And when he was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,
When he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God. In the solitude of exile or imprisonment, Manasseh had leisure for reflection. The calamities forced upon him a review of his past life, under a conviction that the miseries of his dethronement and captive condition were owing to his awful and unprecedented apostasy (2 Chronicles 33:7) from the God of his fathers. He humbled himself, repented, and prayed for an opportunity of bringing forth the fruits of repentance. His prayer was heard; because his conqueror not only released him, but, after two years' exile, restored him with honour and the full exercise of royal power, to a tributary and dependent kingdom.
Some political motive, doubtless, prompted the Assyrian king to restore Manasseh, and that was most probably to have the kingdom of Judah as a barrier between Egypt and his Assyrian dominions. But God overruled this measure for higher purposes. Manasseh now showed himself, by the influence of sanctified affliction, a new and better man: for he made a complete reversal of his former policy, by not only destroying all the idolatrous statues and altars be had formerly erected in Jerusalem, but displaying the most ardent zeal in restoring and encouraging the worship of God.