In the Hebrew text the name here rendered Manasseh is written MN)- SH. Without the “N” (nun) suspended over the line, the word may be read: Moses, whose son was Gershom Exodus 2:22, whose son or descendant Jonathan clearly was. The Masoretes, probably grieved that a descendant of Moses should have been implicated in idolatrous worship, adopted this expedient for disguising the fact without absolutely falsifying the text. The Vulgate has “Moses”, the Septuagint “Manasses”.
These verses seem to tell us that Jonathan’s descendants were priests to the tribe of Dan until the captivity 2 Kings 15:29; 2 Kings 17:6; and that the graven image was in their custody until David’s time, by whose order, perhaps, it was destroyed, though the idolatrous worship continued, or was revived, at Dan.