The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Maccabees 07
1 It came to pass that seven brothers
and their mother were at the king’s command
taken and shamefully handled with
scourges and cords, to compel them to
taste of the abominable swine’s flesh.
2 One of them made himself the
spokesman and said, “What would you ask
and learn from us? For we are ready to
die rather than transgress the laws of our
ancestors.”
3 The king fell into a rage, and commanded
that pans and caldrons be heated.
4 When these were immediately heated,
he gave orders to cut out the tongue of
him who had been their spokesman, and
to scalp him, and to cut off his extremities,
with the rest of his brothers and his
mother looking on.
5 And when he was utterly† maimed, the
king gave orders to bring him to the fire,
being yet alive, and to fry him in the pan.
And as the smoke from the pan spread far,
they and their mother also exhorted one
another to die nobly, saying this:
6 “The Lord God sees, and in truth is‡
entreated for us, as Moses declared in §his
song, which witnesses against the people
to their faces, saying, ‘And he will have
compassion on his servants.
7 And when the first had died like this,
they brought the second to the mocking;
and they pulled off the skin of his head
with the hair and asked him, “Will you
eat, before your body is punished in every limb?
8 But he answered in the language of his
ancestors and said to them, “No.”
Therefore he also underwent the next torture in
succession, as the first had done.
9 When he was at the last gasp, he said,
“You, miscreant, release us out of this
present life, but the King of the world will
raise us who have died for his laws up to an
everlasting renewal of life.”
10 After him, the third was made a victim of
their mocking. When he was required, he
quickly put out his tongue, and
stretched out his hands courageously,
11 and nobly said, “I got these from
heaven. For his laws’ sake I treat these
with contempt. From him, I hope to
receive these back again.
12 As a result, the king himself and those
who were with him were astonished at
the young man’s soul, for he regarded the
pains as nothing.
13 When he too was dead, they shamefully
handled and tortured the fourth in
the same way.
14 Being near to death he said this: “It is
good to die at the hands of men and look
for the hope which is given by God, that we
will be raised up again by him. For as for
you, you will have no resurrection to life.”
15 Next after him, they brought the fifth
and shamefully handled him.
16 But he looked toward †the king and
said, “Because you have authority among
men, though you are corruptible, you do
what you please. But don’t think that our
race has been forsaken by God.
17 But hold on to your ways, and see how
his sovereign majesty will torture you and
your descendants!”
18 After him they brought the sixth.
When he was about to die, he said, “Don’t
be vainly deceived, for we suffer these
things for our own doings, as sinning
against our own God. Astounding things
have come to pass;
19 but don’t think you that you will be
unpunished, having tried to fight against
God!”
20 But above all, the mother was marvelous and
worthy of honorable memory for when she watched
seven sons perishing within the space of one day, she bore
the sight with a good courage because of
her hope in the Lord.
21 She exhorted each one of them in
the language of their fathers, filled with a
noble spirit and stirring up her woman’s
thoughts with manly courage, saying to
them,
22 “I don’t know how you came into my
womb. It wasn’t I who gave you your
‡spirit and your life. It wasn’t I who
brought into order the first elements of
each one of you.
23 Therefore the Creator of the world,
who shaped the first origin of man and
devised the first origin of all things, in mercy
gives back to you again both your §spirit
and your life, as you now treat yourselves
with contempt for his laws’ sake.”
24 But Antiochus, thinking himself to be
despised, and suspecting the reproachful
voice, while the youngest was yet alive
didn’t only make his appeal to him by
words, but also at the same time promised
with oaths that he would enrich him and†
raise him to high honor if he would turn
from the ways of his ancestors, and that he
would take him for his ‡friend and entrust
him with public affairs.
25 But when the young man would in
no way listen, the king called to him his
mother, and urged her to advise the youth
to save himself.
26 When he had urged her with many
words, she undertook to persuade her son.
27 But bending toward him, laughing the
cruel tyrant to scorn, she spoke this in the
language of her fathers: “My son, have pity
upon me who carried you nine months in
my womb, and nursed you three years,
and nourished and brought you up to this
age, and sustained you.
28 I beg you, my child, to lift your eyes to
the sky and the earth, and to see all things
that are in it, and thus to recognize that
God made them not of things that were,
and that the race of men in this way comes
into being.
29 Don’t be afraid of this butcher, but,
proving yourself worthy of your brothers,
accept your death, that in God’s mercy I
may receive you again with your brothers.
30 But before she had finished speaking,
the young man said, “What are you all
waiting for? I don’t obey the commandment
of the king, but I listen to the commandment
of the law that was given to our
fathers through Moses.
31 But you, who have devised all kinds
of evil against the Hebrews, will in no way
escape God’s hands.
32 For we are suffering because of our
own sins.
33 If for rebuke and chastening, our living
Lord has been angered a little while,
yet he will again be reconciled with his
own servants.
34 But you, O unholy man and of all most
vile, don’t be vainly lifted up in your wild
pride with uncertain hopes, raising your
hand against the heavenly children.
35 For you have not yet escaped the
judgment of the Almighty God who sees all
things.
36 For these our brothers, having endured a
§ short pain that brings everlasting life,
have now † died under God’s covenant.
But you, through God’s judgment, will
receive in just measure the penalties
of your arrogance.
37 But I, as my brothers, give up both
body and soul for the laws of our fathers,
calling upon God that he may speedily
become ‡gracious to the nation, and that you,
amidsttrials and plagues, may confess that
he alone is God,
38 and that in me and my brothers §
you may bring to an end the wrath of the
Almighty which has been justly brought
upon our whole race.”
39 But the king, falling into a rage,
handled him worse than all the rest, being
exasperated at his mocking.
40 So he also died pure, putting his whole
trust in the Lord.
41 Last of all, after her sons, the mother
died.
42 Let it then suffice to have said thus
much concerning the sacrificial feasts and
the extreme tortures.