1 Maccabees 4: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Gorgias moves out at night to attack the Jews, and Judas moves against the king's army at Emmaus while its forces are scattered; the Gentile army is beaten, and Judas holds his men back from the plunder until Gorgias's troops see the smoke and flee. The next year Lysias comes to Bethsura with sixty thousand foot soldiers and five thousand horsemen, loses about five thousand men, and goes to Antioch to raise a larger force. Judas and his brothers then go up to Mount Sion, find the sanctuary ruined, cleanse it, build a new altar, and dedicate it on the twenty-fifth of Casleu with an eight-day celebration that they order kept every year; they also fortify Mount Sion and Bethsura.

Claim by Claim

1. 4:1
   • Gorgias took five thousand footmen.
   • Gorgias took a thousand chosen horsemen.
   • The force moved out of the camp by night.
2. 4:2
   • The purpose was to fall upon the camp of the Jews.
   • The purpose was to strike them suddenly.
   • The men of the fortress served as Gorgias's guides.
3. 4:3
   • Judas heard of this.
   • Judas moved out, and the valiant men with him.
   • His aim was to strike the king's army at Emmaus.
4. 4:4
   • The enemy forces were still dispersed away from the camp.
5. 4:5
   • Gorgias came into the camp of Judas by night.
   • Gorgias found no man there.
   • Gorgias sought them in the mountains.
   • Gorgias said that these men were fleeing from them.
6. 4:6
   • At daybreak Judas appeared in the plain.
   • Judas had three thousand men.
   • They did not have the armour and swords they wanted.
7. 4:7
   • They saw the camp of the Gentiles.
   • The camp was strong and fortified.
   • The camp was surrounded by horsemen.
   • These were expert in war.
8. 4:8
   • Judas spoke to the men with him.
   • Judas told them not to fear the enemy's numbers.
   • Judas told them not to be afraid of their charge.
9. 4:9
   • Judas told them to remember how their fathers were delivered at the Red Sea.
   • Pharaoh pursued their fathers with an army.
10. 4:10
    • Judas called them to cry to heaven.
    • He said this was in hope that the Lord would have mercy on them.
    • He said this was in hope that the Lord would remember the covenant of their fathers.
    • He asked that God destroy this army before their face that day.
11. 4:11
    • Judas said that then all the Gentiles would know that there is one who delivers and saves Israel.
12. 4:12
    • The foreigners lifted up their eyes.
    • The foreigners saw the Jews coming against them.
13. 4:13
    • The foreigners went out of the camp to battle.
    • Those with Judas sounded their trumpets.
14. 4:14
    • They joined battle.
    • The Gentiles were defeated.
    • The Gentiles fled into the plain.
15. 4:15
    • All those in the rear fell by the sword.
    • The Jews pursued them to Gazera.
    • The Jews pursued them to the plains of Idumea, and Azotus, and Jamnia.
    • About three thousand of them were slain.
16. 4:16
    • Judas returned with his host from pursuing them.
17. 4:17
    • Judas spoke to the people.
    • Judas told them not to be greedy for the spoil.
    • Judas said there was a battle still before them.
18. 4:18
    • Judas said Gorgias and his army were near them in the mountain.
    • Judas told them to stand against their enemies and overcome them.
    • Judas said that afterward they could boldly take the spoils.
19. 4:19
    • While Judas was still speaking these words, a part of the enemy appeared looking out from the mountain.
20. 4:20
    • They perceived that their army had been put to flight.
    • They perceived that the Jews were burning the tents.
    • The smoke that was seen showed what had happened.
21. 4:21
    • When they perceived these things they were greatly afraid.
    • They also saw the army of Judas in the plain ready to fight.
22. 4:22
    • They all fled into the land of the foreigners.
23. 4:23
    • Judas returned to plunder the tents.
    • They took much gold and silver.
    • They took blue silk and purple of the sea.
    • They took great riches.
24. 4:24
    • They went home afterward.
    • They sang a song of thanksgiving.
    • They praised the Lord in heaven.
    • They said this was because he is good.
    • They said this was because his mercy endures forever.
25. 4:25
    • Israel had a great deliverance that day.
26. 4:26
    • The foreigners who had escaped came to Lysias.
    • They told Lysias what had happened.
27. 4:27
    • Lysias was confounded and discouraged when he heard.
    • The things he wanted had not been done to Israel.
    • The things the king commanded him had not come to pass.
28. 4:28
    • In the following year Lysias gathered sixty thousand chosen footmen.
    • Lysias gathered five thousand horsemen.
    • His purpose was to subdue them.
29. 4:29
    • They came into Idumea.
    • They pitched their camp at Bethsura.
    • Judas met them with ten thousand men.
30. 4:30
    • Judas saw that the army was mighty.
    • Judas prayed.
    • Judas said God is blessed, the Saviour of Israel.
    • Judas said God crushed the attack of the mighty man by the hand of his servant David.
    • Judas said God gave the army of foreigners into the hands of Jonathan the son of Saul and his armourbearer.
31. 4:31
    • Judas asked God to shut up this army in the hand of his people Israel.
    • Judas asked that they be put to shame in their army and their horsemen.
32. 4:32
    • Judas asked God to make them faint of heart.
    • Judas asked God to make the boldness of their strength melt away.
    • Judas asked that they quake at their own destruction.
33. 4:33
    • Judas asked God to cast them down with the sword of those who love him.
    • Judas asked that all who know God's name praise him with thanksgiving.
34. 4:34
    • They joined battle.
    • About five thousand men of the army of Lysias were slain.
    • They were slain right in front of them.
35. 4:35
    • Lysias saw his army put to flight.
    • Lysias saw the boldness of Judas's soldiers.
    • Lysias saw that they were ready either to live or to die valiantly.
    • Lysias went to Antioch.
    • Lysias gathered a company of foreign hired soldiers.
    • Lysias made his army greater than before.
    • Lysias purposed to come again into Judea.
36. 4:36
    • Judas and his brethren spoke.
    • They said their enemies were defeated.
    • They proposed to go up to cleanse the sanctuary and dedicate it.
37. 4:37
    • All the host assembled together.
    • They went up to mount Sion.
38. 4:38
    • They saw the sanctuary desolate.
    • They saw the altar profaned.
    • They saw the gates burned up.
    • They saw shrubs growing in the courts as in a forest or on a mountain.
    • They saw the priests' chambers pulled down.
39. 4:39
    • They tore their clothes.
    • They made great lamentation.
    • They cast ashes on their heads.
40. 4:40
    • They fell on their faces to the ground.
    • They blew an alarm with the trumpets.
    • They cried toward heaven.
41. 4:41
    • Judas appointed men to fight against those in the fortress.
    • They were to do so until he had cleansed the sanctuary.
42. 4:42
    • Judas chose priests who were blameless.
    • The priests he chose had delight in the law.
43. 4:43
    • They cleansed the sanctuary.
    • They carried the defiled stones out to an unclean place.
44. 4:44
    • They deliberated about what to do with the altar of burnt offerings.
    • The altar of burnt offerings had been profaned.
45. 4:45
    • They decided it was best to pull the altar down.
    • The reason was lest it be a reproach to them.
    • The reason was that the Gentiles had defiled it.
    • They pulled the altar down.
46. 4:46
    • They laid the stones on the temple mount in a suitable place.
    • They left them there until a prophet should come to say what should be done with them.
47. 4:47
    • They took whole stones according to the law.
    • They built a new altar like the former one.
48. 4:48
    • They rebuilt the sanctuary and the parts inside the house.
    • They hallowed the courts.
49. 4:49
    • They made new holy vessels.
    • They brought the candlestick into the temple.
    • They brought the altar of burnt offerings and of incense into the temple.
    • They brought the table into the temple.
50. 4:50
    • They burned incense on the altar.
    • They lit the lamps that were on the candlestick.
    • The lamps gave light in the temple.
51. 4:51
    • They set the loaves on the table.
    • They hung up the veils.
    • They finished all the works they had begun.
52. 4:52
    • It was the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month.
    • That month is called Casleu.
    • It was the hundred and forty-eighth year.
    • They rose early in the morning.
53. 4:53
    • They offered sacrifice according to the law.
    • They offered it on the new altar of burnt offerings which they had made.
54. 4:54
    • At the same time and day the Gentiles had profaned it, it was dedicated.
    • It was dedicated with songs, and citherns, and harps, and cymbals.
55. 4:55
    • All the people fell on their faces.
    • They worshipped and praised the God of heaven.
    • God had given them good success.
56. 4:56
    • They kept the dedication of the altar eight days.
    • They offered burnt offerings with gladness.
    • They sacrificed a sacrifice of deliverance and praise.
57. 4:57
    • They decorated the front of the temple with crowns of gold.
    • They decorated it with shields.
    • They renewed the gates and the chambers.
    • They hung doors on them.
58. 4:58
    • There was very great gladness among the people.
    • The reproach of the Gentiles was put away.
59. 4:59
    • Judas and his brethren and the whole congregation of Israel ordained a decree.
    • The decree was that the days of the dedication of the altar be kept in their season year by year.
    • The days were to be kept for eight days.
    • The days were to begin on the twenty-fifth day of the month Casleu.
    • The days were to be kept with mirth and gladness.
60. 4:60
    • At that time they built up mount Sion with high walls.
    • They built strong towers around it.
    • The reason was lest the Gentiles come and trample it down as they had done before.
61. 4:61
    • They set a garrison there to keep it.
    • They fortified Bethsura to preserve it.
    • The purpose was that the people might have a defence against Idumea.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

4:1

Gorgias was one of the generals of the Seleucid kingdom, the Greek-ruled empire based in Syria that controlled Judea at this time. The "king" named through this chapter is Antiochus IV, whose officers were trying to crush the Jewish revolt led by Judas Maccabeus. "Footmen" are infantry, soldiers who fight on foot, as against horsemen, who fight mounted.

4:2

The fortress, often called the citadel, was a walled strongpoint the Seleucids had built in Jerusalem near the temple and manned with their own troops together with Jews who supported them. Its men knew the local hill roads, which is why they could lead a night march to Judas's camp.

4:3

Emmaus was a town in the low hills roughly twenty miles west of Jerusalem, sitting on the road that climbs from the coastal plain up into Judea.

4:6

"Neither armour nor swords to their minds" does not mean they had none at all. "To their minds" is older English for "to their liking," so the sense is that they lacked the weapons and armor they would have wished to have.

4:7

"Heathen" is the regular King James word for Gentiles, meaning simply people who are not Jews; it is a statement of nationality, not a comment on how religious anyone was. "Well harnessed" means well equipped with armor and gear, nothing to do with harness for horses.

4:9

The reference is to the escape from Egypt in Exodus 14, when Israel crossed the sea and Pharaoh's pursuing chariots were lost in it. It is cited here as the standard example of a hopelessly outmatched force being saved.

4:10

The covenant is the binding agreement God was understood to have made with Israel's ancestors, with obligations on both sides. Judas is appealing to it as one would appeal to the terms of a standing treaty.

4:11

Israel was the name for all the Jewish people together.

4:12

"Strangers" here means foreigners, not people who happen to be unknown. The underlying Greek word is the one the Greek Old Testament regularly uses for the Philistines, so in this book it can mean foreigners in general or the peoples of the coastal plain in particular.

4:13

These are the straight metal signal trumpets used both in worship and on the battlefield to give orders and to mark the start of an engagement, not instruments played for music.

4:15

Gazera is Gezer, and Azotus and Jamnia are the coastal towns of Ashdod and Yavneh; all three lie west of the battlefield, down toward the sea. Idumea is the region immediately south of Judea, settled by Edomites. Naming them marks how far in each direction the rout carried.

4:17

After a battle, the winners kept what the losers left behind. That meant food, weapons, gold and clothes. Judas said to wait, because more enemies were coming.

4:22

The Philistines were a people who lived by the sea. Their land was west of where the Jews lived.

4:23

Blue cloth and "purple of the sea" were dyed fabrics, the purple made from a secretion of murex shellfish gathered on the Phoenician coast. Both dyes were extremely expensive and marked out royal and high-ranking dress, so listing them signals the value of what was taken.

4:24

"Because it is good, because his mercy endureth forever" is a fixed refrain from the temple psalms of thanksgiving, such as Psalms 106, 118 and 136. Readers of the time would have recognized it as a set formula rather than a fresh composition.

4:26

Lysias was the nobleman Antiochus IV left behind as regent when he campaigned in the east, put in charge of the western half of the kingdom and made guardian of the king's young son. The campaign against Judea was his responsibility to deliver.

4:29

Bethsura is Beth-zur, a fortified town about eighteen miles south of Jerusalem that commanded the road running up from Idumea. An army coming at Judea from the south had to deal with it first.

4:30

"The mighty man" is Goliath, the champion David killed in 1 Samuel 17. The second reference is to 1 Samuel 14, where Jonathan son of Saul and his armor-bearer climbed alone into a Philistine outpost and routed it. An armor-bearer was the attendant who carried a warrior's shield and spare weapons and fought alongside him. Both examples are chosen because a tiny force beat a large one.

4:31

"Shut up this army in the hand of thy people" is a military image: to hem the enemy in so they cannot maneuver or escape, and so hand them over to the other side's power.

4:34

"Even before them were they slain" means the enemy dead fell right in front of the Jewish line, at close quarters, rather than being cut down scattered in flight.

4:35

Antioch, in Syria, was the capital of the Seleucid kingdom. The "company of strangers" he gathered there were mercenaries, professional foreign soldiers hired for pay, a standard way of rebuilding an army quickly.

4:36

Three years earlier Antiochus IV had stopped the temple's regular worship and had pagan sacrifice performed on its altar. Under Jewish law a place used that way could not simply be reopened: it had to be ritually purified and then formally dedicated again before it could serve.

4:37

"Mount Sion" here means the temple hill in Jerusalem itself, the raised platform with the sanctuary on it, not the separate southwestern ridge that later carried the name Zion.

4:38

"Profaned" means put to common or foreign use so that it could no longer count as holy. The priests' chambers were the rooms built around the temple courts where priests on duty lodged and where offerings, vessels and vestments were stored.

4:39

Tearing one's clothes and pouring ashes or dust on the head were the ordinary public signs of grief in this culture, done openly and expected at a death or a disaster, much as wearing black later was.

4:40

The "alarm" was a specific pattern of short blasts on the signal trumpets, distinct from the long notes used to call an assembly. It was the sound used in war and at moments of crisis.

4:41

This is the Seleucid citadel of verse 2, still held by enemy troops and overlooking the temple. Work on the sanctuary had to be screened by a holding force because the garrison was within striking distance.

4:42

"Conversation" in 1611 English meant a person's whole manner of life and conduct, not speech. "Priests of blameless conversation" are priests whose behavior was above reproach.

4:43

An "unclean place" was a designated spot outside the sacred area where ritually defiled material was dumped, so that its impurity would not be carried back into the sanctuary.

4:44

The altar of burnt offerings was the large open-air altar standing in the temple courtyard, where animals were burned whole rather than eaten. "Burnt offering" is the standard term for that kind of sacrifice.

4:46

They neither destroyed the stones nor reused them, because no one had authority to settle the question; the stones were stored as a problem deferred. The phrase "until there should come a prophet" reflects a view widely held in this period that no prophet was then active in Israel to give a ruling.

4:47

"Whole stones" are uncut stones, shaped by no iron tool. Exodus 20:25 and Deuteronomy 27:5 to 6 required an altar to be built of stones that no tool had touched.

4:49

"Candlestick" is the King James word for the lampstand, a seven-branched stand that held oil lamps; candles are not involved. The altar of incense was a small altar standing inside the temple building, distinct from the large altar of burnt offerings out in the courtyard, and the table is the one on which the loaves of verse 51 were set.

4:51

The loaves are the twelve loaves of the "bread of the Presence," laid out fresh each week on the table inside the sanctuary. The "veils" are heavy curtains hung across the temple doorways to screen the inner rooms.

4:52

Casleu, usually spelled Chislev, is the ninth month of the Jewish year and falls in November or December. The "hundred forty and eighth year" is reckoned on the Seleucid calendar, which counts from 312 BC, so the date is December of 164 BC.

4:53

A sacrifice was an animal given to God as a gift. It was offered on the altar in the temple.

4:54

"Citherns" are stringed instruments of the lyre family, plucked by hand. "Look, at what time and what day" means that the rededication fell on the exact calendar anniversary of the day the temple had been defiled.

4:56

The "sacrifice of deliverance and praise" is the shared offering, often called a peace or thanksgiving offering, in which only part of the animal was burned and the rest was eaten by the worshipers as a celebratory meal.

4:57

The "crowns of gold" are gold wreaths, and the shields are small ornamental ones fixed to the building's face. Hanging captured or commemorative shields and gilded wreaths on a public front was a common way of decorating temples and civic buildings in this period.

4:58

The Gentiles had shamed the Jews by ruining their temple. Now the temple was clean and the shame was gone.

4:59

This is the origin of the eight-day festival later known as Hanukkah, a word that simply means "dedication." The text is explaining why an annual observance not commanded in the law of Moses came to be kept.

4:61

A garrison is a body of soldiers permanently stationed to hold a place, as opposed to an army in the field. Bethsura faced Idumea to the south, so holding it blocked the southern approach to Judea.