Manasseh, Prayer of

A non-canonical work inserted towards the end of the Apocrypha. Manasseh reigned as king of Judah from 698 to 642 BCE and was totally condemned by the Deuteronomic author of 2 Kgs. 24:3 and held responsible for God's punishing the people by the Exile in Babylon. In course of time his reputation was rehabilitated somewhat (see preceding article). This prayer was composed in Greek by an Alexandrian Jew in the 1st cent. BCE as an example of what his prayer of penitence might have been. It was not included in the LXX and was never in the Hebrew OT, but in some Greek MSS it was added to the Pss. and it appears in the Apocrypha in Protestant Bibles. It was not, however, recognized as one of the deuterocanonical books by the Roman Catholic Church, but may be printed as an appendix.