Above: The Death of Judas Maccabeus
Image in the Public Domain
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READING 1, 2 AND 4 MACCABEES
PART XXIV
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1 Maccabees 9:1-22
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Demetrius I Soter (Reigned 162-150 B.C.E.)
Alcimus, High Priest (In Office Before 162-159 B.C.E.)
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Back in 1 Maccabees 7 and 2 Maccabees 15, Nicanor (one of the Nicanors, anyway) died in combat against Hasmonean forces under the command of Judas Maccabeus. Nicanor’s severed head hung from the citadel of Jeusalem, and his severed tongue became food for birds.
Seleucid King Demetrius I Soter reacted to that news about as well as you, O reader, may have guessed. He sent governor Bacchides and High Priest Alcimus into action again in the Seleucid/Hellenistic year 152 (160 B.C.E.) The war between the Hasmoneans and the Seleucid Empire continued. The overwhelming numbers of the Seleucid army inspired fear in Hasmonean ranks. Judas Maccabeus’s relatively small army became smaller via desertion.
Judas Maccabeus remembered what you, O reader, may also recall: the effectiveness of guerrilla warfare earlier in the narrative. That was then. Judas Maccabeus died in combat.
The Hasmonean Rebellion continued, however.
1 Maccabees 9:21 reads:
How is our champion fallen,
the saviour of Israel.
—The Revised English Bible (1989)
This draws from two other verses. One is 2 Samuel 1:25a, part of David’s lament for the Jonathan and King Saul:
How are the warriors fallen on the field of battle!
—The Revised English Bible (1989)
The other verse is Judges 3:9:
Then the Israelites cried to the LORD for help, and to deliver them he raised up Othniel son of Caleb’s younger brother Kenaz, and he set them free.
—The Revised English Bible (1989)
Robert Doran, writing in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IV (1996), asked a germane question:
What had Judas actually accomplished?
-111
Seleucid forces controlled Jerusalem. Furthermore, Judas Maccabeus had died as a guerrilla seeking to avoid capture. He died a failure. So did King Saul (1 Samuel 31:1-13; 1 Chronicles 10:1-10), who perished while fighting to liberate the Hebrews from Philistine oppression.
Doran proposed that Judas Maccabeus became a hero postmortem because his family eventually won the struggle and founded a dynasty:
Judas’s was a movement that could not fail, for it depended not on him alone but on the vision that his father had sparked in many minds.
–Robert Doran, in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IV (1996), 111
Jonathan, brother of Judas Maccabeus, took on the mantle of leadership and continued the struggle. In contrast, David, rival of King Saul, eventually won freedom for his people from Philistine oppression.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
FEBRUARY 14, 2021 COMMON ERA
THE LAST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, YEAR B
THE FEAST OF SAINT ABRAHAM OF CARRHAE, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP
THE FEAST OF CHRISTOPH CARL LUDWIG VON PFEIL, GERMAN LUTHERAN HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINTS CYRIL AND METHODIUS, APOSTLES TO THE SLAVS
THE FEAST OF JOHANN MICHAEL ALTENBURG, GERMAN LUTHERAN PASTOR, COMPOSER, AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF VICTOR OLOF PETERSEN, SWEDISH-AMERICAN LUTHERAN HYMN TRANSLATOR
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BLOGA THEOLOGICA 
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