He. — Emphatic. Not in Kings.
Caused his children ... fire. — The plural, as in 2 Chronicles 28:3, is rhetorical. Kings, “his son.”
In the valley of the son of Hinnom. — Explanatory addition by the chronicler.
Also he observed times, and used enchantments. — And he practised augury and divination. Forbidden, Leviticus 19:26. The first words seem strictly to mean “observed clouds; “the second, “observed serpents.”
And used witchcraft. — And muttered spells or charms. This word does not occur in the parallel place, but all the offences here ascribed to Manasseh are forbidden in Deuteronomy 18:10-11.
And dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards. — And appointed a necromancer and a wizard. Kings has wizards. The source of all these modes of soothsaying was Babylon. Like the first king of Israel, Manasseh appears to have despaired of help or counsel from Jehovah. (Comp. Jeremiah 44:17-18.) The heavy yoke of Assyria again weighed the nation down, and the great deliverance under Hezekiah was almost forgotten. “To all the Palestinian nations the Assyrian crisis had made careless confidence in the help of their national deities a thing impossible. As life was embittered by foreign bondage, the darker aspects of heathenism became dominant. The wrath of the gods seemed more real than their favour; atoning ordinances were multiplied, human sacrifices became more frequent, the terror which hung over all the nations that groaned under the Assyrian yoke found habitual expression in the ordinances of worship; and it was this aspect of heathenism that came to the front in Manasseh’s imitations of foreign religion” (Robertson Smith, The Prophets of Israel, p. 366).
He wrought much evil. — Literally, he multiplied doing the evil. He was worse than his evil predecessors