2 Kings 21:20

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, as did Manasseh his father.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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מְנַשֶּׁ֥ה

Mᵉnashsheh

H4519

“Manasseh”

Noun, Proper

Appears 146× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 41:51

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H5382

TWOT: 1217

Manasseh = "causing to forget" - the eldest son of Joseph and progenitor of the tribe of Manasseh - the tribe descended from Manasseh - the territory occupied by the tribe of Manasseh - son of king Hezekiah of Judah and himself king of Judah; he was the immediate and direct cause for the exile - a descendant of Pahath-moab who put away a foreign wife in the time of Ezra - a descendant of Hashum who put away a foreign wife in the time of Ezra

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

8: words
7: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
4 nouns
1 adjective
1 particle

Verb forms

וַיַּ֥עַשׂ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
עָשָׂ֖ה Qal · Perfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

וַיַּ֥עַשׂ to do H6213 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 16 words from the Hebrew and 18 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 8 Hebrew tokens and 13 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to 2 Kings 21:20 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

2 Kings 21:2–7 He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, after the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh cast out before the children of Israel.
2 Kings 21:11 Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations, and has done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, who were before him, and has made Judah also to sin with his idols;
2 Chronicles 33:22–23 He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, as did Manasseh his father; and Amon sacrificed to all the engraved images which Manasseh his father had made, and served them.
Matthew 23:32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.
Acts 7:51 "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do.
Numbers 32:14 Behold, you are risen up in your fathers' place, an increase of sinful men, to augment yet the fierce anger of Yahweh toward Israel.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew 2 Kings 21:20 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיַּ֥עַשׂ הָרַ֖ע בְּעֵינֵ֣י יְהוָ֑ה כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשָׂ֖ה מְנַשֶּׁ֥ה אָבִֽיו

He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, as did Manasseh his father.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Kings 21:20 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ποιέω ὁ πονηρός ἐν ὀφθαλμός κύριος καθώς ποιέω μανασσῆς ὁ πατήρ αὐτός

And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as Manasses his father did.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וַעֲבַד דְבִישׁ קֳדָם יְיָ כְּמָא דַעֲבַד מְנַשֶׁה אֲבוּהִי:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on 2 Kings 21:20 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

2Ki 21:20 And he did [that which was] evil in the sight of the LORD, as his father Manasseh did.

Ver. 20. As his father Manasseh did.] He imitated him in his sins, but not in his repentance. I have sinned with Peter, but not repented with Peter, said Stephen Gardiner, dying in despair. Amon humbled not himself as his father did, but increased the guilt. {2Ch 33:23} The Hebrews say that unto all other his sins he added this, that he burnt the books of the law.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

20. as his father Manasseh did] We can see from the notice of Manasseh in 2Ch_33:17 that his repentance did not undo all the evil he had brought into the nation. ‘The people did sacrifice still in the high places, yet unto the Lord their God only’. And on Amon, his son, the reformation of the father seems to have had no effect. ‘An ill guise is easily taken up, it is not so easily left. After a common depravation of religion, it is hard to return unto the first purity: as when a garment is deeply soiled it cannot without many lavers recover the former cleanness’ (Bp Hall).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord,.... Committed idolatry:

as his father Manasseh did: he imitated him in that, but not in his repentance and humiliation, Ch2 33:23.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

CHAPTER XXI.

Done, in his youth, flattering himself that he should also repent, when he had gratified his passions (Glycas) but God presently chastised this presumption, after suffering him to reign only two years. (Tirinus)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The Pulpit Commentary

And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh did. (comp. 2Ch_33:22, and Josephus, "Ant. Jud:," 10:4.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

2 Kings, in the Historical, opens this verse with 8 words (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Mᵉnashsheh (“Manasseh”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “Manasseh” (Mᵉnashsheh) contribute to the verse as a whole?
How does 2 Kings 21:2–7, which shares this passage’s theme, read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “to do” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וַיַּ֥עַשׂ» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 8 Hebrew ↔ 13 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 8 words in this verse.
“to do” occurs 2× in this single verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.