Chapter Three

The royal order to gather and bring all Jews to their execution (3 Macc 3:1-22).

3 Maccabees 3:1. Learning of this, the wicked man flew into such a rage that he became furious not only with the Jews living in Alexandria, but displayed cruel hostility toward those dwelling throughout the whole country as well, ordering them all to be gathered together at once and put to a most shameful death. 3 Maccabees 3:2. While this was being prepared, a malicious rumor was spread by people of like wickedness against the Jewish people, on the pretext of this order, that they were shirking the fulfillment of their lawful obligations. The point of the verse is this: the king’s malicious design was greatly inflamed by the enemies of the Jews, who also provided the pretext for carrying out this design — by spreading all manner of rumors about the Jews’ shirking of their lawful obligations.

3 Maccabees 3:3. Meanwhile, the Jews maintained good will and unwavering loyalty toward the kings; but they worshiped God, lived by His law, and therefore in certain cases permitted themselves departures and exceptions: it was for this reason that they appeared hostile to some; yet in the eyes of all other people they won favor by their conscientious fulfillment of all that was just. “Departures and exceptions...” — what is meant here is, in all probability, the Jewish dietary laws and other ritual distinctions by which they differed from the pagans (see further, v. 4).

3 Maccabees 3:4. Despite this, the aliens held the well-known good way of life of this people for nothing. They noticed only the difference in worship and diet and said that these people did not permit table fellowship with either the king or the magnates, that they were ill-disposed and great enemies of the state, and so they spread deliberate slanders against them. “Aliens” — αλλόφυλοι — these are those who must be understood under “some” — ένιοι — of verse 3. They are contrasted with “all other people” — άπαντες άνθρωποι (v. 3) and the “Greeks living in the city” (v. 5), with “Greeks” here meaning not all non-Jews, as in Rom 2:9 and following, but probably specifically Greeks as the more educated and noble part of the urban population.

3 Maccabees 3:5. The Greeks living in the city, who had experienced no wrong at their hands, seeing the unexpected commotion against these people and their sudden gathering, though they could not help them — for the command was the king’s — nevertheless comforted them, expressed indignation, and hoped that things would change: “Their sudden gathering...” The Greek text has no “their” here — συνδρομας απροσκόπους — and therefore one may understand here not the gathering of the Jews (“their”), but the gathering of the pagans that gave rise to the disturbances, so to speak — popular assemblies with speeches stirring up animosity against the Jews.

3 Maccabees 3:6–8. for it was impossible to disregard such a multitude of people who had done no wrong. Moreover, certain neighbors and friends and those who traded with them secretly received some of them, promising to help them and do everything possible for their protection. And he, puffed up by his momentary prosperity and not reflecting on the power of the greatest God, thought that he would persist unchanged in his design, and wrote against them a letter of this kind: 3 Maccabees 3:9–12. “King Ptolemy Philopator to the inhabitants of Egypt and to the local commanders and soldiers — greetings and good health. I myself am well, and our affairs are prospering. After the campaign we undertook in Asia, which, as you yourselves know, came to a happy conclusion through the unexpected aid of the gods and our own strength in accordance with our intention, we decided to settle the peoples inhabiting Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, not by force of arms, but by clemency and great benevolence, gladly benefiting them. Giving generous donations to the temples in the cities, we came also to Jerusalem, intending to honor the sanctuary of these worthless men who never leave off their folly. They, however, received our arrival with words of welcome, but in deed treacherously, and when we wished to enter the temple and honor it with appropriate and finest gifts, they, puffed up by their ancient pride, prevented our entry, not suffering any violence from us, because of the benevolence we have toward all men. 3 Maccabees 3:13–15. Clearly displaying their hostility toward us, they alone of all peoples stubbornly resist kings and their benefactors and refuse to do anything that is just. We, however, bearing with their folly, and both when we returned victorious and in Egypt itself, treating all peoples with benevolence, acted as was fitting. Among other things, announcing to all our forbearance toward their compatriots, we resolved to introduce changes: since they had served us in war and attended to very many affairs long since entrusted to them in good faith, we even wished to grant them the rights of Alexandrian citizenship and to make them participants in the ancestral priesthood. By “ancestral priesthood” — the king evidently refers here to the cult of Dionysus, setting it in contrast to the Jewish religion which he was suppressing.

3 Maccabees 3:16–17. But they, receiving this contrary to their own advantage, and by their inherent wickedness rejecting the good and inclining always toward evil, not only despised the invaluable right of citizenship, but also openly and covertly hold in contempt those few of their number who are sincerely well-disposed toward us, ever expecting that through their disorderly way of life we will soon revoke our ordinances. We therefore, being sufficiently convinced by experience that they at every opportunity harbor hostile designs against us, and foreseeing that at some point, in the event of an unexpected revolt against us arising, we would have among these wicked men traitors and cruel enemies behind our backs, By the revolt that might someday arise against him, the king means either war with Syria, or an uprising of his Egyptian subjects, or a soldiers’ mutiny, or palace intrigues; in all of these the open or covert involvement of the Jews could manifest itself (a remarkably characteristic trait of the Jewish nation, well known to everyone to the present day).

3 Maccabees 3:18–21. we command that, as soon as this letter is received, those people mentioned by us, together with their wives and children, be seized with violence and torments, put in iron chains, and sent from all directions to us for merciless and disgraceful execution, befitting such malefactors. For if they are all punished at once, we hope that for the future our affairs of state will be brought into complete order and the best arrangement. And if anyone conceals a Jew, from old man to child, not excluding nursing infants, that person is to be destroyed with all his household in the most cruel manner. And whoever reports someone shall receive the offender’s property and in addition two thousand drachmas from the royal treasury, shall receive freedom, and shall be honored. “Shall receive freedom and shall be honored...” και της ελευθερίας στεφανωθήσεται ..., Slavonic: “shall receive freedom and shall be crowned.” Many texts add τεύξεται to the Greek τής ελευθερίας. Here, evidently, the text speaks of informers and agents from among slaves and the lower classes of the population. All such are promised freedom and crowning — that is, with the civic crown, with civic rights. — Other commentators read τής ελευθερίας without any implied word, as a genitive of time, and translate the whole expression as: “shall be crowned at the festival of Dionysus,” which bore the name τά ελευθέρια (from the epithet of Dionysus — Ελευθερευς or Ελευθήρ).

3 Maccabees 3:22. Every place where a Jew in hiding is caught is to be laid waste and burned, so that it will be of no use to any mortal for anything forever.” Such was the content of the letter.