Chapter Sixteen

The defeat of Cendebeus by Simon’s sons (1 Macc 16:1-10). The death of Simon and the conclusion of the book (1 Macc 16:11-24).

1 Maccabees 16:1. And John returned from Gazara and told his father Simon what Cendebeus had done. The news of Cendebeus’s hostile actions is brought to Simon by his son John, who as commander of all the Jewish forces resided in the fortress of Gazara (XIII:53).

1 Maccabees 16:2–3. Then Simon summoned his two elder sons, Judas and John, and said to them: I and my brothers and my father’s house have fought against the enemies of Israel from our youth until this day, and many times we have successfully delivered Israel by our hands. But now I have grown old, and you, by God’s mercy, are in your mature years: take my place and my brother’s place, go and fight for our people, and may the help of heaven be with you. “In your mature years” (τῷ ἐλέει, i.e., by God’s mercy) (ἱκανοί ἐν τοῖς ἔτεσι) — more precisely in the Slavonic: “you are sufficient in years,” i.e., strong enough in your age to replace an old man in the upcoming war. — “Take my place and my brother’s place,” γίνεσθε ἀντ’ ἐμοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ μου, more precisely in the Slavonic: “be in place of me and my brother” — i.e., of Jonathan, together with whom (XI:59) he had come forward in defense of Judea, and who was most immediately present to Simon’s memory as his successor, though with equal right Judas could have been mentioned here as well (giving: τῶν ἀδελφῶν μου).

1 Maccabees 16:4. And he chose from the land twenty thousand warriors and horsemen, and they marched against Cendebeus and spent the night at Modein. A distinctive feature of the new campaign was the use of cavalry (ἱππεῖς), not previously mentioned among the Jews, which evidently arose as a result of Simon’s reorganization of the army — something cited among his merits in XIV:32.

1 Maccabees 16:5–6. Rising in the morning, they went out to the plain, and there was a large army marching toward them, both infantry and cavalry, and between them was a stream. And he himself moved against them with his forces, and seeing that the people were afraid to cross the stream, he crossed first, and his warriors saw this and crossed after him. “And he himself moved against them” (αὐτός), i.e., the chief commander of the Jewish army — John (XIII:53). He was probably the elder of the two mentioned in v. 2, even though he is listed there in second place (cf. v. 14, where the third brother — Mattathias — is also mentioned in first place, though he was clearly younger than Judas, per v. 2).

1 Maccabees 16:7. He divided his forces, placing the cavalry among the infantry; and the enemy’s cavalry was very numerous. By his disposition of troops, despite the inequality of cavalry, John reveals himself as a remarkably experienced and wise strategist: by placing his cavalry among the infantry, he first prevented the possibility that under the pressure of the enemy’s overwhelming cavalry, his own cavalry would fall into disorder that would inevitably affect the rest of the army — the infantry — with disorder, and perhaps even panic. Second, placing the cavalry among the infantry did not hinder it from fulfilling its role, but actually aided it. Shielded by the infantry attacking the enemy cavalry and therefore hardly vulnerable from the enemy’s side, whose attention had to be entirely focused on the nearest attacking ranks, the Jewish horsemen inflicted double damage on the enemy by shooting arrows over the heads of their own men, while at the same time remaining a threat to the enemy and a protection to their own from the rear and front. The last Jewish war with the Romans provided many examples of this inexhaustible resourcefulness of the Jewish mind in feats of combat, courage, and self-sacrifice.

1 Maccabees 16:8. And they sounded the sacred trumpets, and Cendebeus and his army were put to flight, and many of them fell wounded; the rest fled to the fortress. “Fled to the fortress,” i.e., to Kedron, as follows from the context (XV:39 and 41).

1 Maccabees 16:9. At that time Judas, the brother of John, was wounded; but John pursued them until he came to Kedron, which he had built. “Until he came to Kedron,” ἕως ἐλθεῖν (Slavonic: “until he came to Kedron”) — this properly means: to the region of Kedron — to the point where one is about to enter Kedron; therefore, in contrast to the Russian and Slavonic translation, this does not yet indicate entry into Kedron itself, but only into the surrounding area where Kedron begins (cf. XI:73–74 and others).

1 Maccabees 16:10. And they fled to the towers in the region of Azotus, but he burned it with fire, and about two thousand of them perished; and he returned in peace to the land of Judea. Ten years earlier, Azotus had already been taken and burned by Jonathan (X:84); evidently it had managed to be rebuilt and now suffered the same fate again.

1 Maccabees 16:11. Now Ptolemy the son of Abubus had been appointed commander over the plain of Jericho, and he had much silver and gold; Ptolemy, son of Abubus (Ἀβούβου). The Greek name — Πτολεμαῖος — of a man of Jewish origin leads one to suspect that he or his family were inclined toward Hellenism.

1 Maccabees 16:12–14. For he was the son-in-law of the high priest. And his heart grew proud, and he desired to take control of the land, and he formed treacherous plans against Simon and his sons, to destroy them. Now Simon was making a tour of the cities of the land and attending to their needs, and he came to Jericho — he himself and his sons Mattathias and Judas — in the one hundred and seventy-seventh year, in the eleventh month, that is, the month of Sabbat. “In the 177th year” of the Seleucid era, “in the eleventh month” (Sabbat, Zech 1:7) — in February 135 BC.

1 Maccabees 16:15. And the son of Abubus received them deceitfully in a small fortress called Dok, which he had built, and he made a great feast for them and hid men there. “The son of Abubus” — without his own name, this rings with contempt for this individual on account of his vile deed. — “A small fortress called Dok (Dok).” The vile act of patricide and fratricide was committed not in Jericho itself, but in a small fortress or castle near it, where, given the complete dependence of everyone on the commandant, it could be carried out more reliably. The name Δώκ (in Josephus Δαγών) has survived in the modern Ain Duk — a large, beautiful spring to the northwest of Jericho, on the northern slope of Mount Quarantania (Dschebel Kuruntul). Above this spring, ruins of very ancient and substantial walls can still be seen — perhaps the remnants of this ill-fated trap of Simon.

1 Maccabees 16:16–17. And when Simon and his sons had drunk freely, Ptolemy and those with him arose, took their weapons and burst in upon Simon during the banquet and killed him and his two sons and some of his servants. Thus he committed a great act of treachery and repaid good with evil. 1 Maccabees 16:18–21. Ptolemy wrote about this and sent word to the king asking him to send troops to help him and to hand over to him their land and their cities. He sent some men to Gazara to kill John, and he wrote letters to the military commanders asking them to come to him so that he could give them silver and gold and gifts; and he sent others to seize Jerusalem and the Temple mount. But someone ran ahead to John at Gazara and told him that his father and brothers had been killed and that Ptolemy had sent men to kill him as well. Ptolemy did not achieve the full realization of his treacherous plans, despite the success of the first step and the careful taking of all other precautionary measures. John, his main rival, safely escaped the ill-fated fate of his father and brothers and, having taken up the throne and high priesthood of his father, continued the glorious history of the Maccabean dynasty. With the account of the death of Simon Maccabeus (143–135 BC) along with his family at the hand of Ptolemy, and of John’s escape from the same fate, the canon of the sacred Old Testament books in their chronological order breaks off, leaving the reader in complete ignorance of nearly one and a half centuries before the New Testament events. Fortunately, the well-known historian Josephus comes to the rescue here, and later little by little other classical sources as well, which more or less thoroughly — depending on one’s skill in using them — will recount what is so important and interesting to know beyond the limits of the biblical books.

1 Maccabees 16:22–24. When John heard this, he was greatly alarmed, and he seized the men who had come to kill him and killed them, for he had learned that they were seeking to destroy him. The rest of the deeds of John, and his wars and brave exploits which he performed with distinction, and the walls he built, and his other achievements — these are recorded in the chronicle of his high priesthood, from the time when he became high priest after his father. The history of John, known by the name Hyrcanus, is merely, so to speak, titled by the author, who immediately replaces it with a simple reference to other special sources (“the chronicle of his high priesthood”). Unfortunately, this precious book has not only not survived to our time, but it is difficult to say even whether it was used by the principal chronicler of John’s history in its present form — Josephus. Those interested in this most instructive history and in the general question of what happened in Judea one and a half centuries before Christ the Savior would best satisfy their commendable curiosity by reading the special section on this subject (pp. 277–355) under the title “From the Bible to the Gospel” in the recently published scholarly work: “History of the Jewish People according to the Archaeology of Josephus,” by Hieromonk Joseph (Holy Trinity–St. Sergius Lavra, 1903, price 2 rub. 50 kop.). — Particular attention and interest for every enlightened and believing Christian is required by the history of the well-known Herod, the killer of the Bethlehem infants, which abounds in gripping events and scenes (pp. 323–355 in the same work). * * * Notes The Books of the Maccabees have been translated from the Greek, for they do not exist in Hebrew.