July 29, 2026; 2 Kings 21

Daily Dose of Hope July 29, 2026   Scripture: 2 Kings 21   Prayer: Abba Father, We come to you today with gratitude.  Thank you for loving us.  Thank you for wanting a relationship with us. Thank you for never leaving our side.  Thank you for giving us glimpses of how this world is supposed to be.  Help us to follow you more closely, Lord.  We need your truth.  We need your guidance and direction.  With every fiber of our being, we need you.  As we read your Word today and reflect on it, Lord, speak to us.  Help us grow closer to you.  Let us know where we are falling short so that we can be the people you have called us to be.  In Your Name, Amen.   Welcome back to the Daily Dose of Hope, the devotional and podcast that complements the New Hope Bible reading plan.  We are currently in 2 Kings, getting close to the end of the chapter.  In fact, we have four chapters left after today.  On August 5, we will be starting a deep dive into Genesis and Exodus.  Hope you will join us for that as well.   Today's chapter is 2 Kings 21.  After Hezekiah, his son takes over.  King Manasseh is almost the opposite of this father.  He is really, really evil – worshipping other gods, putting altars to other gods in the Temple, sacrificing human beings, shedding innocent blood, the list goes on and on.    I can't help but wonder how Manasseh got to be so evil.  He had a pretty good role model in Hezekiah.  Who were his other influences?  What was his family life like?  He came to the throne at twelve, very young really.  Did he have any relationship at all with his dad?  When someone is that evil, you can't help wonder how he got that way.   We don't get a lot of details about Manasseh in this chapter.  But 2 Chronicles 33 gives more information.  In 2 Chronicles, we read about how God's anger led him to allow Manasseh to be taken by the Assyrians into Babylon and he was treated like an animal.  It was at that point that Manasseh cries out to the one true God and God hears his cries.  God allows him to return to Jerusalem and gave him back the kingdom.  It was at that time that Manasseh really changed his ways.  He no longer worshiped other gods but only the one true God.  He removed the desecration in the temple and restored the proper altar.  He appears, at least according to the chronicler, to be a changed man.  This seems like such a significant life transformation that one wonders why the author of 2 Kings did not mention it.  What are your guesses?   But today we also learn about Amon, Manasseh's son.  He is evil through and through, learning from his father's early days.  I wonder how much parenting actually went on between a king and his son.  It seems that good kings had bad kids and bad kings sometimes had good kids.  With so many wives and concubines, I can't help but think most of the parenting was done by the moms and probably hired help.  These women were usually pagans, having a huge influence on these kids.  The situation was far from ideal.  The fate of the nation really fell to men who were often parented by pagans and probably given everything they wanted.  Y'all, leadership really matters.   Blessings, Pastor Vicki