“And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed” (Genesis 2:8).

Summoned to a God-like life equal to the angels and to constant communion with God, to a greater and greater comprehension of God and likeness unto God, man was not supposed to be distracted from this most important goal in the world by any concern for himself in the world that had been created by God. For this reason the plants, extracting liquids from the earth and the air, performed for him the task of converting lifeless inorganic matter into organic matter capable of taking part in living processes; the animals served man, becoming submissively obedient to his will. Man could concentrate on communion with God.

The Lord gave man the commandment: “Of every tree in the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it” (Gen. 2:16-17).

As in each act of God, there are many meanings, many facets in this first commandment of God to man. Man’s freedom is being established in reality: man is free, he can either obey or disobey. There was no guardian, as the later archangel with a fiery sword, standing at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

This commandment was intended to educate man, to make him grow in love for God. Like the angels, man was created by God for a life of rapture and joy. A life of rapture is provided by a life of love. Man was created for a life of love for God and for creatures one-in-essence with him, i.e. for other humans above all: Adam for love for the one who in spirit had been created jointly with him, as another person of the same being, and in body was created from his rib, and Eve for her spiritual mate and bodily origin.

But love as a theoretical confession, as a simple statement of fact is fruitless and immobile, it does not develop, even more than that – it dries up. Love requires its manifestation. And the most direct and natural manifestation of love is the fulfillment of the beloved’s will. Thus in fulfilling God’s will: of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat, the love of Adam and Eve for God was to grow and develop, their will was to become stronger, their entire spiritual organization was to be perfected.

The Church rejects the ancient widespread belief that the eating of the forbidden fruit symbolized something else, in particular the physical joining of Adam and Eve. This union came about later, after the Fall, and in itself had no relation to it whatsoever.

The first people, childishly inexperienced, simple and primitive, more inexperienced even than modern children (for children, though lacking personal experience, now have the inherited experience that was lacking in Adam and Eve), these first people who were wise through grace-filled communion with God but absolutely simple personally, were to be given the very simplest commandment. God does give such a commandment: you may eat of all the trees, but do not eat of one of them. In this commandment we very easily recognize one of the simplest and most basic church commandments, ancient as the Church itself, accessible to all people, and yet so arrogantly disregarded today by so many – the commandment on fasting.

Why is the forbidden tree called the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Because man came out of God’s hands as an absolutely good creature without an iota of evil, and consequently could not know about good and evil. Through his eating of the forbidden fruit evil would enter into him, and he would begin to differentiate between it and his own inherent good with which he was invested by God. But God did not wish His most-loved creation to know evil. Just like parents in old-fashioned, good, strong families tried to guard their children as long as possible from knowing the worst and seamiest sides of life, so does God wish the same for His beloved earthly child.

It is absolutely futile to guess at how man’s fate would have turned out, if the originator of evil, the fallen angel, were not already in the world at that time, rejecting God and all His qualities. Motivated by all that was contrary to God and His qualities, i.e. by hate instead of love, ill will instead of goodwill, the devil – Satan – the dragon, “that old serpent, called the devil and Satan” (Rev. 12:9), could not but attempt to incite God’s new creatures – the humans – to the same insurgency against God and disobedience to Him, in which he himself had engaged and had involved the multitude of spirits who had fallen together with him.

St. Basil the Great speaks thusly of this: “The devil, seeing himself ousted from the host of Angels, could not look with indifference upon how the human creation was succeeding in being elevated to angelic honor.”

And the serpent said to the woman: “Yea, hath God truly said: ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden”?

Having rebelled against the Truth, the father of deceit is unable to speak the truth. The devil is a slanderer; he uses slander in the very first words that man hears from him. He knows that God had allowed the first people to eat of all the trees except one. This commandment concerning the one tree the devil wishes to libelously present as God’s prohibition to eat of all the trees. At the same time, the slander is constructed in such a way that at a superficial glance it does not strike the eye. People who read the Bible inattentively often do not notice right away the slander in these devil’s words. In this ancient technique of Satan’s we likewise easily recognize his modern maligning techniques, both on the wide scale of various contemporary antireligious and anti-Christian forces, as well as in one’s own soul, when grumbling against God or maligning our neighbors in anger. This is just another confirmation of the lack of creative diversity in God’s enemy and of the sameness of his techniques in tempting humans throughout many millennia.

And the woman said to the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said: ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”

By the very fact that she enters into conversation with the serpent despite having heard him malign God, Eve shows that love for God has not been kindled within her, has not developed, has not grown. And in her response she clearly yields to the serpent’s lie: she also slanders God to some degree, exaggerates His demand, describes His commandment inaccurately. God did not say: “neither shall ye touch it.” If Eve had described God’s words with absolute accuracy and truthfulness, the devil would have perhaps run from her, for he not only abhors, but cannot stand the absolute truth of God’s words. But a distorted half-truth, however, he is able to stand and thus continues his slander.

“And the serpent said unto the woman: ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

This slander is sophisticated and significant. God created people to be God-like and to gradually become more and more like unto Him through love for Him, as St. Basil the Great teaches: “We are creatures, but are summoned to become gods through grace.”

Afterwards the Son of God would come down to earth in order to deify man, as the church hymns continuously tell us. “God became man so that man would become god.” If the devil did not know this plan of God for man, for he does not know God’s plans, he still could have guessed it, because such was God’s plan for him, too, when he was still an angel of light, since God had created the angels also to become like unto God. Therefore, Satan knew that the temptation “ye shall be as gods” was very real for the human soul, which was created expressly for that purpose. But instead of becoming like unto God in love for God and in union with Him, the devil offers likeness unto himself in rebellion and disobedience to God.

“And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise.”

The devil does not know the depths of the human soul that is still uncorrupted by sin, but he is quite cognizant of all the superficial movements of the soul that are tied to its essentially neutral physical nature, which can be equally directed towards good or evil. And these movements, just as everything else that he has on hand, he mobilizes in this decisive moment of enticement, subsequently repeating this technique of enticement millions and millions of times on all humans throughout the entire centuries-old and sorrowful history of mankind. “Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, worldly vanity,” – so do the Holy Fathers, who know human nature, label this threefold temptation used by the devil upon our foremother at the dawn of time.

“And she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.” – A catastrophe of cosmic proportions occurred here, yet how simply and outwardly unnoticeably. Thunders did not roar, the heavens did not tremble, the mountains did not shake – nothing outwardly reacted to this terrible catastrophe that broke up the entire universe, broke up God’s entire design for the world He had created.

But from the moment when man transgressed his duty to God, nature rebelled against him. Having transgressed his duty to God, he also transgressed his duty to nature, ceasing to serve as the tie between the external world and God. From that moment the plants and the animals ceased to freely serve man without any care on his part.

And man himself, having earlier needed all his free time for communing with God, from the moment of the cessation of such communion began to need to have his time filled up. Without such filling up of time, his life in alienation from God would be unbearable. When our soul is tormented, the only balsam is work. And for this reason, expelling him from paradise, the Lord gives man the commandment on work.

“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and have dominion over it. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.”

Once again the Lord repeats the commandment given to people in Eden. But now He adds something different. The Lord says: “And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth.” In Eden it was only said: “Have dominion over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Here, because of the changed relations between man – the crown of creation, who because of his sin did not fulfill his designation – and all other creatures, which arose against him because of that, man is given the weapon of fear instead of the former tranquil and friendly dominion.

And the Lord adds: “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you.” Here man receives the blessing to eat meat. This was not originally part of God’s plan for man. According to the Divine plan, it was plants and not animals that were to be food for man. Man was to eat the best parts of plants: their fruits, tubers, seeds. Animals were to be man’s servants and participants in his endeavors. Through sin man violated his calling and consequently severed his connection with the animal world, his understanding of the animal world, and the animals’ amicable cooperation with him.

Instead of submitting to man and cooperating with him, the stronger animals started attacking people, while the smaller ones proceeded to harm him in all possible ways. Man became imbued with fear of animals, with hostility towards them, entered into battle with the animal world. After the Deluge their relations changed. Man acquired power over the animals. Now animals would begin to fear man. They would begin hiding from him. But would this not sever all connection between mankind and the animal world? Would they not be divided into two camps that had nothing in common between them?

It was in order to overcome such alienation that Lord gave man permission to eat meat.

Instead of the bright, friendly, and unselfish relations with animals that had predominated in Eden, instead of the tortuous and unnatural relations of men fearing animals, new relations with the animal world are now introduced, built upon the lowered moral state of people after the Fall: mankind starts to see animals as a source of nourishment.

One can only guess that man started to eat meat much earlier, in the antediluvian period of his existence. At least this is what pre-historic archeological data suggests, testifying that Neanderthal man, in whom we can recognize features of antediluvian man, was primarily a meat-eater. But then it was the result of human willfulness, while now Divine permission was given to people for such nourishment, and we know that later on, the Lord miraculously sent His prophet “bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening” for food. And the very Son of God ate “a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb” (Luke, 24:42). And the 51st Holy Apostolic Rule prescribes: “If someone… refrains from eating meat not for the endeavor of abstention, but by reason of disdain, let him reform, or be excommunicated.” The Church, which esteems fasting so highly, does not approve of vegetarianism as a philosophy.

The difference between the willful meat-eating of primitive man and the God–permitted nourishment of man with meat after the Fall is striking if one delves into its essence. Previously there had existed an embittered struggle between man and beast: the terror of predators and the merciless unconditional extermination of the herbivores for food. Now there was perhaps a selfish, but still caring regard for the animal world. The domestication of animals and care for them became possible.

All the bright and kind relations between man and animals: friendship with a dog, the attachment of horses, the care of a shepherd for mules, sheep and goats, the protection of the animal world that is so highly developed nowadays, but which existed much earlier as well, – all this has its roots not so much in the commandment given by God to people in Eden, but in His new blessing to postdiluvian mankind.

“And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish My covenant with you, and with your seed after you…neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood… This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you… I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of an eternal covenant between Me and the earth.”

Is it possible that there had never before been a rainbow? – a skeptical critic would ask. Undoubtedly there was. The Lord does not create it anew. This would contradict the Biblical definition of the seventh day, existing then and lasting till now, as the day when the Lord rested from all His work. But until that time a rainbow was a simple physical phenomenon that had no special meaning, like the fata morgana, the northern lights, etc. From that moment, however, it acquired the meaning of a reminder about the covenant between God and people and the whole world. And blessed are the people who look upon this beautiful natural phenomenon with a feeling of awe and joy.

“And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.”

The English theologian T.C. Chain, a professor at Oxford University, speaking about this extract from the Bible, seriously expresses the opinion that apparently there are two narratives in the Bible about two different Noahs, for the Biblical testimony that “Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God,” and the proof given here that Noah drank wine are incompatible. We can only smile at such a typically Anglo-Saxon na?ve idea, to which indecency is a worse crime than sin. There was no sin here: Noah did not yet know the intoxicating properties of wine. And the fact which shocks the English theologian the most – that a righteous man could drink “an intoxicating beverage,” – seems droll to anyone even slightly acquainted with the nations of the Mediterranean culture, for whom wine, usually a weak one, is not a luxury, not an excess, but a daily necessity. Not for nothing does the Lord establish His holiest Sacrament under the guise of bread and wine as the most natural products for man.

“And Ham saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.”

The selection of mankind had just been performed, it had just been cleansed of corruption by the waters of the Flood, and only the best in it was preserved for further history. And now, in the very first generation of these best people saved by God, a new, disgusting type of sin is born – insolence: a son’s mockery of his father, an inferior’s of a superior, an impudent and shameless insolence.

Noah, upon awakening and learning of his offspring’s behavior, cursed Ham in his posterity and blessed Shem and Japheth. The first racial division of mankind is associated with this event.

The names of three righteous men– the Patriarch Abraham, the God-Seer Moses, and the Prophet Elijah – mark the stages of mankind’s spiritual ripening for salvation in the Old Testament.

St. Basil the Great says that he could never look without tears at the depiction of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. In truth, if one ponders the moral image of the righteous Abraham in this matter, our soul cannot but be filled with the most ardent admiration.

At a single word from the Lord, Abraham leaves his native city of Ur of the Chaldees, which was flourishing culturally, with conveniences for living, everything attractive for life, and goes to a wild, faraway country, which the Lord promises to give to his descendents to rule over forever: “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12:3).

Many years passed after that migration. Abraham, already old, but still childless, asks God: “Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?... Behold, to me Thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir” (Gen.15:2-3).

But with what ardent love is inflamed this powerful patriarch, great in his righteousness, for his long-awaited lawful son Isaac, born in his old age! This love is all-embracing, it comprises all: both the natural attachment of a father to his son and the joyfully triumphant contemplation of the beginning of the fulfillment of the Divine promises, which were to be fulfilled through this son. Therefore, in the love of Abraham for Isaac one can see the origin of the elements of the most perfect love on earth, which will be revealed two thousand years after Abraham through his blessed Granddaughter in Her relationship to Her Son and God.

And it is this son, loved with such great love, that at a word from God Abraham leads to be slain, ready to sacrifice even him to the Lord God Whom he loves more than anything in the universe. Moreover, this decisiveness to sacrifice his son at God’s command is not a brief elevation of feelings, not simply a burst of ardor. For three days Abraham and Isaac walk towards the place of sacrifice; for 72 hours lasts the torturous agony of the sacrificing father, his readiness for this terrible offering. In truth, there can be no human heart so hard that it would not tremble with anxiety while carefully reading this Biblical narration (Genesis, chapter 22)

Abraham receives the highest honor which is accessible to man in this endeavor of his. According to the Church’s view, he becomes the prototype of the Almighty God Himself – God the Father, Who for the sake of mankind’s salvation sacrifices His Only-begotten Son. And meek Isaac, carrying the wood for the burnt offering on which he was to lie down as a sacrifice, humbly questioning his father and being bound by him without complaint, – becomes the prototype of Christ the Saviour.

The first people sinned through disobedience, and through the endeavor of the righteous Abraham and Isaac disobedience is conquered with the greatest power and vividness. Human nature ascends to the highest stage of obedience, dictated by the purest love for God – the quality which the Lord, in giving man the original commandment, wanted to develop in him as the governing one, for He created man to grow in submission and love – the Divine-like qualities which the Son of God later manifested on earth in such abundance.

Truly the Lord brings us to salvation not without our participation, but in His concern for us He chooses as His co-participants those from amongst us who are faithful to Him.

But we have the right to ask: why then, if Abraham rose to such spiritual heights through his endeavor, why did he remain only a prototype of the Lord, but did not take part in the incarnation and real salvation of mankind? Why did the Lord not hurry to descend upon the Mount of Moriah, where this tremendous sacrifice was being carried out, the way He later descended to the room in Nazareth and the cave in Bethlehem? Why did He linger for over two thousand agonizing years before coming down to mankind?

In order to answer that question, we should sorrowfully turn our attention from the shining peaks of holiness which Abraham had attained, to those testimonies of slip-ups and frailties into which the same great patriarch fell.

We see that, before the birth of Isaac, fearing the Egyptians and Abimelech, Abraham twice hid behind his wife Sarah and out of fainthearted cowardice was ready to sacrifice her – the co-participant in his holiest endeavors – and lead a whole nation to Divine punishment (Gen. 12:11, 12). We see Abraham after the death of his wife Sarah, being consoled by the handmaiden Keturah.

Let not any pen or any tongue judge the greatest and holiest of the Old Testament patriarchs. But, seeing such slip-ups, such human frailties, we understand why the Lord could not descend to him in closest unity, could not make him, the way he was, a co-participant in Divine life: we see that human nature in Abraham was not yet mature enough to accept God. But Abraham participated, like none other, in the process of preparing mankind to accept the Lord, in the process of maturing for Divinely-human life. “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day: and he saw it, and was glad,” – said the Lord – the son of David, the son of Abraham.

With Abraham the Lord talked in visions at night or appeared before him in the image of the Three Wanderers. Meanwhile, before the Fall, people talked with God face-to-face, knew Him as a Person, for they were created to know God in love and obedience to Him. And it was necessary that even before the coming of the Lord to mankind, people would be given back the possibility to know God, see Him, and recognize Him.

For this the Lord calls upon one of Abraham’s descendants – the righteous Moses, filled with love for his brethren, the co-heirs of the promise, to such an extent that he abandons his brilliant (by earthly standards) state as the adopted son of a princess, Pharaoh’s daughter, as something contemptible and not deserving attention, comes to the defense of an offended countryman-Jew, and runs from Egypt. If in Abraham we see the peak of Old-Testament human love for God, then in Moses, in addition to love for God, which is not any less than that of the righteous Abraham, we see the incarnation of the second half of the basic Divine law: the peak of love for others as for oneself.

The Lord greatly elevates Moses among the elect. In storm and thunder He gives him His law on Mount Sinai, talks with Moses face-to-face, and, for the first time after the Fall, the only time before the pre-Golgotha hours, the Lord calls a human being, in the person of Moses, His friend: “If there be a prophet among you, I make Myself known unto him in a vision, and speak unto him in a dream, but not so with My servant Moses, who is faithful in all Mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even openly, and not in dark speeches; and the image of the Lord shall he behold” (Num. 12:6-8) and “And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Ex.33:11).

(Another time in the Old Testament, in the Book of Isaiah, Abraham is called the friend of God, but not during his lifetime, only many centuries after his death.)

Using his friendship with God for the realization of his strong love for others as for himself, in the terrible hour of Divine anger for the sin of the Israeli nation, Moses turns to God with a most daring prayer: “Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin… and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written” (Ex. 32:32).

(Note: Since the sin of the nation was in violating the Covenant, then the request of Moses “to forgive their sin” is equal to an appeal: “Do not think the Covenant to be violated, do not reject Israel, do not take away its name and rights as the God-chosen nation.” The need for such a request was caused by the following. The Lord answered the first appeal of Moses with the promise not to destroy Israel. In this way its continued existence was guaranteed. But such a promise did not yet mean that the Jews would remain the God-chosen nation. The very frame of mind of the nation raised doubts, for not only did it not reveal a readiness to reclaim for itself the mercy of God, but displayed extreme stubbornness, which placed them under the threat of being fully rejected by God. In view of this Moses begs: “Forgive their sin.” If forgiveness cannot be granted, then he offers his life as a sacrifice: “Blot me, I pray thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written.”)

Moses is the tool of a great Divine act: through him the Divine law, of which people were deprived after having sinned in Eden, is returned to them; they are given back the possibility of Divine Services, partial communication with God; the earth ceases being totally alien to heaven. Incompletely, imperfectly, in shades, in images and conjectures, but still through Moses, in the God-given Divine Service, into terrestrial life comes the uninterrupted process of the preparation of people for the acceptance of the Son of God. Therefore the Church especially sees in Moses the prototype of Christ, and often in the festal divine services sings chants which relate to him and to Christ the Lord, drawing comparisons between them: “The shadow of the law has passed now that grace has come…instead of a pillar of fire the Sun of righteousness has dawned, instead of Moses – Christ, the salvation of our souls” (Dogmaticon 2nd tone).

But to Moses likewise the Lord could not descend in closest union.

In the hour of his selection we see him bargaining with the Lord, evoking Divine anger by his persistent unwillingness to follow the Divine call: “O my Lord, send another one whom Thou wilt send”; we see Moses sinning before God by the waters of Meribah in Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin (Num. 20:12 and 27; Deut. 1:37 and 32:51).

The Lord said to Moses: “Yet thou shalt see the (promised) land before thee; the land which I give the children of Israel” (Deut.32:52). The Promised Land was not only a real manifestation, but it was also the prototype of the Kingdom of God, and God’s words to Moses referred to both meanings of the Promised Land: the great holy righteous God-Seer Moses was given the chance to see the Divinely-human life – the tabernacle of God and men, but was not permitted to enter it.

But Elijah also cannot become the vessel of the Divine incarnation due to the unrestrained character of his anger, his all-embracing fiery zeal for the Lord God. This rage, this zeal differ in spirit compared with the New Testament spirit, with the spirit of the One Who is meek and humble in heart. That is why, when Christ’s disciples James and John want to “command fire to come down from heaven, even as Elijah did,” Christ prohibits them, saying: “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of, for the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them” (Luke 9:54-56).

The Lord speaks of this with love and delicacy to the Prophet Elijah as well, when He appears to him on Mount Horeb: “What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said: I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

The Holy Virgin was the descendant of Abraham in soul and body. It was in order for Her to appear that he left the flourishing culture and conveniences of his native Ur of the Chaldees. From him, Her forefather, She inherited the highest transport of sacrificial love for God, manifested by Abraham on the mount of Moria in sacrificing his son. This transport of sacrificial love is revealed by Her in an even purer and more elevated way through Her participation in the salutary sufferings of the Lord on the Mount of Golgotha.

The Virgin Mary grew and was brought up in the Law given by God through Moses on holy Mount Sinai, was brought up in the temple built by Divine will through Moses, and She corrected that inadequacy of his which had caused God’s rage by the Ever-burning Bush (Her image), for She did not express any doubts, did not oppose God at Her election, but with the humble answer “behold the handmaid of the Lord,” She effaced the inappropriate indolence of Moses’ words at his election: “Send another one, whomever Thou canst.”

(Note: According to the interpretation of the Revelation by St. Andrew, Archbishop of Caesarea, the Antichrist, coming out of the dark and infernal places of the earth, to where the devil was banished by God’s tolerance, will kill Saints Enoch and Elijah, and will leave their bodies unburied in the same ancient and ruined Jerusalem where the Lord had suffered. In this city he will establish his kingdom and royal throne like David, whose Son in flesh was Christ, our true God, in order to prove that he himself is Christ, fulfilling the prophetic word: “In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and will revive its fallen ones,” which the wayward Jews accept and relate to his coming.

Deluded by the false miracles of the Antichrist and having engraved him upon their hearts, the Jews and pagans will not allow the holy bodies to be buried, and will rejoice over their deliverance and freedom from the punishments which they had suffered for their own admonishment.

Lying dead for the same number of days as the number of years their prophetic activity lasted, Enoch and Elijah again, to the fear and horror of those who see it, will ascend to heaven in a fiery cloud.)

Among the many extremely dramatic personalities commemorated in the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament, one of the most dramatic is Manasseh – one of the last kings of the southern Hebrew kingdom.

In his time the northern Hebrew kingdom – that of Israel – was already destroyed and conquered by the bloodthirsty Assyrians, Salmanassar and Sargon had already conquered Samaria, taking tens, and maybe hundreds of thousands of Israelites, the elite of the nation, into cruel Assyrian captivity, and resettled the pagans from the Aramaic provinces of Assyria in their place. But the southern kingdom – Judea – was still standing. Politically weak, unstable, trembling before all its neighbors, fragmented, weakened, often betraying its Lord, the sole True God, often falling into the most disgusting idolatry, already often punished for that by God, losing the greater part of its former possessions, former wealth, former glory, it is precisely at this particular time that it still bore inner fruits of amazing purity and greatness, spiritual fruits which it had not borne even in the best periods of its political golden age. In the streets of Jerusalem thundered the voice of the relative of kings, the Holy Prophet of God Isaiah; his almost Evangelical words were already heard: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee,” “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation.” His vivid sermon about the coming Savior had already rung out: “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 49:15; 52:7; 53:4).

The father of Manasseh, King Hezekiah, was a pious man. He listened reverently to his relative (an uncle or cousin), the prophet Isaiah, and the Lord gave the king vivid proofs of His power, both in the personal life of the king, and in the destinies of his state: having fallen fatally ill, and having been notified through the prophet Isaiah that his days were numbered, King Hezekiah appealed to God, saying: “Remember now, O Lord, I beseech Thee, how I have walked before Thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in Thy sight.” And he wept bitterly. The Prophet Isaiah had not yet left the city, when he heard the Lord’s word: “Go, and say to Hezekiah: thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father: I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears. Behold, on the third day thou shalt go into the house of the Lord, and I will add unto thy days fifteen years.”

The Assyrian king Sennacherib, the ruler of the entire Middle East from the Caucasus to Egypt and from the Mediterranean Sea to India, invaded Judea and surrounded Jerusalem, in order to conquer and destroy it, as were destroyed the northern Jewish capital Samaria and other Israeli cities. But Hezekiah prayed: “O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, that dwellest between the cherubims. Thou art the God, even Thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; Thou hast made heaven and earth. Incline Thine ear, O Lord, and hear; open Thine eyes, O Lord, and see: and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he hath sent to reproach the living God. It is true, O Lord, that the Assyrian kings hath devastated all nations and lands, and hath cast their gods into the fire; yet those were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone; therefore, the Assyrians could well destroy them. Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from their hands, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art the Lord and God, even Thou only.”

And the Lord sent the prophet Isaiah to tell the king: “Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: he shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it for Mine own sake, and for My servant David's sake.”

“Then the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians 185,000 men; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed, and went, and returned” (Isaiah 37:33-37).

And Hezekiah, who began his rule in political restraint and poverty, ended it in wealth and glory, both spiritual and terrestrial.

“And Hezekiah had exceeding much riches and honor: and he made himself treasuries for silver, and for gold, and for precious stones, and for spices, and for shields, and for all manner of pleasant vessels. Storehouses also for the increase of corn, and wine, and oil; and stalls for all manner of beasts, and cotes for flocks. Moreover, he provided him cities, and possessions of flocks and herds in abundance, for God had given him very much substance” (2 Kings 32:27).

Such were the impressions, such were the influences under which was spent the early youth of the future king Manasseh, the youngest and most beloved son of King Hezekiah, the child of his old age. It seemed that one could hope that Manasseh – the son of a pious father – would inherit his piety and would continue his father’s deeds. But that did not happen. Manasseh’s mother was a Phoenician princess by the name of Hephzibah, which means, “in her is my delight.” She was lovingly called so by her husband, King Hezekiah, when in his old age, after God had heard his prayers and had given him 15 more years of life, he married a young and, one might think, beautiful Phoenician.

The influence of the Phoenician mother upon Manasseh was extremely pernicious. Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem for 55 years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. For he again built up the high places of idols which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he constructed altars for Baal in the house of the Lord; and he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the Lord.

The significance of these deeds of Manasseh was intensified by the fact that the temple of God in Jerusalem was at that time the only temple of the True God in the whole world, at a time when the entire earth was filled with heathen temples. And so, Manasseh did not spare this sole temple of God, but filled it with Phoenician abominations. The indignation of the Jews who had stayed faithful to God was particularly aroused because Manasseh set a graven image of Astarte and her idols in God’s temple. The worship of Astarte and her idols (phalluses) was connected with the cult of corruption and prostitution of boys and girls.

Manasseh caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the sons of Hinnom. The holy prophet Jeremiah recalls this event several centuries later with indignation: “They have set their abominations in the house which is called by My name, to pollute it. And they have built the high places of tophet in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire in honor of Moloch” (Jer.7:30; 32:34).

“Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another” (2 Kings 21:16).

He ordered the execution of his elderly relative, the spiritual leader of his father, the great prophet Isaiah. Exhibiting refined cruelty, Manasseh ordered the prophet of God sawed in half with a wooden saw.

“And Manasseh, King of Judea, hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that did the Amorites, which were before him, and hath made Judea also to sin with his idols” (2 Kings 21:11).

Of course, the cruelties and abominations in the beginning of Manasseh’s rule, while he was still an adolescent, can be assigned to his Phoenician mother and her entourage. But the horror and abomination of Manasseh’s acts lasted for 45 years, when his mother was long dead. In these abominations passed his youth and mature life, and his old age approached.

Could there be any hope for the change and moral revival of such a man? For he had not sinned out of ignorance: he was the son of a most pious king, he had heard the almost Evangelical sermon of the holy Prophet Isaiah, his relative. And he trampled upon everything; he bathed everything in blood and dirty, disgusting impurities. Can such a man repent? For certainly there must be a limit even to Divine forgiveness.

But there is no limit to Divine all-forgiveness.

And Manasseh repented.

It is hard to ponder this without inner spiritual agitation. In our terrible time, which has seen the blood of the righteous copiously shed in the streets of our villages and our cities, and which even now at every step sees abominations exceeding the Phoenician ones, we, the children and descendants of pious fathers and forebears, we who have trampled upon their faith, surely need to know that there is no limit to Divine forgiveness, that the gates of repentance are shut to none, even to us.

In 647 B.C. Shamash-shum-ukin, the brother of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal and governor-general of Babylon, incited a rebellion against his brother, the king, and invited Manasseh, a semi-vassal kinglet in respect to Assyria, to join Babylon as an ally against Assyria. In his turn, Manasseh had to enter into negotiations with other equally semi-vassal kinglets of the Phoenician city-states, winning them over into an alliance with Shamash-shum-ukin. Manasseh agreed, but acted indecisively. Meanwhile, Ashurbanipal aggressively invaded Babylon, routed his rebellious brother, and the latter, being afraid to fall into the hands of his enraged brother, who was famous for his cruelty, burnt his palace and himself in it. Ashurbanipal demanded that Manasseh appear before him in Babylon to give an account of his actions.

Representatives of the Assyrian king arrived in Jerusalem.

The moment was decisive and ominous. The Assyrian king, at the head of his triumphant troops, animated by success, was in Babylonia, several days’ march from Judea. If Manasseh did not exhibit submissiveness, Ashurbanipal, invading Judea, would capture the country and Jerusalem. The Lord would hardly repeat for Manasseh the miracle He had performed for Hezekiah. Even if Manasseh showed submissiveness, then maybe this fate would bypass his country, but for him personally there was almost no hope. Now, for the first time, Manasseh exhibited some glimmerings of kindness and courage: a 59-year-old man, on the threshold of old age, he agreed to go to the king of Assyria without resistance.

The messengers of the Assyrian king did not stand on ceremony with him. They clapped Manasseh in irons, and bound him with fetters, and carried him off to Babylon.

The Assyrian chronicles also speak of this event. In listing the kings defeated by Ashurbanipal, they name “Menasseh, the king of Yagudu”.

Manasseh spent several years in this captivity, exactly how many we do not know, but certainly not less than five.

The Holy Bible narrates: “And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And he prayed unto Him, and God bent down towards him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom” (2 Kings 33:12-13).

This prayer, composed by him in captivity, reached us, but not in the Hebrew original which was lost at some point, but in the ancient Greek translation, though it is mentioned in the Hebrew variant of the Holy Scripture.

It is astounding in its power. The Russian and Church-Slavonic variants literally reproduce the Greek text in a word-for-word translation.

O Lord, Almighty God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of their righteous seed; Who hast made heaven and earth, with all the ornament thereof; Who hast bound the sea by the word of Thy commandment; Who hast shut up the deep, and sealed it by Thy terrible and glorious name; Whom all men fear, and tremble before Thy power; for the majesty of Thy glory cannot be borne, and Thine angry threatening toward sinners is importable: but Thy merciful promise is immeasurable and unsearchable; for Thou art the most high Lord, of great compassion, longsuffering, very merciful, and repentest of the evils of men. Thou, O Lord, according to Thy great goodness hast promised repentance and forgiveness to them that have sinned against Thee: and of Thine infinite mercies hast appointed repentance unto sinners, that they may be saved. Thou therefore, O Lord, that art the God of the just, hast not appointed repentance to the just, as to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, which have not sinned against Thee; but Thou hast appointed repentance unto me that am a sinner: for I have sinned above the number of the sands of the sea. My transgressions, O Lord, are multiplied: my transgressions are multiplied, and I am not worthy to behold and see the height of heaven for the multitude of mine iniquities. I am bowed down with many iron bands, that I cannot lift up mine head, neither have any release: for I have provoked Thy wrath, and done evil before Thee: I did not Thy will, neither kept I Thy commandments: I have set up abominations, and have multiplied offences. Now therefore I bow the knee of mine heart, beseeching thee of grace. I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, and I acknowledge mine iniquities: wherefore, I humbly beseech Thee, forgive me, O Lord, forgive me, and destroy me not with mine iniquities. Be not angry with me for ever, by reserving evil for me; neither condemn me to the lower parts of the earth. For Thou art the God, even the God of them that repent; and in me Thou wilt shew all Thy goodness: for Thou wilt save me, that am unworthy, according to Thy great mercy. Therefore I will praise Thee for ever all the days of my life: for all the powers of the heavens do praise Thee, and Thine is the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

From the many historical sources which described those times, we know of tens and hundreds of thousands of prisoners who suffered in the cruelest Assyrian bondage. Rarely had any nation, even in pagan antiquity, had such an insatiable thirst for torture and murders. “It is in its heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few” – says the prophet Isaiah about Assyria. He calls the Assyrians “a fierce people.” And the holy Prophet Nahum calls the capital of Assyria, Nineveh, “the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery.”

Many of the proud and cruel statements of the Assyrian kings about how many countries they had devastated, how many cities they had destroyed, how many people they had killed, had blinded, had driven into bondage, have reached even us. They boast of their cruelty, mercilessness, ruthlessness. Contemporary museums and collections of historic artifacts are filled with these boastful monuments.

Meanwhile, the voice of their victims, those whom they captured and tortured, is almost not heard, it does not reach us, muffled not only by the passage of many centuries, but also by the fact that probably no one came out of Assyrian bondage alive to tell about his sufferings and those of his co-prisoners, with only one exception: with the exception of the above-mentioned prayer of king Manasseh. Therefore, we can say that in it he speaks not only for himself, but for the hundreds of thousands of those, who, like him, were suffering in the terrible Assyrian prisons. More than that, he speaks on behalf of millions of other prisoners, including contemporary ones.

When he says: “I am bowed down with many iron bands, that I cannot lift up mine head, neither have any release” – he does not speak figuratively. He speaks of his actual physical state, when he could not lift his head because it was bound by iron chains and bands. And, conversely, he could only say figuratively that he “bows the knee of his heart,” – he could not kneel physically to pray at that time.

For us, as for all the rest of the readers of his astounding prayer, an important and profound figurative meaning is hidden within these concrete images, for sin binds and ties man no less severely than the Assyrian prison guards.

Returning to Jerusalem, Manasseh tried as much as possible to efface the harm which he had done. “Then Manasseh knew that the Lord He was God…And he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city…And he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed thereon peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel” (2 Kings 33:13-16).

It is hard to say why the Assyrians, contrary to their custom, took mercy upon him. Perhaps, not having conquered Judea, they thought it wiser to place on the throne of Jerusalem a man who had seen their might and was overwhelmed by their cruel power. And we can guess that it was by Divine will that this greatly sinful and ardently repentant king was freed from his terrible captivity, in order to tell the world about his experience and to pass on his impassioned prayer to all repenting generations, showing by his example the truth, essentially vital to all people, that there is no limit to Divine all-forgiveness, and that the gates of repentance are never shut to anyone.

Included as part of the Great Compline, and found in all Christian books of Hours, read in Orthodox churches daily during Great Lent and many times throughout the rest of the year, reverberating therefore in hundreds of millions of hearts, this prayer of Manasseh, the king of Judea, composed in the putrid darkness of an Assyrian prison, resounds, of course, infinitely louder than all those boastful monuments of the Assyrian rulers, superficially recalled for just a few minutes by visitors of museums and compilers of historical collections, attesting to the fact that the power of God is accomplished in frailty from ancient times until now.