. He appears to have come under the influence of
heathen teachers.

For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father
had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove,
as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven,
and served them.... And he built altars for all the host of heaven
in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he made his son
pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments,
and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much
wickedness in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger. And
he set a graven image of the grove that he had made in the house,
of which the Lord said to David, and to Solomon his son, In this
house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all tribes of
Israel, will I put my name for ever.[539]

Isaiah ceased to prophesy after Manasseh came to the throne. According
to Rabbinic traditions he was seized by his enemies and enclosed in
the hollow trunk of a tree, which was sawn through. Other orthodox
teachers appear to have been slain also. "Manasseh shed innocent blood
very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another."[540]
It is possible that there is a reference to Isaiah's fate in an early
Christian lament regarding the persecutions of the faithful: "Others
had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and
imprisonment: they were stoned, _they were sawn asunder_, were
tempted, were slain with the sword".[541] There is no Assyrian
evidence regarding the captivity of Manasseh. "Wherefore the Lord
brought upon them (the people of Judah) the captains of the host of
the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound
him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. And when he was in
affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly
before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him: and he was
intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to
Jerusalem into his kingdom."[542] It was, however, in keeping with the
policy of Esarhaddon to deal in this manner with an erring vassal. The
Assyrian records include Manasseh of Judah (Menase of the city of
Yaudu) with the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Ashdod, Gaza,
Byblos, &c, and "twenty-two kings of Khatti" as payers of tribute to
Esarhaddon, their overlord. Hazael of Arabia was conciliated by having
restored to him