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Prayer of Manasseh - Overview

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The Prayer of Manasseh is a short penitential prayer preserved in the Church’s Greek and liturgical Old Testament inheritance. It gives words to the repentance described in 2 Chronicles 33, when King Manasseh of Judah, after severe idolatry and violence, humbled himself before the God of his fathers. The prayer is not printed in most common NKJV editions because those editions usually follow the Protestant 66-book canon and do not include the deuterocanonical or Apocrypha section. In the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Prayer of King Manasseh is read in the Bright Saturday praise sequence, where the Church waits at the tomb and proclaims that God’s mercy reaches even the deepest bondage.

Why this prayer belongs in the Bible study sequence

The Prayer of Manasseh is not a narrative book, a prophetic oracle, or a wisdom collection. It is a single prayer. Its place in a full Orthodox Old Testament study is therefore spiritual as much as canonical. After the Psalter forms the Church’s daily prayer, this small book teaches how a sinner returns to God when excuses have ended.

The prayer is a school of confession. It begins with God, not with the sinner’s emotions. It names the Lord as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Creator who bounds the sea and before whom all creation trembles. Only then does Manasseh name his sin. That order matters. Christian repentance is not self-disgust with religious language attached. It is the soul seeing itself before the majesty and mercy of God.

Why common NKJV Bibles usually omit it

When someone asks why the Prayer of Manasseh is not in a common NKJV Bible, the answer is not that the prayer was unknown to Christians. The more precise answer is that most common NKJV editions are printed according to the Protestant 66-book canon. They normally do not include the deuterocanonical books or the Greek Odes and Canticles connected with the Septuagintal tradition.

A better wording than “it only appears in the LXX” is this: the Prayer of Manasseh is not found in the Hebrew Bible, but it is preserved in Greek Christian scriptural transmission associated with the Septuagintal tradition, especially among the Odes or Canticles appended to the Psalter in some manuscripts. It also circulated in other Christian forms, including the Apostolic Constitutions and Didascalia stream, and in Latin appendix traditions. Some English Bibles with an Apocrypha section preserve it as “The Prayer of Manasses.”

For Orthodox readers, the important question is not simply whether a later Protestant printed Bible includes it. The better question is what the worshiping Church received, preserved, prayed, and handed down. The Coptic Orthodox tradition receives a broader Old Testament inheritance than the Protestant canon, and this prayer stands inside that Septuagintal and ecclesial stream.

Manasseh himself

Portrait of Manasseh from Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum Source: Guillaume Rouille, Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum (1553), public domain, Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manases-Manasseh.jpg

Manasseh was the son of righteous King Hezekiah. According to 2 Chronicles 33, he began to reign at twelve years old and reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His reign was spiritually disastrous. He rebuilt the high places his father had torn down, worshiped the host of heaven, placed idolatrous altars in the courts of the Lord’s house, practiced divination and sorcery, and led Judah and Jerusalem into grave evil.

The darkest detail is that he made his children pass through fire in the valley of Ben Hinnom. This cannot be softened. Manasseh becomes a picture of religious corruption, fatherly failure, national seduction, and temple desecration. He is not a basically decent man who needed encouragement. He is a king whose sin wounded his family, his people, and the house of God.

Yet 2 Chronicles also records the turn. The Lord brought Assyrian captains against him. Manasseh was taken in bonds and brought to Babylon. In affliction, he sought the face of the Lord his God, humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed. God heard him, restored him to Jerusalem, and Manasseh knew that the Lord is God. His repentance did not erase every consequence of his reign, but it shows that God’s mercy can reach even a man whose life has become a warning.

How the prayer was passed down

Second Chronicles says that Manasseh prayed, and that the account of his prayer and God’s answer was written in records connected with the seers. The Prayer of Manasseh as we have it is best understood as the Church’s received penitential form of that prayer. It may not be a verbatim court transcript. It is a true theological and liturgical witness to the repentance that Chronicles preserves.

The prayer appears in Greek manuscript tradition, notably connected with the Odes or Canticles appended to the Psalter in some Septuagint witnesses. It is also known through the Apostolic Constitutions and Didascalia stream, and it passed into several Christian Bible traditions in different positions. Some traditions place it after 2 Chronicles because that is where Manasseh’s prayer is mentioned. Others preserve it among biblical canticles. The variation in placement is part of its transmission history.

This matters for teaching. The prayer is not a modern curiosity or a hidden novelty. It is a small text the Church kept alive because it gave sinners words to return to God.

Historical and scriptural context

The narrative background is 2 Kings 21 and 2 Chronicles 33. Kings emphasizes the horror of Manasseh’s sins and the judgment connected with his reign. Chronicles, while not softening the sins, preserves his humiliation, prayer, restoration, and partial reform. The Prayer of Manasseh lives in the space Chronicles opens: the space between severe sin and astonishing mercy.

Theologically, the prayer belongs beside Psalm 50 (NKJV Psalm 51), the publican’s cry in Luke 18, the prodigal son’s return in Luke 15, and the apostolic promise that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us. The prayer is not a substitute for the Gospel. It prepares the soul to receive the Gospel. It teaches a sinner how to stop defending himself and begin worshiping the God who forgives.

The text broken open

The God of the fathers and Creator of all (Prayer of Manasseh 1:1-7)

The prayer begins with God: “O Lord Almighty, the God of our fathers Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.” Manasseh returns to the covenant God his sins had betrayed. He confesses God as Maker of heaven and earth, the One who bounds the sea and closes the abyss, the One before whom all things tremble.

This opening matters because Manasseh had spent his reign bowing before created powers and false gods. Now he confesses the One before whom every creature is small. Repentance begins when the false greatness of sin collapses before the true greatness of God.

Yet the same opening does not leave the sinner crushed under wrath alone. God’s mercy is called immeasurable. His goodness has proclaimed repentance and forgiveness to those who have sinned. This is the prayer’s first great paradox: God’s glory is unbearable to sinners, and His mercy is beyond measure for sinners.

Repentance appointed for me, a sinner (Prayer of Manasseh 1:8-10)

Manasseh says, “Thou hast appointed repentance for me a sinner.” This is one of the most important lines in the book. Repentance is not humiliation for its own sake. It is a gift appointed for sinners.

He does not negotiate with God. He does not balance his evil against his reforms. He does not say he was young, pressured, misunderstood, or no worse than the kings around him. He says his sins are multiplied and that he is unworthy even to look toward heaven. The prayer refuses both pride and self-salvation.

The image of iron bonds works historically and spiritually. Historically, Chronicles says Manasseh was taken in bonds. Spiritually, sin itself has bound him. He cannot lift his head. He cannot release himself. He needs mercy.

The knee of the heart (Prayer of Manasseh 1:11-13)

The prayer’s central image is: “I bend the knee of my heart.” Manasseh may have bent his outward knee many times in idolatrous worship, but now his heart bends before God. This is the difference between religious performance and repentance.

His confession is deliberately simple: “I have sinned, Lord, I have sinned.” The repetition removes evasion. It is close in spirit to the publican’s cry in Luke 18: “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” The point is not eloquence. The point is truth before God.

The prayer also guards against despair. Manasseh asks God not to destroy him with his transgressions because God is “the God of the repenting.” God is not only the God of the righteous before they fall. He is the God who receives those who turn back.

Saved according to great mercy (Prayer of Manasseh 1:14-15)

The prayer ends in praise: “I will praise thee continually all the days of my life.” This is not a sudden change of subject. True repentance leads to worship. Manasseh does not ask merely to escape punishment. He wants the rest of his life to become praise.

This is why the prayer belongs on Bright Saturday. The Church stands between burial and Resurrection, between the horror of sin and the dawn of Christ’s victory. Manasseh’s prayer says what every sinner needs to hear at the tomb: the Lord is the God of those who repent, and His mercy can turn even a ruined life toward glory.

The Church’s voice in worship

In the Coptic Orthodox Bright Saturday night service, the Prayer of King Manasseh appears in the Praises of the Prophets. The checked Bright Saturday reference material places it after the Prayer of Hezekiah and before the prayers of Isaiah. One local workbook note says the prayer is read in English and does not specify the exact verse reference, so this study treats the whole Prayer of Manasseh as the governing text.

Bright Saturday, also called Apocalypse Night or Saturday of Light, is the night of burial, expectation, prophecy, Revelation, and the first shining of Resurrection hope. The Church is not merely waiting for Pascha morning. She is confessing that Christ has descended into the depths, broken the power of death, and brought light to those sitting in darkness.

Manasseh’s prayer belongs there because it is a descent-and-return prayer. A king descends into bondage because of his sin. He humbles himself, cries to the God of his fathers, and is restored. On Bright Saturday, the Church hears that pattern through Christ. The Savior descends not because He sinned, but because we did. He enters the lowest place to save the unworthy according to His great mercy.

Iconography and visual teaching

No single stable Coptic iconographic tradition for the Prayer of Manasseh was verified for this overview. The included 1553 portrait of Manasseh is therefore an illustrative historical image, not an Orthodox icon. It can help students attach the prayer to the actual king of Judah, but it should not carry the theological weight of the lesson.

The safer visual teaching path remains symbolic and scriptural:

  1. Manasseh in chains, to connect the prayer with 2 Chronicles 33 and the bondage of sin.
  2. The publican in prayer, to connect the knee of the heart with Gospel humility.
  3. Bright Saturday or Harrowing of Hades imagery, to show Christ bringing light into the depths.

Any future image selection should avoid romanticizing Manasseh or minimizing his sins. The visual burden should be repentance, bondage, mercy, and praise.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

  1. Begin repentance with God, not with self-analysis. The prayer starts by naming the Lord, the God of the fathers and Creator of all. Before counting your sins, look at God’s majesty and mercy.

  2. Do not excuse the sin you need God to heal. Manasseh does not defend himself. He says, “I have sinned, Lord, I have sinned.” Confession begins when excuses stop.

  3. Bend the knee of the heart. Outward religious action is not enough if the heart stays proud. The body can stand in church while the heart refuses to bow.

  4. Let mercy defeat despair. Manasseh’s sins are severe. The prayer does not make them small. It makes God’s mercy greater. This is not permission to delay repentance. It is a warning never to call repentance impossible.

  5. Let repentance become praise. The last movement of the prayer is glory. The goal of confession is not endless self-hatred. The goal is restored worship.

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