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Why Manasseh Is Blamed for the Babylonian Exile: the Evolution of a Biblical Tradition

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Why Manasseh Is Blamed for the Babylonian Exile: the Evolution of a Biblical Tradition WHY MANASSEH IS BLAMED FOR THE BABYLONIAN EXILE: THE EVOLUTION OF A BIBLICAL TRADITION by BARUCH HALPERN University Park, Pennsylvania I. The Question The diVerences between the books of Kings and Chronicles in recount- ing the history of the kingdom of Judah are manifold and obvious. Chronicles, unlike Kings, does not recognize the legitimacy of the Israelite kingdom, and therefore does not reiterate materials concern- ing it from its source in Kings. 1 Chronicles also edits the account of Solomon’s reign to eliminate materials blaming that king for the seces- sion of the northern tribes under Jeroboam (as 1 Kgs xi). Yet 2 Chr. x 15 does refer to Yhwh’s oracle to Jeroboam as the reason for the schism, leaving it up in the air whether and how Solomon precipi- tated the crisis—and suggesting that he did, even if some of the blame is laid at the door of Rehoboam’s extremism. But there is no refer- ence to the Northern cult, nor to Jeroboam’s consecration of non- Levites as priests, as there is in Kings. These divergences between the two texts may seem minor. After all, Chronicles also omits mention of the civil war between David and Ishbaal, summing it up in the statement that, on Saul’s death, “Yhwh diverted the kingship to David” (1 Chr. x 14): the editorial choice to shorten the account, which concerns Israel as well as Judah, is not atypical—Jehoshaphat’ s connections, for example, to the Omrides and even Elisha’s activity being acknowledged in Chronicles, without any exploration. And there are various other di Verences in the facts or sequence of events reported in Chronicles and in Kings, some of which have been attributed to Chr’s putative Tendenzen, others to Chr’s midrashic bent, still others (or, indeed, some of the same texts) to Chr’s deductions from Kings, or even from additional sources. 1 See H.G.M. Williamson, Israel in the Books of Chronicles (Cambridge, 1977). © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 1998 Vetus Testamentum XLVIII, 4 474 baruch halpern Nowhere, however, are the di Verences between Chronicles and Kings so stark as where they address the demise of the kingdom of Judah. Starting in their accounts of Manasseh, the contrasts, perhaps even contradictions, are so extensive that at least one scholar has suggested that Chr. was working with a text of Kings that ended some time in Josiah’s reign. 2 At the heart of this parting of the ways is the ques- tion of the Babylonian exile. This catastrophe, as is well known, Kings places squarely on the shoulders of Manasseh, son of the reformer Hezekiah and grandfather of the even more rabid reformer Josiah (for detailed citations, see below). Chronicles, on the other hand, blamesthe exile on a cumulative process of turning away from Yhwh, culminat- ing in the reigns of Josiah’s successors. Manasseh, in Chronicles’ account, is even rehabilitated before his death (2 Chr. xxxiii 12-16, 18-19). II. The Strategy of Explanation in Chronicles A. Chronicles on the Exile Huldah’s oracle apart, the most explicit passage from Chronicles is that following the accession formula of Zedekiah, Judah’s last king before the Babylonian exile of 587: He did (what was) the evil in the sight of Yhwh, his god. He did not submit before Jeremiah the prophet to Yhwh’s utterance. And he also revolted against the king, Nebuchadnezzar, who had adjured him by God, but sti Vened his neck and girded his heart against repenting to Yhwh, god of Israel (2 Chr. xxxvi 11-13). And also all the o Ycials of the priests and the people multiplied the com- mission of o Vences according to all the abominations of the gentiles, and they profaned the house of Yhwh which he had consecrated in Jerusalem. So Yhwh the god of their forefathers sent (word) against them by the agency of his messengers, regularly and from early on, for he took pity on his people and on his habitation. But they made mock of the god’s messengers and belittled his words, and made fools of his prophets, until Yhwh’s bile rose up against his people beyond healing. So he roused the king of the Chaldeans against them. .. (2 Chr. xxxvi 14-17). An account of Nebuchadrezzar’s depradations, the destruction of the temple, and the exile follows (2 Chr. xxxvi 17-21). The text then 2 See S.L. McKenzie, The Chronicler’s Use of the Deuteronomistic History (Atlanta, 1985); repudiated in his subsequent The Trouble with Kings (Leiden, 1991)..
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