The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Maccabees 04
1 Wherever this decree was received, the
people kept up a revelry of joy and shouting,
as if their long-pent-up, hardened hatred
would now show itself openly.
2 The Jews suffered great throes of sorrow
and wept much, while their hearts,
all things around being lamentable, were
set on fire as they bewailed the sudden
destruction which was decreed againstthem.
3 What home, or city, or any inhabited
place, or what streets were there, which
their condition didn’t fill with wailing and
lamentation?
4 They were sent out unanimously by
the generals in various cities, with such
stern and pitiless feeling that the exceptional
nature of the infliction moved even
some of their enemies. These, influenced
by sentiments of common humanity, and
reflecting upon the uncertain issue of life,
shed tears at their miserable expulsion.
5 A multitude of aged hoary-haired old
men were driven along with halting bending
feet, urged onward by the impulse of a
violent, shameless force to quick speed.
6 Girls who had entered the bridal chamber
quite lately, to enjoy the partnership of
marriage, exchanged pleasure for misery;
and with dust scattered upon their my rrhanointed
heads, were hurried along unveiled; and,
in the midst of outlandish insults,
set up with one accord a lamentable
cry instead of the marriage hymn.
7 Bound and exposed to public gaze, they
were hurried violently on board ship.
8 The husbands of these, in the prime
of their youthful vigor, instead of crowns,
wore ropes round their necks. Instead
of feasting and youthful celebration, they
spent the rest of their nuptial days in
wailing, and saw only the grave at hand.
9 They were dragged along by unyielding
chains, like wild animals. Of these, some
had their necks thrust into the benches of
the rowers, while the feet of others were
enclosed in hard fetters.
10 The planks of the deck above them
blocked out the light and shut out the day
on every side, so thatthey might be treated
like traitors during the whole voyage.
11 They were carried like this in this
vessel, and at the end of it arrived
at Schedia. The king had ordered them to be cast
into the vast hippodrome, which was built
in front of the city. This place was well
adapted by its situation to expose them to
the gaze of all comers into the city, and
of those who went from the city into the
country. Thus they could hold no communication
with his forces. They weren’t
deemed worthy of any civilized accommodation.
12 When this was done, the king, hearing
thattheir kindredinthe city often went out
and lamented the melancholy distress of
these victims,
13 was full of rage, and commanded that
they should be carefully subjected to the
same—and not one bit milder—treatment.
14 The whole nation was now to be registered.
Every individual was to be specified
by name, not for that hard servitude of
labor which we have a little before
mentioned, but that he might expose them
to the before-mentioned tortures;
and finally, in the short space of a day, might
exterminate them by his cruelties.
15 The registering of these men was carried
on cruelly, zealously, assiduously,
from the rising ofthe sunto its going down,
and was not brought to an end in forty days.
16 The king was filled with great and
constant joy, and celebrated banquets
before the temple idols. His erring heart,
far from the truth, and his profane mouth
gave glory to idols, deaf and incapable of
speaking or aiding, and uttered unworthy
speech against the Greatest God.
17 At the end of the above-mentioned interval
of time, the registrars brought word
to the king that the multitude of the Jews
was too great for registration,
18 inasmuch as there were many still left
in the land, of whom some were in inhabited
houses, and others were scattered
aboutin various places, so that allthe
commanders in Egypt were insufficient for the
work.
19 The king threatened them, and
charged them with taking bribes, in order
to contrive the escape of the Jews, but was
clearly convinced of the truth of what had
been said.
20 They said, and proved, that paper and
pens had failed them for the carrying out
of their purpose.
21 Now this was an active interference
of the unconquerable Providence which
assisted the Jews from heaven.