Read Time: 6 minutes2 Kings 21
Manasseh undoes every reform of his father and fills the temple with the very abominations Ezekiel will see, and the city with innocent blood — and so seals the exile. He rebuilds the high places Hezekiah broke, rears altars for Baal, makes a grove, worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them, and — the deepest profanation — built altars in the house of Yahweh, and set a graven image of the grove in the very house of which Yahweh had said, In Jerusalem will I put my name. The image of jealousy of Ezekiel’s vision is Manasseh’s idol; the sun-worship between the porch and the altar is Manasseh’s host of heaven. He made his son pass through the fire, used enchantments and familiar spirits, and made Judah to sin. His very name names the tragedy: Manasseh means Forgetting — Hezekiah had been made to forget his troubles, but the son forgot the goodness of Yahweh that gave him the throne.
And he fills the city with blood: Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another. The verdict is final. I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle… I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. The sin of Manasseh is the sin for which Judah will go to Babylon — the later chapters say so plainly. The most thorough of the wicked kings does in the south what brought down the north, and the glory’s departure that Ezekiel watches is the answer to Manasseh’s altars.
And a strange mercy is folded even here. The Chronicler records that this worst of kings, carried to Babylon with hooks, humbled himself and was brought home again (2 Chron 33:11–13); his fifty-five years, the longest reign in Judah, read like a double measure of grace — five times five — spent on the least deserving. Kings records the blood that sealed the exile; Chronicles records that not even Manasseh was past return.
Amon his son walks the same way and is murdered by his own servants. The line of David staggers on, but the dish is already turned upside down.
The king fills the temple with idols and the city with blood, and the exile is sealed. The abominations Ezekiel sees in vision are the altars Manasseh built in fact.
Ezekiel 11
The glory pauses on the Mount of Olives before leaving — but not before Yahweh promises to be a sanctuary to the scattered and to give them a heart of flesh. At the east gate twenty-five men give false counsel: this city is the caldron, and we be the flesh — we are safe inside the pot, the danger is overblown. It is the same east gate to which the Lord would come out from the Upper Room to pray the great intercession of John 17 — the place of false counsel becoming, in time, the place of the true Intercessor’s prayer. Ezekiel prophesies their fall, and as he speaks, Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. He falls on his face in dread: Ah Adonai Yahweh! wilt thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel?
The answer is the gospel buried in the judgment. To the scattered, the exiles who seem cast off, Yahweh says: Although I have cast them far off among the heathen… yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come. The glory leaving the temple does not leave the people — Yahweh himself becomes their sanctuary in exile. It is not the building but the Presence; the scattered have a sanctuary wherever Yahweh is among them. And the deeper promise: I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: that they may walk in my statutes… and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. The new covenant in seed — the stony heart of Manasseh’s Judah replaced with a heart of flesh.
Then the last stage of the departure: the glory of Yahweh went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city — the Mount of Olives. The glory leaves eastward, over Olivet — the very mountain from which the Lord would ascend, and to which he will return. The departure traces the road the return will one day retrace. The vision lifts, and Ezekiel is set back down among the captives in Chaldea.
The glory pauses on Olivet as it leaves — and promises a little sanctuary to the scattered and a heart of flesh for the heart of stone. It departs by the road it will one day return.
Luke 7
The Son reaches the Gentile’s faith, raises the widow’s only son, and gives a sinful woman the heart of flesh that loves much — the little sanctuary walking among men. A Roman centurion sends for healing and then sends again: Lord, trouble not thyself: for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof… but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed — a man under authority who grasps authority. The verdict: I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. The grace that in the synagogue at Nazareth reached the Sidonian widow and Naaman the Syrian now reaches a centurion — Yahweh a sanctuary among the nations.
At Nain the Son meets a funeral — a widow’s only son carried out — and he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. The dead sits up and speaks. The Son of man has power over death itself, and the crowd’s word is the word of Zacharias fulfilled: God hath visited his people. When John sends from prison, Art thou he that should come?, the answer is the signs of Isaiah — the blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached — and the Lord names John the messenger, the Elijah who prepared the way, yet he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.
At the table of Simon the Pharisee, a woman which was a sinner washes the Lord’s feet with her tears, wipes them with her hair, anoints them with ointment. Against Simon’s cold, stony correctness stands her flood of love, and the verdict divides them: her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much. The Pharisee’s heart of stone judges; the sinner’s heart of flesh loves and is forgiven. Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.
The Son reaches the Gentile, raises the widow’s son, and forgives the woman who loved much. The heart of flesh weeps at his feet; the heart of stone sits in judgment.
Synthesis and Exhortation
The whole stretch arrives here, and the contrast could not be sharper. Manasseh fills the temple with idols and the city with blood, and the exile is sealed; Ezekiel watches the glory pause on Olivet and depart, yet hears the promise of a little sanctuary and an heart of flesh; and the Son walks among men as that very sanctuary — reaching the centurion’s faith, raising the widow’s son, giving the sinful woman the heart of flesh that loves much. The glory leaves the house of stone; it dwells now in flesh and among the scattered.
The thread that has run all week is the dwelling-place of the glory. It filled the temple Manasseh defiled; it lifted out by stages and paused on Olivet; and it became a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come — not the building but the Presence with the people. In Luke that Presence is the Son: the temple no longer mediates forgiveness, but the Son of man forgives; the temple’s glory has departed, but God hath visited his people at Nain; the house of stone is abandoned, but a sinful woman finds the sanctuary at his feet. And the heart of stone that filled Jerusalem with idols is answered by the heart of flesh promised in exile and shown in the woman who loved much.
So the exhortation is the heart and the sanctuary. Do not be Manasseh’s Judah — a house of stone full of idols, a heart of stone full of blood, until the glory must depart. Receive instead the heart of flesh that Yahweh promised the scattered and that wept at the Lord’s feet; let the love that is forgiven much be the proof of it. And know that the dwelling of Yahweh is not finally a building but a Presence — a little sanctuary wherever his people are gathered to the Son, who is himself the glory that left the old house and walks now among men. The glory departed Olivet eastward; it will return by the same road.
The heart of stone fills the temple with idols; the heart of flesh weeps forgiven at his feet. The glory left the house of stone to become a sanctuary among his people — receive the new heart, and be that sanctuary.