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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Jeremiah 15:4 - 15:4
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Though the body of the people were removed into Babylon, yet as it is more than probable that many of them fled into other countries to save themselves, so there is no doubt but the king of Babylon removed them into several kingdoms belonging to his large empire. What Manasseh did may be read 2Ki_21:11,16, He did wickedly, above all that the Amorites did that were before him, and made also Judah to sin with his idols. Moreover, he shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, &c. Some make a question whether God means the personal sins of Manasseh and his ministers, or only the sins of the same kind that the Jews still continued. Manasseh lived fifty-five years, his son Josiah thirty-one years, it was now the time of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, who reigned but eleven years, and it is probable this was his fifth year, for in that year he proclaimed the fast for the drought, (as is supposed,) Jer_36:9. Though the people were bad enough still, yet it is no way probable that they were so bad as in the time of Manasseh. We know all Josiah’s time, the father of this prince, was a time of reformation, though it be certain much of their old leaven of idolatry and superstition was yet in them. Whatever therefore some think, God undoubtedly meaneth the guilt that Manasseh and his subjects contracted forty years before this time: nor do I see any reason why any should question, whether it be consistent with the justice of God to punish the sins of parents upon their posterity, when it is no more than we see done every day in the punishments of traitors and felons, by the seizing the estates of their children, and in wars, upon the taking of cities and fortified places; and it is no more than God hath threatened in the second commandment, Exo 20, and declared it as a piece of his name, Exo_34:5, and done in a multitude of Scriptural instances. Manasseh is here named as the son of Hezekiah for his shame, because of his degeneracy from so good a parent; it is expressly said, 2Ki_23:26, that notwithstanding Josiah’s reformation, yet the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his wrath kindled against Judah for the provocations of Manasseh.