CHAPTER 1
Though there are the two Maccabees books, this one isn’t a
sequel to the previous one. It’s not
like the Samuels or the Kings or even the Chronicles where one picks up where
the other left off. No, according to
the introductory section, this is largely the same story, just with a different
priority. Whereas Part I focused on the
military exploits, this one focuses on the Temple. In other words, this is what Chronicles
claimed to be. The Greek title of
Chronicles is “paraleiopoemena” which means “Things omitted.” There weren’t many previously omitted items
in Chronicles, but this is supposed to be different.
The timeline in Maccabees II is different from Maccabees I
as well. The first one covered from 175
to 134 BC. This one covers from 180 to
161 BC, ending with the defeat of Nicanor’s army.
This book, however, gets off to an unpromising start, as it
kicks off with some letters. So we get
some bureaucratic paperwork instead of a real narrative.
There are two letters: the first from 124 BC and the second
from 164 BC. Odd that they are out of
order. They are from Jerusalem to Jews
in Egypt. The first one really doesn’t tell
us much at all. I guess it just sets up
the second letter, but I really don’t see how it does that.
The second one tells us about purifying the Temple, and
gives us a brief background on what is apparently the Hanukkah story. We’re told that when the Jews were taken into
captivity in Babylon (strangely, the letter writer mistakenly says Persia. Oops)
the priests of the Temple decided to hide some of the fire from the
altar in the hollow of a dry cistern, to keep it safe from any enemies.
When they came back all those decades later, Nehemiah looked
for the fire, but where the fire had once been was just a thick liquid. So Nehemiah ordered it scooped out and
brought it to the altar. When the liquid
was put on the wood and then the wood exposed to the sun, a great fire blazed
up. (Note: if true, why wasn’t this
story in the Book of Nehemiah?) This
bright blaze got the attention of lots of people.
CHAPTER 2
The 164 BC letter continues, and tries to explain away the
loss of the Ark of the Lord. Supposedly,
Jeremiah led it out of the Temple and took it in a cave on Mt. Sinai. The cave’s entrance was sealed, but then
lost. Jeremiah said it’ll be unknown
until God wants to show it to everyone.
Upon the return the cave wasn’t found, but Nehemiah ordered
the collection of all books and library contents of holy books that had been
scattered.
The letters end and we get the “Compiler’s Preface.” It’s a weirdly apologetic, as he notes his
tale – Maccabees II we call it – is an abbreviated version of a five-volume
thing by Jason of Cyrene (whose work we’ve lost). The anonymous compiler tells us how he wants
to stick to the basics and not get bogged down in the details, saying that
might be good for historians to delve into nuisances, but that’s not his
purpose. So it sounds like his tale is
more readable than Jason of Cyrene.
Irony: we have the name of Jason of Cyrene but not his work,
while we have the Book of Maccabees II but not the name of its compiler.
CHAPTER 3
OK, now we belatedly get into the actual story. There is a
king named Seleucus and a jerk from the Jewish priestly clan named Simon goes
to see him. It seems Simon has a beef
with the high priest and is going for revenge.
Simon tells the king that there are huge riches to be had in
the Temple in Jerusalem. The king had
taken a tax exemption to the Temple and its led to the accumulation of great
wealth. The king’s mouth waters and he
orders military man Heliodorus to take the wealth.
The Jews protest.
Look, the Temple doesn’t have nearly as much wealth as you’ve been
told. What’s more, the wealth is for a
cause – it’s for the widows and orphans to have, so please let us keep it. I wonder who is telling the truth here –
Simon or the priestly leaders? The
Bible’s slant is clearly with the Temple, but keep in mind in just another
century and a half Jesus Christ will attack the corruption and ways of the
priestly class.
At any rate, Heliodorus hears out the priests, but orders
are orders, so he’ll come for the money when he gets to the Temple. The chief priest is visibly shaken, and all
the people see it. When the women of
Jerusalem see him pale and trembling, they rush out of their houses in sack and
ashcloth. Everyone raises their hands to
heaven for supplication. The Bible calls
it a pitiful sight, and is sure sounds like it.
But raising their hands to heaven is a good move, for God
hears them. Thus, unlike Maccabees I, we
get a miracle. Out of nowhere, an
apparition appears. It’s a horse mounted
by a fearsome rider furiously charging at Heliodorus. The rider has golden armor and two young men
– very strong and very handsome – appear and flog Heliodorus without
mercy. He falls to the ground and has to
be carried away, near death.
He doesn’t die – because the head priest realizes how bad
it’ll look if the emperor’s general dies.
If he dies, the people of Jerusalem will be blamed and punished. Can’t have that, so the head priest offers a
sacrifice for Heliodorus. That does the
bill, as the whippers appear before the general and tell him that because the
priest gave the sacrifice, he’ll be allowed to live. Then they vanish. Spooky!
I’ll just point out how this is in one key way in keeping
with much of the Bible. Whenever you get
a section that focuses on the Temple or the priestly set, then officially
sanctioned sacrifice is always key. For
the priests, it’s always about following the proper ritual and procedure – and
of course it’s those rituals and procedures that give them a place in society,
for they are the ones who perform them.
With seen this approach to religion as far back as Leviticus.
The general recovers and reports to the emperor. Actually, his report is hilarious. He tells the emperor that in the future, if
he needs to send any official down to Jerusalem, he should make it be an enemy
or someone plotting against you, for he’ll go down and if he’s lucky barely
escape with his life after a severe flogging.
The general has learned the hard way that there is something sacred
afoot in that land.
CHAPTER 4
The Jews can’t enjoy their success defending their temple
for long. Simon turns around and blames
Onias, the good high priest, for all recent troubles. Onias takes his case to the king, but the
king dies. Antiochus becomes king – and
he you may recall is the villain of the first part of Maccabees I. So from here on out we should cover the same
years as the previous book.
But the previous book didn’t really kick into gear until a
few years after Antiochus became king.
Here, there is an immediate problem as a guy named Jason becomes high
priest. Jason is Onias’s brother, but
he’s not a good person. Named Joshua, he adopted the Greek named Jason because
he loves Greek culture. And sure enough,
he does whatever he can to spread it.
This is a bit odd, because normally the Greeks are seen as some of the
good guys of the ancient world, but this is the Bible and their culture is
being pushed upon Jews, so that’s bad.
Jason makes people where Greek hats.
Jason, “with perverse delight he established a gymnasium.” I get that the gym was a stable of Greek
culture and creating one is a symbol of pulling Jews away from their tradition,
but that sentence sure reads weird. My
God – he built a gym! Oh no! More
importantly, he flouts religious rites so badly that even the Temple priests start
going along with it. This is the
situation that the Maccabees will later fight against.
There is some maneuvering, and Jason loses. He sends Menelaus, brother of the evil priest
Simon, to the king, only to find out that Menelaus manages to use the occasion
to make himself the new head priest, pushing aside Jason. So the evil brother
of the good priest is screwed over by the evil brother of the evil priest. Yeah, it’s a little confusing. But the point is Jason gets screwed over.
But Jason’s brother Onais gets it even worse. He is killed by a crony of the king. The king supposedly doesn’t like the act and
has the crony killed, but the only really likable top rank Jewish figure is now
dead. The last part of the chapter has
the subtitle “More outrages” so things keep going badly. The temple gets robbed, though the robber himself
gets killed. Menelaus bribes his way out
of problems in a court. The bad guys are
winning.
CHAPTER 5
Remember how I said the bad guys are winning? Well, some of them are. They aren’t all on the same page. For example, there is Jason, the evil brother
of the late good guy Onais. Jason was
out-foxed by Menelaus for the chief priest seat, and not Jason tries to have
his revenge. He attacks the city. It’s a nasty, ugly, horrible fight. Jason feels he’s making progress, but the
Bible really condemns him strongly: “triumph over one’s own kindred is the
greatest calamity; he thought he was winning a victory over his enemies, not
over his own people.” Of all the bad
guys so far in the book, Jason rates the lowest.
So he gets his comeuppance.
He loses and is forced to flee.
He spends the rest of his life in exile, hopping from place to place,
without any friends, finally dying unmourned and unburied, nowhere near his
ancestors. This, my friends, is poetic
justice.
One random thing happens before Jason’s fall. There are visions of horsemen charging in the
sky above Jerusalem for 40 days straight while the king goes off on a military
expedition versus Egypt. I don’t get
this one, but it’s at least worth noting.
At any rate, King Antiochus comes back and hears of the
problems with Jason and decides to blame the Jews for it. I don’t quite get this, but there you
go. He attacks and immediately does far
greater damage than Jason could ever dream of.
He kills 40,000 and sells 40,000 more into slavery. And that’s not all, he also dares to enter
the Temple itself, which is not kosher.
His guide is Menelaus. (My hunch
is Menelaus told the king that the Jews were responsible for Jason’s attack, in
hopes that the king would attack and clear out any enemies of Menelaus. I guess – it doesn’t make much sense for him
to like the king that just slaughtered the city he’s nominally in charge of,
though. Trying to figure out the background
politics of this is confusing).
And now we reach the part where Maccabees I begins. Antiochus gets all puffy in his pride, and
assumes his victories were all his doing.
The Bible assures us that is wrong.
He didn’t win because he was great but because God wanted to punish the
Jews for their transgressions. Antiochus
just happened to be a vehicle for the Lord. He has a man go there and kill some
more Jews to assert his authority.
This is when Judas Maccabeus first appears. He goes into the wilderness with nine others,
and there the rebellion will begin.
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