Chapter 6

The death of Antiochus Epiphanes (cf. 2 Mac, ch. IX) (1–17). Complaint of the Jewish renegades and the Syrian garrison of Antiochus Eupator against Judas, and the king’s extensive preparations for a new campaign against Judea (18–30). Siege of Beth-zur and the battle at Beth-zechariah (31–47). Siege of the temple mount fortifications, surrender of Beth-zur (48–54). Conclusion of an armistice; the king’s treachery and withdrawal to Antioch (55–63) (cf. Jos. Antt. XII, 9, 3–7 and 2 Macc 12:18–27).

1 Maccabees 6:1. Meanwhile King Antiochus, passing through the upper provinces, heard that there was in Persia a city called Elymais, famed for its wealth in silver and gold, On his way through the “upper provinces” (see at 3:31), Antiochus “heard that there was in Persia a city called Elymais,” famed for its temple and its untold riches, and he made for it… This wording, taken up into the textus receptus, that Elymais was a city in Persia, involves an obvious geographical error, since there was no city called Elymais in Persia, but rather Elymais—the Greek form of the Hebrew name—a province of the Persian kingdom (Dan 8:2 — the region of Elam, with its capital city Susa). — The naming of this “Elymais” as a city may have arisen from the fact that the original had here a word meaning “region,” which the translator mistakenly rendered as polis. This was all the more likely because verses 2 and 3 go on to speak precisely of a city. In that case, however, it would have been more correct to say simply: “he heard that there was, en Elymaidi en te Persidi, a city…” and so on. — Other historical witnesses to this event likewise do not name the city. Thus Polybius says only that Antiochus, wishing to obtain money, undertook a campaign “against the temple of Artemis in Elymais,” but did not achieve his aim (XXXI, 11). Appian mentions that Antiochus plundered to tes Elymaias Aphrodites hieron (Syr. c. 66). — 2 Macc 9:2, in recounting this event, names the city Persepolis, but this rests on mere conjecture.

1 Maccabees 6:2–4. and in it a very rich temple, where there were golden coverings, breastplates, and weapons that Alexander, son of Philip, the Macedonian king who first reigned over the Greeks, had left there. So he came and tried to take the city and plunder it, but he could not, because his intention became known to the citizens, who rose up against him in battle; and he was put to flight and departed from there in great sorrow, to return to Babylon. “Departed… to return to Babylon.” This does not contradict Polybius’s report that Antiochus died at Tabae, since it is only said here that Antiochus set out for Babylon, and that death overtook him along the way.

1 Maccabees 6:5–7. Then someone came to him in Persia with the news that the forces that had gone into the land of Judah had been put to flight, and that Lysias had gone forth with a strong army in the vanguard, but had been defeated by the Jews, who had grown stronger both in arms and in troops and in the great spoils they had taken from the armies they had defeated, and that they had torn down the abomination that he had set up over the altar in Jerusalem, and had surrounded the sanctuary with high walls as before, and Beth-zur, his city, as well. A brief account, given to Antiochus, of the events already described at 3:32 and 4:60. — “Someone came to him… with the news…” — apangellon tis—this was probably a special messenger of Lysias. — “The forces that had gone into the land of Judah…” — the armies of Ptolemy, Nicanor, and Gorgias (3:38, 4:1). — “Lysias had gone forth… in the vanguard…” — en protois, Slavonic “among the first”—meaning not “before all the others” in time, but as the highest of all, as commander-in-chief (4:28). “They had torn down the abomination…” In the expression to bdelygma, the writer puts into the mouth of the pagan messenger his own Jewish point of view. — “Beth-zur, his city”—polin autou—that is, a city belonging by right to him, the Syrian king.

1 Maccabees 6:8–9. When the king heard these words, he was greatly terrified and shaken, and he took to his bed and fell into despondency from grief, because things had not turned out as he had wished. And he remained there many days, for grief kept returning upon him ever more strongly, and he thought that he was dying. “He remained there…” — en te Persidi—where Lysias’s messenger had found him.

1 Maccabees 6:10–11. And he called together all his friends and said to them: Sleep has fled from my eyes, and my heart has failed me for grief. And I said in my heart: To what distress have I come, and into what a great tempest, in which I now find myself! Yet I was kind and beloved in my rule. “Yet I was kind and beloved in my rule.” One need not deny Antiochus a certain natural good nature and good will; it is also true that he strove—often to the point of the absurd—to make himself beloved by his people.

1 Maccabees 6:12–13. But now I remember the evils I did in Jerusalem, how I took all the vessels of gold and silver that were there, and sent to destroy the inhabitants of Judea for no reason. Now I know that it is for this that these troubles have come upon me—and behold, I am perishing of great grief in a foreign land. “I am perishing… in a foreign land…” Persia, though it belonged to Antiochus’s kingdom, was nonetheless a distant province, which, after the campaigns he had undertaken there, had truly become for him something of a foreign land, so that he could not count on its sharing in his sorrowful fate. In Antiochus’s pointing to the crimes he had committed in Jerusalem as the cause of his misfortunes, not everything need be attributed to the Jewish apologetic tendency of the historian. Some plausibility for the reasoning and feelings put into the mouth of the dying king is lent not only by Polybius’s note that Antiochus, struck by certain terrible signs of the deity for his plundering of the temple at Elymais, fell into a stupor and died, but also by all the circumstances of the case itself.

1 Maccabees 6:14. And he called Philip, one of his friends, and set him over the whole kingdom; Philip—called also, at 2 Macc 9:29, the king’s foster brother, syntrophos—was apparently a “barbarian,” a Phrygian by birth, whom Antiochus had appointed governor of Judea “to oppress the people” (2 Macc 5:22; 8:8).

1 Maccabees 6:15. and he gave him the crown, his royal robe, and his ring, so that he might guide Antiochus his son and raise him up to reign. “He gave him… and his ring…” — to daktylion—with which all the king’s written orders and decrees were sealed.

1 Maccabees 6:16. And King Antiochus died in the year one hundred and forty-nine. “King Antiochus died in the year 149…” of the Seleucid era = 164 B.C. By handing over the royal regalia to Philip, Antiochus proclaimed and legally established him as regent of the kingdom and guardian of his son during his minority. Comparing this with 3:32–34, we find it strange that the king transferred these powers not to Lysias but to Philip. It appears that Philip managed to gain the confidence of the disheartened king against the distant Lysias, toward whom Antiochus was already ill-disposed after the defeats sustained in Judea. Yet if one considers that Philip was the king’s foster brother, and thus stood no less close to him, if not closer, than Lysias, who came of the royal line, it may be allowed that in appointing Philip regent of the kingdom and tutor to his son, Antiochus had no intention at all of slighting Lysias. And if this appointment nevertheless led to civil war, the fault lay more with the ambition of Lysias, who did not submit to the king’s last will and did not content himself with authority over half the kingdom, but now sought to seize the whole of it. — Polybius names Tabae in Persia as the place of Antiochus’s death; blessed Jerome, and Dan 11, give Tabes oppidum Persidos.

1 Maccabees 6:17. When Lysias learned that the king was dead, he set up in his place his son Antiochus, whom he had raised from childhood, and named him Eupator. According to Appian (46 and 66), the new king, Antiochus Eupator, was only nine years old at his accession; according to Eusebius (Chron. armen. p. 187), fourteen; the former figure appears the more correct.

1 Maccabees 6:18–20. Meanwhile those in the citadel kept hemming Israel in around the sanctuary, always seeking to do it harm and to serve as a stronghold for the Gentiles; so Judas resolved to drive them out, and called together all the people to besiege them. They all assembled and besieged them in the year one hundred and fifty, and he set up against them catapults and siege engines. In the year 150 of the Seleucid era = 163 B.C.

1 Maccabees 6:21–22. But some of the besieged got out, and some ungodly men of Israel joined them; and they went to the king and said: How long will you fail to render judgment and avenge our brothers? “How long will you fail… to avenge our brothers?” — meant here are both the Gentiles besieged in the citadel and the Jews who were in league with them; the petitioners were made up of both these groups.

1 Maccabees 6:23–28. We were content to serve your father, to walk according to his decrees, and to follow his commands; but the sons of our own people, for that reason, besieged the citadel and now treat us as strangers, and whenever they find any of us, they put them to death and plunder our possessions, and they have stretched out their hand not only against us but against all our territory as well. And now, behold, they have besieged the citadel in Jerusalem in order to seize it, and they have fortified the sanctuary and Beth-zur. If you do not act quickly to forestall them, they will do still more than this, and then you will not be able to restrain them. Hearing this, the king was enraged, and gathered all his friends, the commanders of his army, and the commanders of his cavalry; “The king was enraged, and gathered…” Since the king was still a boy, everything attributed to him here was of course done in his name by the regent of the kingdom, Lysias. It is possible, however, that the messengers had an audience with the young king in the presence of Lysias, and that their report roused him to anger and to a warlike temper, and that Lysias, treating this as sufficient authorization for himself, proceeded to the necessary preparations for the coming war. — “His friends…” — that is, the members of his royal council.

1 Maccabees 6:29. and mercenary troops came to him also from other kingdoms and from the islands of the sea, “Mercenary troops came to him also from other kingdoms…” — probably from the states of Asia Minor: Pergamum, Bithynia, Pontus, and Cappadocia. — “From the islands of the sea…” — that is, Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, and the islands of the Aegean.

1 Maccabees 6:30. so that the number of his forces was: a hundred thousand infantry, twenty thousand cavalry, and thirty-two elephants trained for war. 2 Macc 13:2 represents the military strength of Eupator and Lysias as still more formidable—110,000 infantry, 5,300 cavalry, 32 elephants, and 30 scythed chariots for each. But this report scarcely deserves much credence—not only because it assigns a separate army to the young Eupator and to Lysias, but because of the plain improbability of such enormous figures, especially considering that half the Syrian forces must still have been in Persia with Philip, and that even Antiochus the Great, at the battle of Magnesia, could field no more than 80,000 troops against the Romans, at a time when the Syrian kingdom was far larger and its strength not yet so exhausted as under Antiochus Epiphanes; nor, finally, could Lysias easily have raised so large a force in the Greek lands without provoking conflict with the Romans, to whom Antiochus had bound himself, by treaty, not to recruit in the territories under Roman protection, not to accept deserters or volunteers from them, not to train any more elephants for war, and not to acquire any (Polybius XXII, 23 (26); Livy XXXVIII, 38). Be that as it may, it cannot be denied that Lysias’s army must have reached at least the figure given in verse 30. Indeed, if Lysias was twice defeated—first with 40,000, then with 65,000—by Judas’s force of 10,000 (4:28–35), then now, when Judas had fortified the temple mount and Beth-zur and had so raised the spirit and strength of his companions as to undertake the siege of the Syrian garrison in the citadel of Jerusalem, Lysias would have had to move an even larger army against the Jews, if he wished decisively to crush this Jewish revolt and reestablish himself in Judea. Other considerations, no less weighty, must also have spurred him on. Besides the affairs of Judea, he foresaw difficulties both from Philip, on his return from Persia, and from the Romans, should they decide the question of succession not in favor of Eupator but of another claimant—his uncle Demetrius. Either of these was reason enough to make him strain every resource of the Syrian kingdom, to raise an army ready for every difficulty that might be foreseen.

1 Maccabees 6:31. And they passed through Idumea and encamped before Beth-zur, and fought there for many days and built siege engines; but the defenders made a sortie and burned them with fire, and fought bravely. “They passed through Idumea…” — see at 5:29.

1 Maccabees 6:32. After this, Judas withdrew from the citadel and encamped at Beth-zechariah, opposite the king’s camp. “Judas withdrew from the citadel”—that is, he suspended for the time the siege of the citadel of Jerusalem, where the Syrian garrison held out, and set out to meet the advancing enemy. — Beth-zechariah—where Judas encamped—lay seventy stadia north of Beth-zur, present-day Beit Sakarieh (Josephus, Antt. XII, 9, 4; Bell. Jud. I, 5).

1 Maccabees 6:33–34. But the king, rising early, set out in haste with his army along the road to Beth-zechariah, and the troops made ready for battle and sounded their trumpets. They showed the elephants the blood of grapes and mulberries, to rouse them for battle, “The blood of grapes and mulberries…” — that is, red wine or the juice of these berries, which has the appearance of blood. Giving the elephants this wine to drink drove them into uncontrollable fury, a device commonly exploited in battle (3 Macc 5:2). — Here, however, the wine was only shown to the elephants, without giving it to them, which made their rage all the more terrible.

1 Maccabees 6:35–37. and they divided the animals among the divisions, and posted with each elephant a thousand men in coats of mail and with bronze helmets on their heads, and besides these, five hundred picked cavalry were assigned to each elephant. These took their positions beforehand wherever the elephant was, and wherever it went, they went with it, never leaving its side. And upon each elephant were sturdy wooden towers, covering it and fastened to it with harness straps, each holding thirty-two strong men who fought from them, besides the elephant’s own Indian driver. “Besides the elephant’s own Indian driver”—that is, its handler, a manager who was an Indian, since the elephants themselves were Indian. The number given—thirty-two men on each elephant—appears wholly improbable. Both ancient and modern testimony agree that the towers on elephants held only three or four, at the very most five men, and a tower with thirty-two armed men would occupy a circumference that not even the back of the largest elephant could support; evidently, then, this improbable number entered the text through an error of a translator or copyist, perhaps through confusion of numerals.

1 Maccabees 6:38–43. The rest of the cavalry were stationed here and there on the two flanks of the army, to give signals and to give support in the tight places. When the sun flashed on the golden and bronze shields, the mountains gleamed with their light and shone like fiery torches. Part of the king’s army was drawn out along the high hills, and part along the low ground, and they advanced firmly and in order. And all who heard the noise of their multitude, the march of so vast a host, and the clatter of their arms were struck with dread, for the army was very great and mighty. And Judas and his army joined battle, and six hundred men fell from the king’s forces. Then Eleazar, son of Savaran, saw that one of the elephants was covered with royal armor and surpassed all the others, and it seemed to him that the king was upon it, “Eleazar, son of Savaran…” — see at 2:5.

1 Maccabees 6:44–46. and he gave himself up, to save his people and to win an everlasting name; and he ran boldly toward it into the midst of the ranks, striking to the right and to the left, so that they parted before him on either side; and he ran in under that elephant, thrust himself beneath it, and killed it, and it fell to the ground upon him, and he died there. “He thrust himself beneath it…” — hypetheken (heauton), Slavonic “put himself under it.” Eleazar’s action can scarcely be described by the phrase “thrust himself beneath it.” It is far more correct to picture the matter by analogy with 2 Macc 14:41, and as Josephus states directly (Antt. XII, 9, 4), that Eleazar “thrust”—hypetheken—not himself but to xiphos, the sword, as is also found in some manuscripts, and thus, piercing the elephant from below, killed it. Eleazar’s supposition (v. 43) that the king was upon this elephant proved mistaken. It was probably some other important “person”; the king himself could hardly even have been there, since he was still a child, entirely useless in battle: amid the confusion of the fighting he would have needed special watching and heavy protection, which would only have hindered the combatants. Had the king perished with the elephant, this would certainly not have passed without great panic in the army, which would once again have broken into disorderly flight. That the king remained unharmed is finally evident also from what follows (v. 48 and following).

1 Maccabees 6:47–48. But seeing the strength of the king’s forces and the fury of their advance, the Jews withdrew before them. The king’s forces then went up against them toward Jerusalem, for the king turned his army toward Judea and Mount Zion. For the first time Judas withdraws before the enemy, judging that without dire necessity he should not risk forces that on this occasion were too plainly outmatched by the enemy, even granting no lack of courage. Preserving his army and not abandoning hope of outmaneuvering the enemy, Judas seems to have returned to Jerusalem, with the advancing enemy behind him (v. 48; cf. Josephus, Antt. XII, 9, 5; De Bell. Jud. I, 5). — “The king’s forces…” Slavonic, “those of the king’s army”—hoi ek ton—that is, a part of the army, the main body, while another part carried on the siege of Beth-zur and, once it surrendered, had to remain there as a garrison. — “Went up against them toward Jerusalem…” — eis synantesin auton—this expression, and indeed the text at this point generally, gives no clear indication of where Judas made for or where he took up his position. According to Josephus, Antt. XII, 9, 5, he shut himself up with his detachment in the temple fortifications; but in that case it seems strange that in what follows—at the conclusion of the peace—Judas’s name is not mentioned at all. Hiding from the enemy in a fortress was in general not in keeping with Judas’s character, and in this case least of all, since in a sabbatical year the temple mount would have felt a severe shortage of provisions. It is possible, therefore, that Judas, having left part of his force in Jerusalem, actually withdrew (with the other part) to Gophna, into the hills, as Josephus also represents the matter elsewhere.

1 Maccabees 6:49. And he made peace with those in Beth-zur, who came out of the city, because they had no provisions to hold out under siege there, since it was a sabbatical year for the land. The immediate consequence of the Syrians’ victorious advance into Judea was that the fortress of Beth-zur had to surrender, forced to this above all by lack of provisions. In mentioning this event, none too pleasant for a Jew, the writer’s desire to soften, as far as possible, the unpleasantness of the impression is noticeable. Thus he does not say—as was customarily said in such cases—that the Jews went out to the enemy to surrender themselves (cf. 1 Sam 11:3; 2 Kings 18:31; 24:12; Jer 37:17–18), but expresses it only as: “they came out of the city”—exelthon ek tes poleos. Likewise, the expression “he made peace with those in Beth-zur…” is plainly just a “tactful” way of indicating that the fortress capitulated to the king. But if the original source is here so brief and so guarded, there exist fuller and more candid witnesses to the matter. Josephus, who in general knew how to spare the self-respect of his Jewish readers, here admits to a good deal more: that “the people of Beth-zur, terrified by the multitude of the enemy…, surrendered the city to the king,” having taken an oath that they would be preserved from all harm. But Antiochus, once he had the city, “did the inhabitants no other harm than to order them driven naked out of the city.” Such was this exelthon ek tes poleos…

1 Maccabees 6:50–51. And the king took possession of Beth-zur and stationed a garrison there to guard it. Then for many days he besieged the sanctuary, and set up against it catapults and siege engines, and machines for hurling fire, and stones, and darts, to cast missiles and stones. “He besieged the sanctuary…” — that is, the strongly fortified temple mount (see at 4:60).

1 Maccabees 6:52–53. But the Jews too built engines to counter their engines, and fought for many days; yet there was no food left in the storehouses, because it was the seventh year, and those who had taken refuge in Judea from the Gentiles had used up what remained of the stores; “Those who had taken refuge in Judea from the Gentiles…” — that is, those who had migrated there from Gilead and Galilee, 5:23.

1 Maccabees 6:54–61. and only a few men were left at the sanctuary, for hunger had overcome them, and each went off to his own place. Lysias heard that Philip, whom King Antiochus, while he still lived, had appointed to raise his son Antiochus to reign, had returned from Persia and Media with the troops that had gone with the king, and that he was seeking to take control of the affairs of the kingdom. So he hurried and said to the king, to the commanders of the army, and to the nobles: We are failing day by day, our provisions are scarce, and the place we are besieging is strong, while the care of the kingdom presses upon us. Let us therefore hold out our hand to these people, and make peace with them and with all their nation, and let us allow them to live by their own laws as before; for it is because of their laws, which we abolished, that they were provoked and did all this. This proposal pleased the king and the commanders, and he sent to them to make peace, which they accepted; and the king and the commanders swore an oath to them. After this, they came out of the citadel. “After this, they came out…” — epi toutois, Slavonic “upon these things”—that is, more correctly, not “after this” but “on these terms,” in the sense in which one says, “on this they settled the matter”—meaning “on these conditions they came out of the citadel,” surrendering it to the Syrians.

1 Maccabees 6:62. And the king went up onto Mount Zion, and having inspected the fortifications, he broke the oath he had sworn and ordered the walls torn down all around. “Onto Mount Zion…” — that is, into the fortifications of the temple mount. The king’s order “to tear down the walls all around” is regarded by the writer as a violation of the oath “the king had sworn” at the making of peace. Some object that nothing in the narrative itself shows that the inviolability of the walls was one of the terms of the peace treaty; nevertheless, this is naturally implied.

1 Maccabees 6:63. Then he set out in haste and, returning to Antioch, found Philip in control of the city; he joined battle with him and took the city by force. The king hurries from Jerusalem to Antioch, and finding Philip in possession of the city, joins battle with him and takes the city by force. To this report, Josephus, in Antt. XII, 9, 7, adds that Philip is captured and put to death, whereas according to 2 Macc 9:29, Philip, in fear of Antiochus Eupator, withdraws to Ptolemy Philometor in Egypt. Josephus goes on to relate that the king, on leaving Judea, took with him the high priest Onias, who had renamed himself Menelaus, and, on the advice of Lysias, had him put to death at Beroea, as the chief cause of all the troubles between the Jews and the Syrian king. This event is also recounted at 2 Macc 13:4–7, though placed elsewhere—before the arrival of Lysias and Eupator in Judea.