Wherefore the LORD brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon.
The captains of the host of the king of Assyria. This king was Esarhaddon (Rawlinson's 'Ancient Monarchies,' 2:, p. 466; 'Nineveh and Babylon,' p. 621), who, after having devoted the first years of his reign to the consolidation of his government at home, turned his attention to repair the loss of the tributary provinces west of the Euphrates, which, on the disaster and death of Sennacherib, had taken the opportunity of shaking off the Assyrian yoke. Having overrun Palestine and removed the remnant that were left in the kingdom of Israel, he despatched his generals, the chief of whom was Tartan (Isaiah 20:1), with a portion of his army, for the reduction of Judah also. In a successful attack upon Jerusalem, they took multitudes of captives, and got a great prize, including the king himself among the prisoners.
Took Manasseh among the thorns. This may mean, as is commonly supposed, that he had hid himself among a thicket of briars and brambles; and we know that the Hebrews sometimes took refuge from their enemies in thickets (1 Samuel 13:6). But instead of "among the thorns" х bachowchiym (H2336)], some versions read [bªchaayyim], 'among the living;' and so the passage would be, 'took him alive.'
Bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. The Hebrew word rendered fetters, denotes properly two chains of brass. The humiliating state in which Manasseh appeared before the Assyrian monarch may be judged of by a picture on a tablet in the Khorsabad palace, representing prisoners led bound into the king's presence. 'The captives represented appear to be inhabitants of Palestine. Behind the prisoners stand four persons with inscriptions on the lower part of their tunics. The first two are bearded, and seem to be accusers; the remaining two are nearly defaced; but behind the last appears the eunuch, whose office it seems to be to usher into the presence of the king those who are permitted to appear before him. He is followed by another person of the same race as those under punishment. His hands are manacled, and on his ankles are strong rings fastened together by a heavy bar' ('Nineveh and its Palaces').
No name is given, and therefore no conclusion can be drawn that the figure represents Manasseh; but the people appear to be Hebrews; and this pictorial scene will enable us to imagine the manner in which the royal captive from Judah was received into the court of Babylon. Esarhaddon had established his residence there; for though, from the many revolts that followed the death of his father, he succeeded at first only to the throne of Assyria, yet having sometime previous to his conquest of Judah recovered possession of Babylon, this enterprising king had united under his sway the two empires of Babylon and Chaldea, and transferred the seat of his government to Babylon. The Assyrian inscriptions show that Esarhaddon built a palace in Babylon, and resided much in that capital (Havernick's 'Introduction,' 2:, 1; Rawlinson's 'Herodotus,' 1:, 482; Winer, 'Realworterbuch,' 'Manasse').