring us to our end, but “Then” we know that the Lord he is God.”
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