מלכים ב, פרק כ״א, פסוק ט״ז

The reign of King Manasseh was defined by a combination of deep spiritual corruption and unrestrained violence. Historical records carefully separate his acts of horrific bloodshed from his sins of idol worship. This distinction highlights a tragic reality: while Manasseh eventually repented for his idolatry later in life, he never repented for his countless acts of murder. As a result, the guilt of spilling innocent blood remained permanently attached to him [מלבי״ם]. The victims of this violence were primarily those who bravely refused to participate in pagan rituals, as well as the prophets who attempted to guide the nation back to the right path, echoing the brutal campaigns once led by Jezebel [רלב״ג]. Tradition notes that the sheer magnitude of this cruelty culminated in Manasseh's murder of the prophet Isaiah [רד״ק, חומת אנך].

The scale of this terror was absolute, with blood flooding Jerusalem from one end of the city to the other, reaching every gate [מצודת דוד, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Manasseh, however, did not commit every murder with his own hands. Once the king showed a complete disregard for the sanctity of human life to achieve his personal ambitions [ביאור שטיינזלץ], the public learned from his example and began to shed blood themselves. Because Manasseh engineered this total moral collapse, every murder committed in the city is charged to his account, as if he had carried out the killings personally [מצודת דוד, חומת אנך]. Another perspective suggests that the widespread nature of the violence meant that every resident in Jerusalem was speaking to one another about the horrific bloodshed and the tragic death of Isaiah [חומת אנך].

Ultimately, a clear line is drawn between Manasseh's violent crimes against humanity and his spiritual failures. His role in causing the kingdom of Judah to do evil in the eyes of God represents an entirely separate category of wrongdoing. These were sins committed directly against God, driven primarily by his aggressive introduction of idol worship that corrupted the entire nation [מצודת דוד, ביאור שטיינזלץ].