The Prayer of Manasseh is a little jewel, a treasure of spiritual devotion. In spite of the fact that this prayer has never achieved canonical status or even, for most Christians, deuterocanonical status, it will simply not go away. It is received as canonical Scripture by the Orthodox churches, which place it immediately after 2 Chronicles. Its Greek text is not part of the Septuagint, and it has never been accepted as Scripture in the Catholic Church, although it has long been known and highly valued; in a Latin form (later than Jerome) it appears in an appendix at the end of Vulgate editions of the Bible. Martin Luther treasured it and translated it, making it part of his Apocrypha. As such it found its way into English Bibles, although Wycliffe himself had included it in his translation. In the Geneva Bible of 1560, it appears among the Old Testament books, following 2 Chronicles, but headed “Apocryphe.” The earliest text of The Prayer of Manasseh we possess is in Syriac, where it is incorporated into a Christian document known as Didascalia, dated from the third century A.D. The Greek text, which we are following, is found in two major manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament, but in a supplement to the Book of Psalms called “Odes.” The presence of this poem in this supplement shows that it was known by the Greek church and used liturgically from an early date.

The Manasseh to whom the title refers is the King Manasseh who ruled Judah from 698 to 642 B.C. According to 2 Kgs 21.1-18, Manasseh was the low point of the Judean kings, the worst of them all, but he ruled for 55 years. The account in 2 Chr 33.1-20 is quite different. There too, Manasseh is a wicked king, and is taken captive by the king of Assyria. While in exile, however, he repents of his sin, and God brings him back to Jerusalem. In 2 Chr 33.12-13 his prayer of repentance is mentioned, and in 33.18-19 it is said that his prayer was recorded in two different places. There is no evidence whatever that the poem we call The Prayer of Manasseh was in fact written or spoken by Manasseh, was ever part of the books of 1-2 Chronicles, or was ever contained in the two sources mentioned by the Chronicler. It is so short that it is difficult to speak with any confidence about its origin, but scholars are most comfortable dating it in the last two centuries B.C., although the early part of the first century A.D. is not out of the question. The original language of the poem is very much in doubt, with some scholars favoring a Greek original, others a Semitic language. It could have been written almost anywhere, but Palestine is favored. Claims were made in the past for a Christian author, but opinion today strongly favors a Jewish writer. The writer may have been consciously composing a prayer such as King Manasseh might have prayed in exile, or, since there are a few subtle connections between The Prayer of Manasseh and the language of 2 Chr 33, an anonymous and nameless prayer may have come to be associated with the repentant king, thus receiving its traditional title.

The prayer can be divided into three parts:

1-7 Invocation and praise to God
8-10 Confession of sin
11-15 Petition for mercy

While these phrases could be used as section headings, the prayer is so brief that breaking it into sections may not be seen as necessary. If one heading for the whole prayer is desired, NEB provides a helpful one-word title: “Repentance.” Another possibility is “Manasseh repents.”

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Shorter Books of the Deuterocanon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2006. For this and other handbooks for translators see