The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Maccabees 08
1 But Judas, who is also called Maccabaeus,
and those who were with him,
making their way secretly into the villages,
called to them their kindred. Taking to
them those who had continued in the Jews’
religion, gathered together about six thousand.
2 They called upon the Lord to look at
the people who were oppressed by all, and
to have compassion on the sanctuary that
had been profaned by the ungodly men,
3 and to have pity on the city that was
suffering ruin and ready to be leveled to
the ground, and to listen to the blood that
cried out to him,
4 and to remember the lawless destruction
of the innocent infants, and concerning
the blasphemies that had been committed
against his name, and to show his
hatred of wickedness.
5 When Maccabaeus had trainedhis men
for service, the heathen at once found him
irresistible, for the wrath of the Lord was
turned into mercy.
6 †Coming without warning, he set fire to
cities and villages. And in winning back
the most important positions, putting to
flight no small number of the enemies,
7 he especially took advantage of the
nights for such assaults. His courage was
loudly talked of everywhere.
8 But when Philip saw the man gaining ground
little by little, and increasing
more and more in his success, he wrote
to Ptolemy, the governor of Coelesyria
and Phoenicia, that he should support the
king’s cause.
9 Ptolemy quickly appointed Nicanor the
son of Patroclus, one of the king’s ‡ chief
friends, and sent him, in command of no
fewer than twenty thousand of all nations,
to destroy the whole race of Judea. With
him he joined Gorgias also, a captain and
one who had experience in matters of war.
10 Nicanor resolved by the sale of the
captive Jews to make up for the king the
tribute of two thousand talents which he
was to pay to the Romans.
11 Immediately he sent to the cities upon
the sea coast, inviting them to buy Jewish
§slaves, promising to deliver seventy
†slaves for a talent, not expecting the
judgment that was to overtake him from the
Almighty.
12 News came to Judas concerning
Nicanor’s invasion. When he communicated
to those who were with him the
presence of the army,
13 those who were cowardly and
distrustful of God’s judgment ‡ran away and
left the country.
14 Others sold all that they had left, andat
the same time implored the Lord to deliver
those who had been sold as slaves by the
impious Nicanor before he ever met them,
15 if not for their own sakes, then for the
covenants made with their ancestors, and
because he had called them by his holy and
glorious name.
16 So Maccabaeus gathered his men together,
six thousand in number, and exhorted them
not to be frightened by the enemy, nor to
fear the great multitude of the heathen
who came wrongfully against
them, but to fight nobly,
17 setting before their eyes the outrage
that had been lawlessly perpetrated upon
the holy place, and the torture of the city
that had been turned to mockery, and
further the overthrow of the way of life
received from their ancestors.
18 “For they,” he said, “trust their
weapons and daring deeds, but we trust in
the almighty God, since he is able at a nod
to cast down those who are coming against
us, and even the whole world.”
19 Moreover, he recounted to them the
help given from time to time in the days
of their ancestors, both in the days of
Sennacherib, when one hundred eighty-five
thousand perished,
20 and in the land of Babylon, in the
battle that was fought against the§ Gauls,
how they came to the battle with eight
thousand in all, with four thousand Macedonians,
and how, the Macedonians being
hard pressed, the †six thousand destroyed
thehundredandtwenty thousandbecause
of the help which they had from heaven,
and took a great deal of plunder.
21 And when he had with these words
filled them with courage and made them
ready to die for the laws and their country,
he divided his army into four parts.
22 He appointed his brothers, Simon,
Joseph, and Jonathan, to be leaders of the
divisions with him, giving each the command
of one thousand five hundred men.
23 Moreover Eleazer also, having read
aloud the sacred book, and having given as
watchword, “THE HELP OF GOD”, leading
the first band himself, joined battle with
Nicanor.
24 Since the Almighty fought on their
side, they killed more than nine thousand
of the enemy, and wounded and‡ disabled
most of Nicanor’s army, and compelled
them all to flee.
25 They took the money of those who
had come there to buy them as slaves.
After they had pursued them for some
§distance, they returned, being
constrained by the time of the day;
26 for it was the day before the Sabbath,
and for this reason they made no effort to
chase them far.
27 † When they had gathered ‡the
weapons of the enemy together, and had
stripped off their spoils, they kept the
Sabbath, greatly blessing and thanking
the Lord who had saved them to this day,
because he had begun to show mercy to
them.
28 After the Sabbath, when they had
given some of the spoils to the § maimed,
and to the widows and orphans, they
distributed the rest among themselves and
their children.
29 When they had accomplished these
things and had made a common supplication,
they implored the merciful Lord to be
wholly reconciled with his servants.
30 Having had an encounter with the
forces of Timotheus and Bacchides, they
killed more than twenty thousand ofthem,
and made themselves masters of exceedingly
high strongholds, and divided very
much plunder, giving the †maimed,
orphans, widows, and the aged an equal
share with themselves.
31 ‡ When they had gathered the
weapons § of the enemy together, they
stored them all up carefully in the most
strategic positions, and they carried the
rest of the spoils to Jerusalem.
32 They killed the †phylarch of Timotheus’s
forces, a most unholy man, and one
who had done the Jews much harm.
33 ‡ As they celebrated the feast of victory
in the § city of their fathers, they burned
those who had set the sacred †gates on fire,
including Callisthenes, who had fled into
‡a little house. So they received the proper
reward for their impiety.
34 The thrice-accursed Nicanor, who had
brought the thousand merchants to buy
the Jews as slaves,
35 being through the help of the Lord
humbled by them who in his eyes were
held to be of least account, took off his
glorious apparel, and passing through the
country, §shunning all company like a
fugitive slave, arrived at Antioch, † having,
as he thought, had the greatest possible
good fortune, though his army was destroyed.
36 He who had taken upon himself to
make tribute sure for the Romans by the
captivity of the men of Jerusalem published
abroad that the Jews had One who
foughtfor them, andthat ‡because this was
so, the Jews were invulnerable, because
they followed the laws ordained by him.