the rest of the acts of Manasseh The compiler of Kings says no word about Manasseh's repentance, which forms a considerable part of his history in Chronicles (2 Chronicles 33:12-19). There we read that in his distress he besought the Lord and the Lord heard him and brought him back out of Babylon. -Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God". He also built parts of the walls of Jerusalem, and strengthened the cities of Judah. He took away the strange gods and built up the altar of the Lord. Mention is also made of his prayer, of which we have an apocryphal version preserved, and of the seers which spake unto him. There is quoted also as authority the history of Hozai (R.V.). Why the writer of Kings tells neither of Manasseh's captivity nor of his repentance and return is not easy to understand. Perhaps as these events made no difference in the succession, and as he deals with the political rather than with the religious history of the nation, he preferred to omit any record of either the imprisonment of the king or his release.

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