II Kings 24:4
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and also for the innocent blood he had shed. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD was unwilling to forgive.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Things are here ripening for, and hastening towards, the utter destruction of Jerusalem. We left Jehoiakim on the throne, placed there by the king of Egypt: now here we have, I. The troubles of his reign, how he was brought into subjection by the king of Babylon, and severely chastised for attempting to shake off the yoke (Kg2 24:1-6), and how Egypt also was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar (Kg2 24:7). II. The desolations of his son's reign, which continued but three months; and then he and all his great men, being forced to surrender at discretion, were carried captives to Babylon (Kg2 24:8-16). III. The preparatives of the next reign (which was the last of all) for the utter ruin of Jerusalem, which the next chapter will give us an account of (Kg2 24:17-20).
Open source ↗24:4 innocent blood: Tradition holds that Manasseh murdered the prophet Isaiah by sawing him in two (cp. Heb 11:37).
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
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Moreover, Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end, in addition to the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, doing evil in the sight of the LORD.
Therefore tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘You eat meat with the blood in it, lift up your eyes to your idols, and shed blood. Should you then possess the land?
Do not pollute the land where you live, for bloodshed pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land on which the blood is shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.
Thus innocent blood will not be shed in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed.
Moreover, your skirts are stained with the blood of the innocent poor, though you did not find them breaking in. But in spite of all these things
They shed innocent blood— the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.
because they have abandoned Me and made this a foreign place. They have burned incense in this place to other gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have ever known. They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.
“We have sinned and rebelled; You have not forgiven.”