2 Chronicles 33:11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria Some suppose that Esar-haddon, the successor of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, is here meant, and that, in consequence of the royal family failing in Babylon, he found means to bring that kingdom under his yoke again; or that, by force of arms, or some other means, he recovered it from Merodach-Baladan. They say that he held it thirteen years, and that it was during this time that Manasseh was taken and carried captive to Babylon. Others think it more probable that the king of Babylon is here called the king of Assyria, because he had added Assyria to his empire, and that having been informed by his ambassadors of the great riches which were in Hezekiah's treasures at Jerusalem, and being assured of Manasseh's degeneracy from the piety of his father, and from that God whose power alone made Hezekiah formidable, he thought this a fit season to invade Manasseh's kingdom, which the Jews say he did, in the twenty- second year of his reign. Which took Manasseh among the thorns In some thicket where he thought to have hid himself from the Assyrians till he could make an escape: or, as the Hebrew בחוחים, bachochim, may be rendered, with hooks, metaphorically speaking; or, in his forts, that is, in one of them.