This verse begins with listing five things which the Lord has forbidden (see also Deuteronomy 18:10–11). God’s people do not need such activities for their lives and their well-being. The heathens do these practices to please their gods. They are afraid of the future; therefore, they want to know what will happen, so that they can take action. But Israel was to stay away from such practices. They did not have to please their God with their sacrifices, and they did not need to know what will happen in the future, as God will still be there for them in those times. Trusting in God is far more important than knowing of the things to come (if that was possible).
Manasseh even sacrificed his son, most likely to the god Moloch. He was not the first Judean king to do this (see 2 Kings 16:3). Two comments on this:
1. The Lord finds this despicable. He does not give us children so that we can burn them. Children are a blessing from God. He does not demand a sacrifice of what is dearest to man.
2. Exactly the opposite is true: God gives his Son as a sacrifice to erase the guilt that man has before God (see Hebrews 10:8–10, where Jesus is described as a (burnt) offering).
The writer ends this verse by saying how serious the Lord takes this evil, and the reference to provoking
in this threatening phrase means that the Lord will not leave this unpunished.
6 And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.