Lives of Scripture

Amon became king of Judah at twenty-two, son of Manasseh, whose long fifty-five-year reign began in flagrant idolatry -- child sacrifice, altars to foreign gods set up even in the LORD's temple -- before a late-life captivity and repentance turned him back to God (2 Chronicles 33:1-13). Amon did not follow his father's example of repentance. "He did evil in the sight of the LORD, as Manasseh his father had done. For he walked in all the way that his father had walked, and served the idols that his father had served and worshiped them... but he did not humble himself before the LORD as his father Manasseh had humbled himself; rather Amon multiplied guilt" (2 Chronicles 33:22-23). After only two years, his own servants conspired against him and killed him in his own house (2 Kings 21:23; 2 Chronicles 33:24). The people of Judah then killed the conspirators and made his eight-year-old son, Josiah, king in his place (2 Kings 21:24) -- setting the stage for one of Judah's last and most thorough religious reforms under Josiah's later reign. Amon's brief, evil reign stands as a stark contrast, in the very same chapter, to his father's genuine, late repentance -- proof that a parent's turning to God does not automatically produce the same turning in a child.