Who is Manasseh, and why did he allegedly cut Isaiah in two with a saw?

 

Manasseh was the son of King Hezekiah and became king at the age of 12 when his dad died. He would rule the nation of Israel for 55 years, mostly as a bad king deliberately doing bad things to offend God. His dad Hezekiah, was a good king who obeyed God. Manasseh’s father spent his life trying to learn about and please God attempting to reverse the bad influence of his dad, that is Manasseh’s grandfather, Ahaz. His grandfather was a very bad king who died before he was born.

Manasseh was a bad king most of his life who God disciplined by allowing him to be captured by the Assyrians. The Assyrians were known to be excessively cruel to their prisoners.

When his life became unpleasant, he humbled himself and appealed to the God who he spent his life trying to offend. God heard his pleas. Then he was released from prison and spent the rest of his life trying to restore true worship. However he could not rid the the nation of all the apostasy that he promoted in the land.

The prophet Isaiah was a prophet to Hezekiah and although the accepted Bible canon does not directly say he was a prophet to Manasseh, it would make sense that after Hezekiah died that he could be a prophet to his son Manasseh. Prophets were known for attempting to correct the kings of Judah. Prophets at times were mistreated by kings who did not want to be corrected by the prophets so they misused their authority to hurt the ones sent by God to correct them.

There are two ancient writings, the apocryphal book The Prayer of Manasseh and the pseudepigrapha book The Martyrdom of Isaiah that are part of the Ethiopian Bible which give details to the story about the interactions of Isaiah and Manasseh. There is another pseudepigrapha book The Ascension of Isaiah which I have not yet read which may give more information on the event that you mention. However, some people think that these books were written by pious Jews in later years and are not reliable Bible cannon.

This is what the Bible says about Manasseh.

2 Chronicles 33:1–20

• “Twelve years old was Ma·nasʹseh when he began to reign, and for fifty-five years he reigned in Jerusalem. 2 And he proceeded to do what was bad in Jehovah’s eyes, according to the detestable things of the nations that Jehovah had driven out from before the sons of Israel. 3 So he built again the high places that Hez·e·kiʹah his father had pulled down, and set up altars to the Baʹals and made sacred poles, and he began to bow down to all the army of the heavens and serve them. 4 And he built altars in the house of Jehovah, respecting which Jehovah had said: “In Jerusalem my name will prove to be to time indefinite.” 5 And he went on to build altars to all the army of the heavens in two courtyards of the house of Jehovah. 6 And he himself made his own sons pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinʹnom, and practiced magic and used divination and practiced sorcery and made spiritistic mediums and professional foretellers of events. He did on a grand scale what was bad in the eyes of Jehovah, to offend him.
• 7 Furthermore, he put the carved image that he had made in the house of the [true] God, respecting which God had said to David and to Solʹo·mon his son: “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I shall put my name to time indefinite. 8 And I shall not remove the foot of Israel again from off the ground that I assigned to their forefathers, provided only that they take care to do all that I have commanded them concerning all the law and the regulations and the judicial decisions by the hand of Moses.” 9 And Ma·nasʹseh kept seducing Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do worse than the nations that Jehovah had annihilated from before the sons of Israel.
• 10 And Jehovah kept speaking to Ma·nasʹseh and his people, but they paid no attention. 11 Finally Jehovah brought against them the chiefs of the army that belonged to the king of As·syrʹi·a, and so they captured Ma·nasʹseh in the hollows and bound him with two fetters of copper and took him to Babylon. 12 And as soon as it caused him distress, he softened the face of Jehovah his God and kept humbling himself greatly because of the God of his forefathers. 13 And he kept praying to Him, so that He let himself be entreated by him and He heard his request for favor and restored him to Jerusalem to his kingship; and Ma·nasʹseh came to know that Jehovah is the [true] God.
• 14 And after this he built an outer wall for the City of David to the west of Giʹhon in the torrent valley and as far as the Fish Gate, and he ran [it] around to Oʹphel and proceeded to make it very high. Further, he put chiefs of the military force in all the fortified cities in Judah. 15 And he proceeded to remove the foreign gods and the idol image from the house of Jehovah and all the altars that he had built in the mountain of the house of Jehovah and in Jerusalem and then had them thrown outside the city. 16 Moreover, he prepared the altar of Jehovah and began to sacrifice upon it communion sacrifices and thanksgiving sacrifices and went on to say to Judah to serve Jehovah the God of Israel. 17 Nevertheless, the people were still sacrificing upon the high places; only it was to Jehovah their God.
• 18 As for the rest of the affairs of Ma·nasʹseh and his prayer to his God and the words of the visionaries that kept speaking to him in the name of Jehovah the God of Israel, there they are among the affairs of the kings of Israel. 19 As for his prayer and how his entreaty was granted him and all his sin and his unfaithfulness and the locations in which he built high places and set up the sacred poles and the graven images before he humbled himself, there they are written among the words of his visionaries. 20 Finally Ma·nasʹseh lay down with his forefathers, and they buried him at his house; and Aʹmon his son began to reign in place of him.

Some people think Hebrews 11:37 is in reference to Isaiah being killed by Manasseh. Some think that sawn asunder means cut in two.

• “They were stoned, they were tried, they were sawn asunder, they died by slaughter with the sword, they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, while they were in want, in tribulation, under ill-treatment.”