CHAPTER 6
Things are going well for Judas and his kin so far, and they
are about to get a bit better: King Antiochus (AKA, the Bad Guy) dies. He just lost a battle fighting elsewhere and
comes back to find out how the Jews have destroyed his forces at home. He immediately takes ill. On his deathbed, he repents, saying that he
realizes that his bad mistreatment of the Jews has caused his current
problems. He repents, but it’s too late
and he dies. At least that’s the Bible’s
account of his thoughts as he died.
For the readers, this is bad news because from here on out
the plot will be a bit harder to follow.
We’ll see a series of kings come and go, representing different nations,
and factions within nations, and it’s a bit confusing and hard to follow – and
then often not worth following, as the kings you’re unfamiliar with exist stage
left. But that tells us something important. Judah and his brothers are no longer rebels
in the wilderness. They are now power
brokers to be contended with, so in the topsy-turvy environment of the times,
that can be confusing.
There is a new military force facing off against the Jews
right after the old king died. It’s the
Gentiles of the land, who are unhappy with rising Jewish power. They fight, and
in the fight, Judah’s younger brother Eleazar dies. He dies valiantly. He sees a big elephant and assumes the big
opposing leader is upon it. So he
charges at it, killing those before him all around. When he gets to the
elephant, he guts it from below. The
elephant dies – but collapses upon Eleazar.
It’s a kamikaze style death, where he brought it on himself. But as far as I can tell, the king wasn’t on
the elephant anyway.
So hard do the Jews fight, that they are given a peace
treaty. Well, it looks like all those
fights and all those battles against a series of enemies have paid off. They are given control of their own nation
and the ability to practice their religion.
Folks, they’ve done it.
They’ve done it – for about five minutes. A few verses later the new king breaks the
treaty, which allows the plot to continue.
CHAPTER 7
And now we get a new player on the scene – Rome. Somehow, it just seems weird to have Rome in
the Bible. It’s like putting dinosaurs
and cavemen together in a movie – shouldn’t they be around at different
times? Abraham, Moses, David – those
guys all predate Romulus by several centuries.
But this is the second century BC in this Bible, and Rome is a rising
power. For now, it’s just some
negotiation.
What does happen is some guy named Alcimus fights with
others called Bacchides and Nicanor against Judah. Alcimus has sided with the bad guys to become
high priest of the Jews, but he is apparently a degenerate priest. We’re told that he brings evils upon the
people. Heck, the Bible even says that
the evils he brought on were “even more than the Gentiles had” done. That’s impressive, given that we’ve been told
that the Gentiles were hanging babies at one point.
But the new bad guy general, someone named Nicanor, goes off
to fight Judah. Apparently, the stakes
are really high, as Nicanor vows that if he wins he will burn the Temple
down. Yeah, I figured we were past that
threat at this point in the chapter, with all of Judah’s success, but I guess
not.
Judah appeals to God to do what he did to the Assyrians in
the time of Isaiah – kill 185,000 in one night.
Not that many die, but Nicanor’s army is crushed, with the headman the
first to die in battle himself. So it’s
a big win.
I believe this is the last time in the Maccabees that the
stakes are that high. From now on, the
threat to the Temple and the religion itself are in decline. Now it’s more preserving what has been won,
not keeping the entire religion from being stamped out.
CHAPTER 8
Now that Judas has reaffirmed that he is the big power in
the region, the Romans send out feelers. They want to be friends. Judas has heard of the Romans and we get a
big long section about that – again, this is weird because he probably know
more about the Romans that the author of the book does. Short version: the Romans treat their allies
well, and vigorously put down those who won’t ally with them. So Judas allies with them. Good move.
It turns out that surprisingly little will come of this, as
the confusing path of eastern Mediterranean politics will keep having a series
of new twists and turns.
CHAPTER 9
This is strange and hard to explain. So far, we’ve seen Judas have a seemingly
unbroken series of successful campaign.
He’s outlasted one king, defeated several armies, and done so well for
himself that Rome wants to be his ally. You’d think by now that he’d be the big
man in Canaan.
But here, Judas turns to fight a new enemy, his army is
frightened by its size and almost everyone goes AWOL. Judas dies fighting with the 800 who
remain.
Huh?
He’s off fighting Bacchides and Alcimus again. I thought their last army was destroyed, but
they’ve gotten a new one, and somehow it’s huge. Uh, …OK then.
That’s why Judas’s army melts away but that’s the really strange
part. Shouldn’t they show him more
loyalty? He’s taken them from the edge
to a central seat in regional politics.
He’s won many battles over larger foes.
But here? Everyone runs away
before the battle begins. At the very
least, it makes you wonder just how big the earlier fights were. Maybe the size of the wins were inflated. That would explain, 1) why people flee so
easily here, and 2) why there are so many foes left in the opposing army.
Judas recognizes that the fight is doomed, but would rather
go down fighting. And so he does.
But that just let’s us see the rise of his older brother
Jonathan. Johnny is actually the eldest
of the brothers, and he is made leader.
First he has to put down all the bad guys who came crawling out of the
woodwork when Judas dies. He ambushes
some guys at a wedding, slaughtering them.
Wow, that’s harsh. I get why you
do it, but you get a wedding slaughter.
It’s kind of awkward to root for one of those.
Meanwhile, he’s still got to fight Bacchides, the big leader
that helped beat Judah. Jonathan gives a
pretty nice speech to his soldiers: “Let us rise up now and fight for our
lives, for today is not like yesterday and the day before. The battle is before us, behind us are the
waters of the Jordan, on either side of us, marsh and thickets; there is no way
to escape.” He just lays it out for the
men – fight as hard as you can or we’ll all die. And they win, killing 1,000 of Bacchides men.
Meanwhile, Alcimus, the evil head priest who got his post by
siding with bad guys, decides to mess with the Lord’s sanctuary. Bad move.
Alcimus falls ill and dies.
See? I told you I was a bad
move.
The rest of the chapter is a little confusing, with the
Bible making too much use of pronouns and not enough use of proper nouns. As near as I can tell, Bacchides comes to
terms with Jonathan and agrees not to fight anymore. Unless it’s an underling of Bacchides, but I
think it’s old B himself.
CHAPTER 10
In a Bible book full of really long chapters, this one takes
the cake. Most are about 60 verses
long. The last chapter was unusually
long at 73 verses – but this one is 89 verses!
I can only think of two chapters that long so far. One was a really long psalm. Another was a symbolic moment, when all 12
tribes gave some animals to sacrifice to the Lord --- we had a complete list,
tribe-by-tribe of what they gave, so it was several verses for each tribe. (God that verse sucked).
But this is just a chapter describing plot and action. There is no reason it couldn’t be two or
three chapters, but instead it’s just one.
Jonathan, now that he’s beaten all the enemies (again) is
sitting in a nice position for himself.
A bigger power is a king named Alexander, and he asks to be an ally and
gives good terms. But before Jonathan
can reply, Demetrius – the bad guy king who he sparred with recently, also
sends a message. Demetrius offers really
great terms. But no one believes old
D. So Jonathan signs an alliance with
Alexander. And shortly after, Demetrius
dies in battle.
And this gets us caught up in an extra layer of
politics. Alexander marries the daughter
of Ptolemy, ruler of Egypt. It looks
like Alexander and Ptolemy are first-rate powers, and Jonathan, while still
respected, is a second rate power. After
all, there are only so many Jews out there.
Alexander does help put down a rebellion against
Jonathan. Well, calling it a rebellion
is maybe too strong. People are speaking
ill to Alexander about Jonathan, but he ignores them and puts Jonathan in
imperial purple. (See? Alex is the top power, Jonathan a second tier
guy). Seeing John in purple is enough
to thwart the critics.
Jonathan and younger brother Simon also win some
battles. I have no idea who they are
fighting. I assume bad guys.
CHAPTER 11
Now Ptolemy forms an alliance with Demetrius II, who I
assumed is the son of the recently demised bad guy, and thus bad news for the
Jews. But it doesn’t play out like that.
The guy to look out for here it Ptolemy, who tries to take
Alexander’s kingdom by deceit. The short
version is he does force Alexander to flee to Arabia, where he is killed and
his head sent to Ptolemy. But then
Ptolemy dies – just three days later. So
now Demetrius is in power. I guess he’s
last man standing at the top level. Or
something.
Well, this Demetrius seeks good terms with the Jews. I guess he realized how things didn’t work
out for the last Demetrius. Jonathan is
amenable and they become allies.
Actually, Jonathan becomes more than an ally, he becomes a vital force
backing the new big power. At one point
Demetrius is in Antioch, surrounded by those that hate him, and he calls on
Jonathan to help. Jonathan arrives with
a few thousand Jewish soldiers and defeats the rebels.
Let’s pause to note how much things have changed. Early on, the Jewish forces under the
Maccabees were the rebels in the wilderness fighting desperately against kings
they hate. Now they’re the ones propping up kings against rebels. My, they sure have earned a better slot for
themselves over the course of 11 long chapters.
But maybe Jonathan shouldn’t have helped, for we’re told
that Demetrius is now turning against Jonathan.
Why? Well, the Bible doesn’t say,
but some guesses can be made. He gave
Jonathan really good terms and plenty of internal control. Demetrius probably did that because he knew
he needed to solidify his rule in other places and some concessions could turn
a possible enemy into an ally. But now
he’s solidified his power and wants to solidify his control over the Jewish
lands. It’s all pure power politics,
which is the real theme of this chapter.
But Jonathan isn’t stupid.
He makes an alliance with Antiochus IV, whoever that is. (I’m guessing the Asian king from Alexander’s
old generals. Demetrius is probably the
king in Macedonia. I’m just guessing on
all of this, but the point is there are 3-4 major kings and the Jews live at a
crossroads).
Jonathan and brother Simon engage in some more battles and
are victorious.
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