In his book "The Perfect Harmony of the Numbers of the Hebrew Kings" Harold Camping claims Hezekiah made Manasseh co-regent in his 18th year (page 56). Now in the case of certain kings we know there were co-regencies because they fall out of the back and forth synchronisms the Bible provides between the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel. However in the case of Manasseh there are no such synchronisms since the northern kingdom had already been conquered by the Assyrians and no longer existed at this time. To make matters even worse, there is no statement anywhere in the Bible about Hezekiah making Manasseh co-regent in his 18th year, nor in any other year for that matter, something Mr Camping readily admits in his book at the bottom of page 55,
"How many years was Manasseh co-regent with his father Hezekiah?
We have no immediate information in the Bible that helps us."
The Perfect Harmony of the Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, page 56
So without any direct statements on the matter Camping instead attempts to build a circumstantial case for Hezekiah making Manasseh co-regent, and a cursory reading of 2 Kings chapters 18 through 20 might give one the idea this was done, particularly the following verses:
2Ki 18:1 And it happened in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.
2Ki 18:2 He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah.
2Ki 18:13 And in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.
2Ki 20:1 In those days Hezekiah was sick to death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, So says Jehovah, Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.
2Ki 20:5 Return again and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people, So says Jehovah, the God of David your father, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of Jehovah.
2Ki 20:6 And I will add fifteen years to your days. And I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria. And I will defend this city for My own sake, and for My servant David's sake.
2Ki 20:7 And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.
In 2 Kings 20 we find that Hezekiah was sick unto death and told by Isaiah the prophet to "set his house in order" because he was going to die and not live. Now we know this event occurred in the 14th year of Hezekiah's reign because after Hezekiah recovered God allowed him to live/reign another 15 years (2 Kings 20:6), and since his total reign was 29 years (2 Kings 18:2), this had to occur during his 14th year. This conclusion is pretty much confirmed by 2 Kings 18:13 which mentions Assyria came against Judah in Hezekiah's 14th year (this conclusion is also granted by Camping on page 55 of his book).
OK, so everyone agrees that God via Isaiah tells Hezekiah in his 14th year to set his house in order because he was going to die. So what does Hezekiah do? Well we know Hezekiah was a good king, in fact the Bible says he was one of the very best of all the kings during the kingdom years (2 Kings 18:5), so for one thing we would fully expect Hezekiah to act promptly to obey God's commend. We would not expect Hezekiah to be sluggish or slothful. We see for example that when Hezekiah first became king that he promptly acted to put a stop to Judah's apostasy by making wholesale religious reforms in the very first month of his first year as king,
2Ch 29:3 He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the LORD, and repaired them.
2Ch 29:4 And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the east street,
2Ch 29:5 And said unto them, Hear me, ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the LORD God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy [place].
From this we see Hezekiah was very prompt in doing what the Lord would want. So when God told Hezekiah to put his house in order we can be very confident that Hezekiah would have done this without delay. Furthermore there's absolutely nothing anywhere in the Bible that would support or even suggest that anything might have caused Hezekiah to delay obeying God's command to "set his house in order" for several years. So if Hezekiah did in fact make Manasseh a co-regent as Camping concluded, then this certainly would have been done in Hezekiah's 14th year, probably within days, if not hours, of Isaiah's visit, and certainly not 4 years later in his 18th year as Camping claimed. The idea Hezekiah might have waited for 4 years to obey God is even more deficient when one considers that nothing in Isaiah's statement would have encouraged Hezekiah he even had the luxury of living for 4 more years. If anything this was a command of urgency and the day of Hezekiah's death was just days or weeks away, not years. So Camping's conclusion that Hezekiah made Manasseh co-regent in his 18th year has absolutely no biblical justification whatsoever, circumstantial or otherwise. This in turn means that Camping's biblical calendar, which is directly dependent upon this assumption, has no biblical justification either.
So what does this do to Mr Camping's overall calendar? Well since Camping places the start of Manasseh's reign in Hezekiah's 18th year, but as indicated above the only possible biblical option for a co-regency would have been Hezekiah's 14th year, this would result in a 4 year error in Camping's dating. That is, all of Camping's dates prior to Manasseh would have to be pulled in by 4 years to account for Camping's error. This 4 year correction would of course nullify any of Camping's time paths that span Manasseh's reign. For example, Camping said there were 13000 years from creation in 11013 BC to AD 1988, however when the date for creation is corrected to account for Camping's error, there would now be only 12996 years from creation (11009 BC) to AD 1988. Other time paths, like 1290 x 3 years from Israel entering Egypt to AD 1994, 5023 years from the flood to the cross, and 7000 years from the flood to 2011, are similarly broken. In a nutshell, almost all of Camping's biggest time line proofs for the years 1988, 1994 and 2011 fall apart when Camping's error in dating Manasseh's co-regency is corrected.
While the above decisively proves Camping's dating for Manasseh, and Camping's resulting calendar, are in error, this does not seem to be the extent of Mr Camping's error in regard to Manasseh's reign because a more thorough and careful review of the account of Hezekiah's sickness raises serious doubt that Hezekiah even made Manasseh co-regent at all. Notice for example what we find in 2 Kings 20:4,
2Ki 20:1 In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.
2Ki 20:2 Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the LORD, saying,
2Ki 20:3 I beseech thee, O LORD, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done [that which is] good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.
2Ki 20:4 And it came to pass, afore Isaiah was gone out into the middle court, that the word of the LORD came to him, saying,
2Ki 20:5 Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the LORD.
2Ki 20:6 And I will add unto thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.
2Ki 20:7 And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid [it] on the boil, and he recovered.
2Ki 20:8 And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What [shall be] the sign that the LORD will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the LORD the third day?
We see here the very first thing Hezekiah did after Isaiah's announcement was to pray, he turned to the wall and plead with God (v2) and wept greatly (v3). We aren't told what he plead for nor why he was weeping, however I have an idea, but I'll get to that in a minute. Notice in verse 4 we read that as Hezekiah was praying and weeping, God came to Isaiah before he even got out of the court, and told him to go back to Hezekiah with good news. First, God would heal Hezekiah and he would not die, and within 3 days he would go up to the house of God. Second, God promised Hezekiah he would live an additional 15 years. And third, God promised to deliver Judah from Sennacherib, the Assyrian king who had come up against Judah in those days (2 Kings 18:13).
It is the statement of verse 4 however that is very significant in understanding this incident because it tells us it was just a very short period of time between Isaiah's first visit telling Hezekiah he would die and to set his house in order and Isaiah's return visit to tell Hezekiah he would not die and would in fact live for another 15 years. In other words, there was really no time between Isaiah's two visits for Hezekiah to have even started to set his house in order (and supposedly make Manasseh a co-regent), particularly since we know the first thing Hezekiah did after Isaiah's first visit was to busy himself praying and weeping. Furthermore, since God almost immediately revealed to Hezekiah that he would not only survive, but that he would live an additional 15 years, there would no longer be any urgency to set his house in order since now he knew the day of his death was a great many more years into the future! In fact, given this turn of events, there was no longer any reason for Hezekiah to make Manasseh a co-regent since the main reason for this custom was because of the uncertainty kings had as to how long they would live, so as a precaution they would sometimes decide to make their son a co-regent so if there was an untimely death there would be a smooth transfer of power and no question about succession. But since Hezekiah's now knew with absolute accuracy the exact year (and maybe even the day and month) he would die, any necessity for a co-regency was gone. In fact one could imagine that just as God sent Isaiah back to Hezekiah to rescind the proclamation of Hezekiah's imminent death, that the command to put his house in order was likewise rescinded given the latter command was a result of the former proclamation.
So what we find is that there is very good reason to doubt Hezekiah made Manasseh co-regent at all. Now back to my earlier comment about why Hezekiah would have been so distraught when Isaiah told him he would die, and what was he beseeching God about and why did he weep sore. As mentioned already, we know Hezekiah was a good and faithful king, he must have loved the Lord with all his heart. So it's very doubtful Hezekiah was weeping and pleading for himself, desiring a longer life upon this sin cursed earth. Instead it's more likely Hezekiah was weeping and pleading for Judah because it was more needful for him to remain since Judah at that time was being assaulted by the king of Assyria (in fact several fortified cities had already been taken, 2 Kings 18:13), so if Hezekiah did die then Judah would suddenly be without a king at this very critical juncture. In fact, consider this, let's assume for reasons already stated that there was no co-regency at all between Hezekiah and Manasseh. If this were the case, then we know Manasseh would not even have been born at this time, in Hezekiah's 14th year! This is because we are told Manasseh began to reign when he was 12 years old (2 Kings 21:1), so if he began to reign when his father died in his 29th year, then Manasseh's birth would still be 3 years in the future, in Hezekiah's 17th year! That means that in Hezekiah's 14th year there would have been no heir to the throne, so if Hezekiah did die as Isaiah had initially said, then not only would Judah have been without an experienced king, but they would also have been without a successor to the throne, and all this at the very time they needed leadership the most. This I think is what lead Hezekiah to grieve so greatly and fervently pray when Isaiah told him he was about to die.
Now in this more likely scenario, that of no co-regency between Hezekiah and Manasseh, this means Camping's calendar dating would now have a -11 year error instead of a +4 year error. So instead of pulling in all the dates prior to Manasseh in by 4 years, we'd have to push back all those dates by 11 years. This change however would be no less harmful to Mr Camping's time line, it would still nullify almost all of his time paths to 1988, 1994 and 2011. For example the time from creation to 1988 would now be 13011 years, and 7000 years after the flood would be the year 2000, etc.
In summary, the Bible knows nothing of Mr Camping's conclusion that Hezekiah made Manasseh co-regent in his 18th year. Instead the only two possible biblically based options would either be that there was no co-regency at all (most likely), or possibly that Manasseh was made co-regent in Hezekiah's 14th year. Anything other than these two options is speculation with absolutely no biblical validity. The impact of this is that Mr Camping's calendar, in it's current form, is clearly and obviously defective, and most of his time paths having anything to do with 1988, 1994 and 2011 are invalid. Surely this will be a bitter pill to swallow for many of Mr Camping's devoted followers, however the key issue before us is whether we are going to listen to the Bible now that this information has been brought to light. Recall what Mr Camping wrote in his book "We Are Almost There",
"This is no time for self-pride, self-ego, self-esteem or even self-respect.
It is not a time for spiritual superiority or spiritual arrogance. It is a time when
we should fully recognize the complete authority of the Bible over our lives, and
therefore, listen most carefully to what God is saying to each of us today."
We Are Almost There, page 69
Is our final authority the Bible alone and in it's entirety? If so, and since the Bible doesn't teach anything about a co-regency in Hezekiah's 18th year, why would anyone refuse to repent of this idea?