6.1 In 167 BCE an Athenian elder (Greek geron) or senator, or Geron an Athenian, was sent to bring order to the religious and political affairs of the Jews.
6.2 Olympian Zeus, the Greek equivalent of Israel’s Most High God, though pious Jews resented this identification.
6.4 The description suggests temple prostitution (see Am 2.7; Ezek 23.36–49; Dan 11.31), a practice more common in Semitic than Greek religions.
6.5 Though it mentions abominable offerings, 2 Maccabees is silent about the “desolating sacrilege” (1 Macc 1.54; Dan 11.31).
6.7 Antiochus’s birthday was celebrated on the twenty-fifth of every month (1 Macc 1.58–59). Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and harvest.
6.8 Ptolemais, probably a city on the coast, also known as Acco; or perhaps Ptolemy, mentioned in 4.45, should be read.
6.9 Greek customs, the general cultural program known as Hellenism. Not every feature came from Greece; there was a mixture of Greek and oriental elements.
6.10–11 Similar incidents appear in 1 Macc 1.60–61; 2.31–38.
6.12–17 The stories of Israel’s martyrs are interpreted as a discipline applied by God in the short term. Nevertheless God’s mercy to Israel remains firm and will prevail in the end.
6.14–15 The other nations are given the leeway to have their sins build up, with the result that their ultimate punishment will be worse than Israel’s.
6.18–31 Eleazar refuses to compromise his Jewish religious principles in the face of suffering and death. He is thus a model of nobility and courage.
6.18 The story of Eleazar (otherwise unknown) is told at greater length in 4 Macc 5–7. Eating swine’s flesh was prohibited by Lev 11.7–8; Deut 14.8.
6.19 The exact nature of the torture is uncertain; the rack is only one possibility.
6.23 Hades, the abode of the dead, Sheol in the Hebrew scriptures.
6.26 Eleazar envisions the possibility of punishment from God after death.
6.29 For the (incorrect) assessment of the death of the righteous as madness, see Wis 3.1–4; 5.4.
6.30 Holy knowledge, God’s ability to know why Eleazar underwent martyrdom.
2 MACCABEES 7
The Martyrdom of Seven Brothers
1It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and thongs, to partake of unlawful swine’s flesh. 2One of them, acting as their spokesman, said, “What do you intend to ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.”
3The king fell into a rage, and gave orders to have pans and caldrons heated. 4These were heated immediately, and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesman be cut out and that they scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of the brothers and the mother looked on. 5When he was utterly helpless, the kinga ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and to fry him in a pan. The smoke from the pan spread widely, but the brothersb and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, 6“The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us, as Moses declared in his song that bore witness against the people to their faces, when he said, ‘And he will have compassion on his servants.’”c
7After the first brother had died in this way, they brought forward the second for their sport. They tore off the skin of his head with the hair, and asked him, “Will you eat rather than have your body punished limb by limb?” 8He replied in the language of his ancestors and said to them, “No.” Therefore he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done. 9And when he was at his last breath, he said, “You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws.”
10After him, the third was the victim of their sport. When it was demanded, he quickly put out his tongue and courageously stretched forth his hands, 11and said nobly, “I got these from Heaven, and because of his laws I disdain them, and from him I hope to get them back again.” 12As a result the king himself and those with him were astonished at the young man’s spirit, for he regarded his sufferings as nothing.
13After he too had died, they maltreated and tortured the fourth in the same way. 14When he was near death, he said, “One cannot but choose to die at the hands of mortals and to cherish the hope God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!”
15Next they brought forward the fifth and maltreated him. 16But he looked at the king,d and said, “Because you have authority among mortals, though you also are mortal, you do what you please. But do not think that God has forsaken our people. 17Keep on, and see how his mighty power will torture you and your descendants!”
18After him they brought forward the sixth. And when he was about to die, he said, “Do not deceive yourself in vain. For we are suffering these things on our own account, because of our sins against our own God. Thereforee astounding things have happened. 19But do not think that you will go unpunished for having tried to fight against God!”
20The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Although she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. 21She encouraged each of them in the language of their ancestors. Filled with a noble spirit, she reinforced her woman’s reasoning with a man’s courage, and said to them, 22“I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. 23Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of humankind and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws.”
24Antiochus felt that he was being treated with contempt, and he was suspicious of her reproachful tone. The youngest brother being still alive, Antiochusf not only appealed to him in words, but promised with oaths that he would make him rich and enviable 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. 25Since the young man would not listen to him at all, the king called the mother to him and urged her to advise the youth to save himself. 26After much urging on his part, she undertook to persuade her son. 27But, leaning close to him, she spoke in their native language as follows, deriding the cruel tyrant: “My son, have pity on me. I carried you nine months in my womb, and nursed you for three years, and have reared you and brought you up to this point in your life, and have taken care of you.g 28I beg you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed.h And in the same way the human race came into being. 29Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again along with your brothers.”
30While she was still speaking, the young man said, “What are youi waiting for? I will not obey the king’s command, but I obey the command of the law that was given to our ancestors through Moses. 31But you,j who have contrived all sorts of evil against the Hebrews, will certainly not escape the hands of God. 32For we are suffering because of our own sins. 33And if our living Lord is angry for a little while, to rebuke and discipline us, he will again be reconciled with his own servants.k 34But you, unholy wretch, you most defiled of all mortals, do not be elated in vain and puffed up by uncertain hopes, when you raise your hand against the children of heaven. 35You have not yet escaped the judgment of the almighty, all-seeing God. 36For our brothers after enduring a brief suffering have drunkl of ever-flowing life, under God’s covenant; but you, by the judgment of God, will receive just punishment for your arrogance. 37I, like my brothers, give up body and life for the laws of our ancestors, appealing to God to show mercy soon to our nation and by trials and plagues to make you confess that he alone is God, 38and through me and my brothers to bring to an end the wrath of th
e Almighty that has justly fallen on our whole nation.”
39The king fell into a rage, and handled him worse than the others, being exasperated at his scorn. 40So he died in his integrity, putting his whole trust in the Lord.
41Last of all, the mother died, after her sons.
42Let this be enough, then, about the eating of sacrifices and the extreme tortures.
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a Gk he
b Gk they
c Gk slaves
d Gk at him
e Lat: Other ancient authorities lack Therefore
f Gk he
g Or have borne the burden of your education
h Or God made them out of things that did not exist
i The Gk here for you is plural
j The Gk here for you is singular
k Gk slaves
l Cn: Gk fallen
7.1–42 The most famous part of 2 Maccabees contains statements by the seven brothers and their mother about the resurrection of the just and the punishment and annihilation of the wicked.
7.1 King, later identified as Antiochus (v. 24). Swine’s flesh. See note on 6.18.
7.3–5 The punishments for the sons involved scalping, dismemberment, and roasting.
7.6 In Deut 32.36–38 trust in the Lord’s compassion appears in the context of rejecting apostasy (as here).
7.8 Language of his ancestors, Hebrew (see also 7.21, 27; 12.37; 15.29).
7.9 The King of the universe (God) is superior to King Antiochus since only God can raise the faithful to eternal life (see Dan 12.1–3).
7.11 Hope in bodily resurrection is based on the power of God as creator, not on human nature.
7.14 For the wicked there will be no resurrection to life; they will be annihilated.
7.17 Antiochus’s descendants include Antiochus V Eupator, Alexander Balas, and Antiochus VI.
7.18–19 Our sins, the sins of the people as a whole (see also v. 32). The sixth son echoes what the author said in 6.12–17.
7.22–23 For God as the origin of human life and so lord over its destiny, see v. 11; Job 1.10–12; Ps 139.13–16; Eccl 11.5.
7.24 Friend, an official title for the king’s advisers (see 1 Macc 2.18).
7.28 The mother’s confession that God did not make them out of things that existed echoes vv. 11, 22–23; it need not be taken as a philosophical or theological statement about “creation out of nothing” (Latin creatio ex nihilo).
7.32–33 For the same basic theology of suffering as a discipline, see 6.12–17; 7.18–19. Sins, of the people taken collectively, as in vv. 18–19.
7.37–38 By dying for the laws of his ancestors the seventh son hopes to hasten both the end of the discipline placed on Israel and the just recompense owed to the wicked king.
2 MACCABEES 8
The Revolt of Judas Maccabeus
1Meanwhile Judas, who was also called Maccabeus, and his companions secretly entered the villages and summoned their kindred and enlisted those who had continued in the Jewish faith, and so they gathered about six thousand. 2They implored the Lord to look upon the people who were oppressed by all; and to have pity on the temple that had been profaned by the godless; 3to have mercy on the city that was being destroyed and about to be leveled to the ground; to hearken to the blood that cried out to him; 4to remember also the lawless destruction of the innocent babies and the blasphemies committed against his name; and to show his hatred of evil.
5As soon as Maccabeus got his army organized, the Gentiles could not withstand him, for the wrath of the Lord had turned to mercy. 6Coming without warning, he would set fire to towns and villages. He captured strategic positions and put to flight not a few of the enemy. 7He found the nights most advantageous for such attacks. And talk of his valor spread everywhere.
8When Philip saw that the man was gaining ground little by little, and that he was pushing ahead with more frequent successes, he wrote to Ptolemy, the governor of Coelesyria and Phoenicia, to come to the aid of the king’s government. 9Then Ptolemya promptly appointed Nicanor son of Patroclus, one of the king’s chiefb Friends, and sent him, in command of no fewer than twenty thousand Gentiles of all nations, to wipe out the whole race of Judea. He associated with him Gorgias, a general and a man of experience in military service. 10Nicanor determined to make up for the king the tribute due to the Romans, two thousand talents, by selling the captured Jews into slavery. 11So he immediately sent to the towns on the seacoast, inviting them to buy Jewish slaves and promising to hand over ninety slaves for a talent, not expecting the judgment from the Almighty that was about to overtake him.
Preparation for Battle
12Word came to Judas concerning Nicanor’s invasion; and when he told his companions of the arrival of the army, 13those who were cowardly and distrustful of God’s justice ran off and got away. 14Others sold all their remaining property, and at the same time implored the Lord to rescue those who had been sold by the ungodly Nicanor before he ever met them, 15if not for their own sake, then for the sake of the covenants made with their ancestors, and because he had called them by his holy and glorious name. 16But Maccabeus gathered his forces together, to the number six thousand, and exhorted them not to be frightened by the enemy and not to fear the great multitude of Gentiles who were wickedly coming against them, but to fight nobly, 17keeping before their eyes the lawless outrage that the Gentilesc had committed against the holy place, and the torture of the derided city, and besides, the overthrow of their ancestral way of life. 18“For they trust to arms and acts of daring,” he said, “but we trust in the Almighty God, who is able with a single nod to strike down those who are coming against us, and even, if necessary, the whole world.”
19Moreover, he told them of the occasions when help came to their ancestors; how, in the time of Sennacherib, when one hundred eighty-five thousand perished, 20and the time of the battle against the Galatians that took place in Babylonia, when eight thousand Jewsd fought along with four thousand Macedonians; yet when the Macedonians were hard pressed, the eight thousand, by the help that came to them from heaven, destroyed one hundred twenty thousand Galatianse and took a great amount of booty.
Judas Defeats Nicanor
21With these words he filled them with courage and made them ready to die for their laws and their country; then he divided his army into four parts. 22He appointed his brothers also, Simon and Joseph and Jonathan, each to command a division, putting fifteen hundred men under each. 23Besides, he appointed Eleazar to read aloudf from the holy book, and gave the watchword, “The help of God” then, leading the first division himself, he joined battle with Nicanor.
24With the Almighty as their ally, they killed more than nine thousand of the enemy, and wounded and disabled most of Nicanor’s army, and forced them all to flee. 25They captured the money of those who had come to buy them as slaves. After pursuing them for some distance, they were obliged to return because the hour was late. 26It was the day before the sabbath, and for that reason they did not continue their pursuit. 27When they had collected the arms of the enemy and stripped them of their spoils, they kept the sabbath, giving great praise and thanks to the Lord, who had preserved them for that day and allotted it to them as the beginning of mercy. 28After the sabbath they gave some of the spoils to those who had been tortured and to the widows and orphans, and distributed the rest among themselves and their children. 29When they had done this, they made common supplication and implored the merciful Lord to be wholly reconciled with his servants.g
Judas Defeats Timothy and Bacchides
30In encounters with the forces of Timothy and Bacchides they killed more than twenty thousand of them and got possession of some exceedingly high strongholds, and they divided a very large amount of plunder, giving to those who had been tortured and to the orphans and widows, and also to the aged, shares equal to their own. 31They collected the arms of the enemy,h and carefully stored all of them in strategic places; the rest of the spoils they carried to Jerusa
lem. 32They killed the commander of Timothy’s forces, a most wicked man, and one who had greatly troubled the Jews. 33While they were celebrating the victory in the city of their ancestors, they burned those who had set fire to the sacred gates, Callisthenes and some others, who had fled into one little house; so these received the proper reward for their impiety.i
34The thrice-accursed Nicanor, who had brought the thousand merchants to buy the Jews, 35having been humbled with the help of the Lord by opponents whom he regarded as of the least account, took off his splendid uniform and made his way alone like a runaway slave across the country until he reached Antioch, having succeeded chiefly in the destruction of his own army! 36So he who had undertaken to secure tribute for the Romans by the capture of the people of Jerusalem proclaimed that the Jews had a Defender, and that therefore the Jews were invulnerable, because they followed the laws ordained by him.
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a Gk he
b Gk one of the first
c Gk they
d Gk lacks Jews
e Gk lacks Galatians
f Meaning of Gk uncertain
g Gk slaves
h Gk their arms
i Meaning of Gk uncertain
8.1–11 Judas Maccabeus (the “Hammerer”) arises as Israel’s champion against the Seleucids and their Jewish collaborators. See 1 Macc 3.1–41.
8.1 The story of Judas begun in 5.27 continues. Most of the material in 1 Macc 2.1–3.26 is absent.
8.2–4 The prayer by the troops summarizes events described so far in the book.
8.5–7 Judas’s success as a guerilla warrior is interpreted in accord with 6.12–17; 7.38: the wrath of the Lord…turned to mercy.
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