2 Chronicles 33:9
What is written? (ESV)
Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel.
What does it say?
Manasseh led the people of Judah to do more evil than other nations that God had already destroyed.
What is its immediate context?
The accounts of the Kings of Judah, the southern kingdom. Israel, the northern kingdom, has already been swept away by the Assyrians. Now about 150 years later, God has exhausted His patience with Judah’s unrighteousness and they will be swept away by the Babylonians. Manasseh’s wickedness and unrighteousness (vss 2-8) during 55 years of political leadership are the final straw.
How 2 Chronicles 33:9 is applied across Bible answers
Does God work through unrighteous political leaders?
This is not so much God working through a political leader as it is a political leader's own unrighteousness affecting the nation he leads.
Quite remarkably, given the depths of his depravity, Manasseh repents and humbles himself before God (vss 12-13), doing many righteous acts for the nation (vss 14-16). Yet, it is the policies of Manasseh's reign that Scripture attributes to seal the fate of Judah's existence (2 Kings 21:9-15).
