Manasseh: Fifty-Five Years and Repentance
Hezekiah's son set an idol inside the Temple itself and filled Jerusalem with innocent blood. Taken in chains to Babylon, he repented — and was restored to his throne.
Manasseh was twelve when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years — longer than any other king of Judah. He rebuilt the high places his father had torn down, raised altars to Baal, worshipped the host of heaven in the very courts of the Temple, passed his son through fire, practiced sorcery and necromancy, and set a carved image inside the House of which God had said, "In it I will put My name forever." He "shed very much innocent blood, until he filled Jerusalem from end to end."
Chronicles tells what Kings leaves out. God spoke to Manasseh and to the people and they did not listen. So the commanders of Assyria came, took him with hooks, bound him in bronze fetters and carried him to Babylon. "In his distress he entreated the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers… and God heard his plea and brought him back to Jerusalem, to his kingdom. And Manasseh knew that the Lord is God."
He returned, threw the idol out of the Temple and restored the service. But the people had grown used to the high places, and half a century of idolatry was not erased in the years left.