Chapter Four

The sending of the Jews to Alexandria, their imprisonment and registration (3 Macc 4:1-16).

3 Maccabees 4:1–3. Everywhere the order arrived, the pagans held public feasts with joyful shouts, as if the enmity long lodged in their souls had now boldly come to light. Among the Jews, on the other hand, there began inconsolable grief, bitter weeping, and lamentation; for the groans of those mourning the unexpected destruction suddenly decreed against them burned in their hearts from every side. What province or city, or what inhabited place, or what roads were not filled with their weeping and cries? “What province...” τις νομός. Νομός — a common noun for the designating of the districts or counties into which Egypt was divided.

3 Maccabees 4:4. They were sent out harshly and without any mercy by the authorities of each city all together, so that at the sight of this extraordinary punishment even some of their enemies, observing the common suffering and reflecting on the unknown vicissitudes of life, wept over their most wretched exile. 3 Maccabees 4:5. Crowds of the elderly, covered with gray hair, bent over by the weakness of old age in their legs, were driven, and by the demand of the violent expulsion were shamelessly forced to quicken their pace. 3 Macc 4:5-8. Having mentioned in general terms the calamity that had befallen the Jews, the writer goes on to describe individual cases of how the dispatch of the Jews to their execution in Alexandria was carried out.

3 Maccabees 4:6. Young women who had just been joined in the union of marriage and entered the bridal chamber, instead of rejoicing began to weep, sprinkled ashes over their hair fragrant with ointments, were led with uncovered heads, and instead of bridal songs raised a common wail, being tormented by the abuse of aliens. In chains they were openly dragged away with violence, until they were thrown onto a ship. “They sprinkled ashes over their hair...” — as a sign of the deepest grief and mourning. — “Until they were thrown onto a ship...” The Jews of each district were evidently led as far as the nearest wharf on the Nile River, where they were loaded onto special transport vessels sailing downstream from the upper reaches to the mouths of the Nile.

3 Maccabees 4:7. And their husbands, bound around their necks with ropes instead of garlands, in the bloom of their youth, instead of a feast and the enjoyment of youth, spent the remaining days of the wedding in lamentation, for beneath their feet they saw the open pit of the underworld. The mention of the husbands’ garlands — cf. Isa 61:10. These were either actual crowns, or special head ornaments resembling them. — “The remaining days of the wedding...” The wedding celebration ordinarily lasted seven days (Judg. XIV: 12, 15; Tob. XI: 18). — “Beneath their feet (i.e., in immediate proximity, spatial or temporal) they saw the open pit of the underworld...” — that is, inevitable destruction — corresponds to our expressions: death at one’s shoulder, or — on the threshold of death.

3 Maccabees 4:8. They were conveyed like animals under the yoke of iron chains; some were fastened by their necks to the ship’s benches, others were bound hand and foot with tight bonds. In addition, covered over with a dense floor-planking, they were cut off from the light, so that surrounded by darkness on all sides, they were kept throughout the entire voyage like malefactors. 3 Maccabees 4:9. When they were brought to the place called Schedia, and the voyage was completed as the king had commanded, he ordered them to be placed before the city on the hippodrome, which had a vast circumference and was very convenient for making a public spectacle of them in the sight of all who were entering the city and those going back into the interior of the country, so that they might have no communication with his troops and should generally not be accorded any shelter. “The place called Schedia...” is mentioned also by Strabo (XVII, p. 800) — 120 stadia from Alexandria, probably a river harbor or anchorage for vessels arriving in the city by way of the Nile. — The hippodrome of Alexandria was situated, according to Strabo (XVII, p. 795), before the eastern gates of the city. — “So that they might have no communication with his troops...” Here one can see the king’s fear that wealthy Jewish prisoners might induce the army to release them through promises of a good ransom.

3 Maccabees 4:10. When this was done and the king heard that their compatriots were frequently going out secretly from the city to mourn the shameful distress of their fellow Jews, he grew very angry and ordered that these too be treated in exactly the same way as the others, so that they might receive no less a punishment. From this verse it appears that the local Alexandrian Jews were still, as it were, at liberty, and had been deprived of it only the provincial Jews, whose Alexandrian kinsmen had begun to visit them. This, however, is poorly consistent with III: 1, where it is said that the king first fell upon the Alexandrian Jews specifically, and only then upon the rest, “who dwelt throughout the whole country.”

3 Maccabees 4:11–14. He ordered the whole people to be registered by name, not for the heavy labor of slavery announced a short time before, but in order that, having worn them out with the declared punishments, he might finally destroy them all in a single day. And although this registration was carried out with the utmost haste and zealous diligence from sunrise to sunset, it could not be fully completed in the course of forty days. The king, excessively and constantly given over to pleasures, held feasts before all the idols, and with a mind that had gone far astray from the truth and with unclean lips praised those that are deaf and cannot speak or give help, while against the greatest God he uttered what was unseemly. After the stated interval, the scribes reported to the king that they were unable to complete the registration of the Jews because of their countless multitude; moreover, a still greater number of them were in the provinces; some remained in their homes, others were scattered in various places, so that this was impossible even for all the authorities in Egypt. These verses convey their meaning either obscurely, or the meaning itself is difficult to accept and explain. At the very least, the question remains entirely open and unresolved: does the writer speak of a registration of all Jews, or only of the Alexandrian Jews, or only of those on the hippodrome? In each of these cases strong contradictions and difficulties arise that are hard to sort out given the obscurity of the writer’s speech. — Philo counts all the Jews in Egypt at up to 1,000,000 (Against Flaccus, § 6). This causes one to doubt strongly many of the writer’s statements in our book. If indeed all the Jews from all the provinces of Egypt were gathered in Alexandria, it is incomprehensible how they could have been confined to the hippodrome in the number of a full million. How could they have been trampled underfoot by the feet of 500 elephants? How could they have been fed and subsequently abundantly supplied by the king with everything each one needed until his arrival home (VII: 16)? How could they have celebrated, being supplied with everything by the king, for fourteen days (VI: 36)? All these difficulties suggest a whole series of exaggerations on the part of the writer, inconsistent with the truth and admitted by him for the greater glorification of the Jewish name.

3 Maccabees 4:15–16. When the king threatened them more sternly, supposing that they had been bribed with gifts and were deceitfully avoiding the punishment, it was then that he was made to see this concretely. They demonstrated that they had run out of papyrus sheets and the necessary writing reeds. This was the working of the unconquerable heavenly Providence that was helping the Jews.