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1 Maccabees 5: What the Passage Says

199 claims across 68 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What 1 Maccabees 5 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

The nations around Judea are angry that the altar has been rebuilt and the sanctuary restored, and they begin killing the people of Jacob who live among them. Judas fights in Idumea and against the Ammonites; then letters from Gilead and messengers from Galilee ask for rescue, so Simon is sent to Galilee with three thousand men while Judas and Jonathan take eight thousand into Gilead, leaving Joseph and Azarias to guard Judea with orders not to fight the nations until they return. Both campaigns win their battles and bring the Israelites of those regions back to Judea, where burnt offerings are made because not one of the men was killed. Joseph and Azarias go out on their own against Jamnia and lose about two thousand men, and Judas afterward fights in the south and in the land of the Philistines.

Claim by Claim

  1. 5:1
    • The nations round about heard that the altar was built.
    • The nations round about heard that the sanctuary was renewed as before.
    • This made the nations very angry.
  2. 5:2
    • They took counsel to destroy the race of Jacob that was among them.
    • They began to kill and destroy among the people.
  3. 5:3
    • Judas fought against the children of Esau in Idumea at Akrabattine.
    • He fought them because they were besieging Gael.
    • He struck them with a great slaughter.
    • He abated their courage.
    • He took their spoils.
  4. 5:4
    • He remembered the wickedness of the children of Bean.
    • The children of Bean had been a snare to the people.
    • The children of Bean had been an offence to the people.
    • The children of Bean lay in wait for the people on the roads.
  5. 5:5
    • He shut them up in the towers.
    • He encamped against them.
    • He destroyed them utterly.
    • He burned the towers of that place with fire.
    • He burned all who were in the towers.
  6. 5:6
    • He crossed over to the children of Ammon.
    • He found there a mighty force and many people.
    • Timotheus was their leader.
  7. 5:7
    • He fought many battles with them.
    • They were broken before him.
    • He struck them.
  8. 5:8
    • He took Jazer and its dependent towns.
    • He returned into Judea.
  9. 5:9
    • The nations in Gilead gathered together against the Israelites who were on their borders.
    • They gathered to destroy them.
    • The Israelites fled to the stronghold of Dathema.
  10. 5:10
    • They sent letters to Judas and his brothers.
    • The letters said the nations round about them were gathered together against them to destroy them.
  11. 5:11
    • The letters said the nations were preparing to come and take the stronghold to which they had fled.
    • The letters said Timotheus was the leader of their army.
  12. 5:12
    • The letters asked Judas to come now and deliver them from the hand of the nations.
    • The letters said many of them had fallen.
  13. 5:13
    • The letters said all their brothers who were in the places of Tobie had been put to death.
    • The letters said the enemy had carried away their wives and children captive.
    • The letters said the enemy had carried away their goods.
    • The letters said about a thousand men had been destroyed there.
  14. 5:14
    • While the letters were still being read, other messengers arrived from Galilee.
    • The messengers had their clothes torn.
    • The messengers reported to the same effect.
  15. 5:15
    • The messengers said that the people of Ptolemais, Tyre, and Sidon, and all Galilee of the Gentiles, were gathered together against them.
    • The messengers said they were gathered to consume them.
  16. 5:16
    • Judas and the people heard these words.
    • A great assembly gathered together.
    • They gathered to take counsel what they should do for their brothers who were in trouble and under attack.
  17. 5:17
    • Judas said to Simon his brother to choose out men for himself.
    • Judas told Simon to go and deliver his brothers in Galilee.
    • Judas said that he and Jonathan his brother would go into the country of Gilead.
  18. 5:18
    • He left Joseph the son of Zacharias and Azarias as leaders of the people.
    • He left them with the rest of the army in Judea.
    • He left them to guard Judea.
  19. 5:19
    • He commanded them to take charge of this people.
    • He commanded them not to make war against the nations until he and the others returned.
  20. 5:20
    • Three thousand men were assigned to Simon to go into Galilee.
    • Eight thousand men were assigned to Judas for the country of Gilead.
  21. 5:21
    • Simon went into Galilee.
    • He fought many battles with the nations.
    • The nations were broken before him.
  22. 5:22
    • He pursued them to the gate of Ptolemais.
    • About three thousand of the nations fell.
    • He took their spoils.
  23. 5:23
    • He took away with him those who were in Galilee and in Arbattis, with their wives and children and all they had.
    • They brought them into Judea with great joy.
  24. 5:24
    • Judas Maccabeus and his brother Jonathan crossed the Jordan.
    • They travelled three days' journey in the wilderness.
  25. 5:25
    • They met the Nabathites.
    • The Nabathites met them peaceably.
    • The Nabathites told them everything that had happened to their brothers in the land of Gilead.
  26. 5:26
    • The Nabathites said that many of the Israelites were shut up in Bosora, Bosor, Alema, Casphor, Maked, and Carnaim.
    • All these cities are strong and great.
  27. 5:27
    • The Nabathites said the Israelites were also shut up in the rest of the cities of Gilead.
    • The Nabathites said the enemy had appointed for the next day to bring their army against the strongholds.
    • The Nabathites said the enemy meant to take the strongholds.
    • The Nabathites said the enemy meant to destroy them all in one day.
  28. 5:28
    • Judas and his army turned suddenly by the way of the wilderness to Bosora.
    • He took the city.
    • He killed all the males with the edge of the sword.
    • He took all their spoils.
    • He burned the city with fire.
  29. 5:29
    • He left there by night.
    • He went on until he came to the stronghold.
  30. 5:30
    • In the early morning they lifted up their eyes.
    • They saw a great people beyond counting.
    • The people were carrying ladders and engines of war to take the stronghold.
    • They were fighting against those in the stronghold.
  31. 5:31
    • Judas saw that the battle had begun.
    • The cry of the city went up to heaven with trumpets and a great shout.
  32. 5:32
    • He said to the men of his army to fight that day for their brothers.
  33. 5:33
    • He went out behind them in three companies.
    • They sounded the trumpets.
    • They cried out in prayer.
  34. 5:34
    • The army of Timotheus recognized that it was Maccabeus.
    • They fled from before him.
    • He struck them with a great slaughter.
    • About eight thousand of them fell that day.
  35. 5:35
    • He turned aside to Maspha.
    • He fought against it.
    • He took it.
    • He killed all its males.
    • He took its spoils.
    • He burned it with fire.
  36. 5:36
    • He departed from there.
    • He took Casphon, Maged, Bosor, and the other cities of Gilead.
  37. 5:37
    • After these things Timotheus gathered another army.
    • He encamped facing Raphon beyond the brook.
  38. 5:38
    • Judas sent men to spy out the army.
    • They brought him word that all the nations round about were gathered together to them.
    • They reported it was a very great force.
  39. 5:39
    • They reported that Arabians had been hired to help them.
    • They reported that they were encamped beyond the brook, ready to come and fight against Judas.
    • Judas went to meet them.
  40. 5:40
    • Timotheus spoke to the captains of his army as Judas and his army drew near the brook of water.
    • Timotheus said that if Judas crossed over to them first, they would not be able to withstand him.
    • Timotheus said Judas would surely prevail against them.
  41. 5:41
    • Timotheus said that if Judas was afraid and camped beyond the river, they would cross over to him.
    • Timotheus said they would prevail against him.
  42. 5:42
    • Judas came near the brook.
    • He stationed the scribes of the people by the brook.
    • He commanded them to allow no man to stay in camp.
    • He commanded that all should come to the battle.
  43. 5:43
    • He crossed over to them first.
    • All his people went after him.
    • All the nations were broken before him.
    • They threw away their weapons.
    • They fled to the temple at Carnaim.
  44. 5:44
    • They took the city.
    • They burned the temple with fire, with all who were in it.
    • Carnaim was subdued.
    • Carnaim could no longer stand before Judas.
  45. 5:45
    • Judas gathered together all the Israelites in the country of Gilead, from the least to the greatest.
    • He gathered their wives, their children, and their goods.
    • It was a very great company.
    • They were to come into the land of Judah.
  46. 5:46
    • They came to Ephron.
    • Ephron was a great city on the way they had to go.
    • Ephron was very strongly fortified.
    • They could not turn aside from it to the right or the left.
    • They had to pass through the middle of it.
  47. 5:47
    • The people of the city shut them out.
    • They blocked up the gates with stones.
  48. 5:48
    • Judas sent to them with words of peace.
    • Judas said he would pass through their land to go to his own land.
    • Judas said no one would do them any harm.
    • Judas said they would only pass through on foot.
    • They refused to open to him.
  49. 5:49
    • Judas commanded a proclamation to be made in the camp.
    • The proclamation was that every man should encamp in the place where he was.
  50. 5:50
    • The men of the army encamped.
    • They fought against the city all that day and all that night.
    • The city was delivered into his hands.
  51. 5:51
    • He destroyed all the males with the edge of the sword.
    • He razed the city.
    • He took the spoils of the city.
    • He passed through the city over those who were slain.
  52. 5:52
    • They crossed the Jordan into the great plain facing Bethsan.
  53. 5:53
    • Judas gathered together those who lagged behind.
    • He exhorted the people all along the way.
    • They came into the land of Judah.
  54. 5:54
    • They went up to mount Zion with joy and gladness.
    • They offered burnt offerings.
    • They offered them because not one of them had fallen until they returned in peace.
  55. 5:55
    • Judas and Jonathan were in the land of Gilead at that time.
    • Simon his brother was in Galilee facing Ptolemais at that time.
  56. 5:56
    • Joseph the son of Zacharias and Azarias were captains of the forces.
    • They heard of the valiant acts and the war that had been done.
  57. 5:57
    • They said they would also get themselves a name.
    • They said they would go fight against the nations round about them.
  58. 5:58
    • They gave orders to the men of the force that was with them.
    • They went toward Jamnia.
  59. 5:59
    • Gorgias came out of the city with his men.
    • They came to meet them in battle.
  60. 5:60
    • Joseph and Azarias were put to flight.
    • They were pursued to the borders of Judea.
    • About two thousand men of the people of Israel fell that day.
  61. 5:61
    • There was a great overthrow among the people.
    • The overthrow happened because they did not obey Judas and his brothers.
    • They thought to do some valiant act.
  62. 5:62
    • These men were not of the seed of those men by whose hand deliverance was given to Israel.
  63. 5:63
    • The man Judas and his brothers were greatly honoured in the sight of all Israel and of all the nations.
    • They were honoured wherever their name was heard.
  64. 5:64
    • People gathered to them with joyful acclamations.
  65. 5:65
    • Judas went out with his brothers.
    • They fought against the children of Esau in the land toward the south.
    • He struck Hebron and its dependent towns.
    • He pulled down its stronghold.
    • He burned its towers round about.
  66. 5:66
    • He departed to go into the land of the Philistines.
    • He passed through Samaria.
  67. 5:67
    • On that day certain priests fell in battle.
    • They wanted to show their valour.
    • They went out to battle unadvisedly.
  68. 5:68
    • Judas turned aside to Azotus in the land of the Philistines.
    • He pulled down their altars.
    • He burned the carved images of their gods with fire.
    • He took the spoils of the cities.
    • He returned into Judea.

Words Worth Explaining

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

5:1
"The nations round about" renders the Greek word for Gentiles, the non-Jewish peoples living in and around Judea. The altar and sanctuary look back to the previous chapter: the Jerusalem temple had been taken over for foreign worship and its altar defiled, and Judas had just cleansed the building, built a new altar and rededicated it, the events remembered in the festival of Hanukkah.
5:2
"The generation of Jacob" means the Jewish people. Jacob, renamed Israel, was the ancestor from whom the twelve tribes were reckoned; "generation" here carries its older sense of race or stock, not an age group.
5:3
Esau was Jacob's twin brother, and the Edomites were counted his descendants. Idumea was the territory south of Judea they occupied in this period; Arabattine (Akrabattine) was a district there, named from the Ascent of Akrabbim, the "scorpion pass." The Greek manuscripts differ over whom they besieged: most read "Israel," meaning the Jews settled among them, while the reading behind the KJV's "Gael" makes it a place name.
5:4
The children of Bean were a local clan or tribe on Judea's borders, not otherwise known. "An offence" in 1611 English meant a stumbling block, something set in the path to trip a person up, not an insult.
5:5
These towers were isolated stone strongholds in open country, used both as refuges and as bases from which to raid travelers on the roads.
5:6
The Ammonites lived east of the Jordan, around what is now Amman. Timotheus is a Greek-speaking commander in the service of the Seleucid kingdom, the empire ruling the region; he reappears through the chapter.
5:7
"Discomfited" in 1611 meant utterly beaten in battle, routed. It has nothing to do with discomfort.
5:8
Jazar is Jazer, a town in the borderlands east of the Jordan.
5:9
"The heathen" is the KJV's word for Gentiles, the non-Jewish peoples of the region; it is a label for nationality, not a comment on their beliefs. Galaad is Gilead, the hill country east of the Jordan. "In their quarters" means in their districts, the areas where they lived.
5:13
"The places of Tobie" is the land of Tob or Tubias, a district east of the Jordan associated with the Tobiad family. "Their stuff" in 1611 meant household goods and possessions in general; the word was not dismissive.
5:14
Tearing your own clothes was the customary public sign of grief or disaster; the messengers' torn clothes announced catastrophe before they said a word. "On this wise" means in this manner.
5:15
Ptolemais is the coastal port earlier called Acco, modern Acre. Tyrus is Tyre; Tyre and Sidon were Phoenician harbor cities on the coast of what is now Lebanon. "Galilee of the Gentiles" is an old phrase, borrowed from Isaiah 9:1, for the northern region where Jews lived surrounded by a largely non-Jewish population.
5:16
"Congregation" here means simply a public assembly called to take a decision, not a gathering for worship.
5:17
Simon and Jonathan are brothers of Judas; they and their father Mattathias began the revolt, and each of the brothers in turn leads it in this book.
5:18
"The host" means an army; the word is used in this sense throughout the chapter.
5:23
Arbattis is a district whose location is uncertain, somewhere in the north within reach of Galilee.
5:24
"Maccabeus" was Judas's nickname, generally understood to come from a Semitic word for hammer. The family later ruled Judea and is known as the Hasmoneans.
5:25
The Nabathites are the Nabateans, an Arab trading people whose territory lay south and east of the Dead Sea and whose later capital was Petra. Here they are on friendly terms with Judas.
5:26
These six towns lay scattered across Gilead and the plateau northeast of it. Carnaim is the Ashteroth-Karnaim known from the Old Testament.
5:27
"Against to morrow they had appointed" means they had fixed the next day as the date of the attack.
5:28
"With the edge of the sword" is a fixed biblical phrase for putting a place to the sword; the underlying Hebrew idiom speaks of the sword's "mouth." Killing the male population and taking the rest as plunder was the standard treatment of a city stormed after it refused to surrender.
5:30
"Betimes in the morning" means early in the morning. "Engines of war" are siege machines: battering rams, movable towers, and catapults.
5:31
"The cry of the city went up to heaven" is a set phrase for a noise so great it seemed to reach the sky.
5:33
Dividing a force into three companies was standard tactics, letting the attack come from more than one direction at once.
5:34
Maccabeus was Judas's other name. It probably means the hammer.
5:35
Maspha is Mizpeh, a town in Gilead; the name means watchtower.
5:37
Raphon was a town on the plateau east of the Jordan. "The brook" is a wadi, a stream bed that runs in the rainy season and can be dry at other times; here it lies between the two armies and neither wants to be the one caught crossing it.
5:38
"To espy" means to scout or spy out.
5:39
Nomadic Arab fighters commonly hired themselves out as mercenaries, serving for pay or a share of the plunder.
5:42
The scribes of the people were the officials who kept the army's rolls and passed on orders. Stationing them at the water made sure the command was enforced and no one stayed behind on the near bank. "Suffer no man" means allow no man.
5:43
Temples were regarded as places of asylum, where a fugitive could not lawfully be touched; that is why beaten soldiers ran to one. The shrine at Carnaim is identified in 2 Maccabees 12:26 as the temple of the goddess Atargatis.
5:45
"From the least unto the greatest" is an idiom meaning everyone, of every rank, without exception. "Their stuff" again means their household goods.
5:46
Ephron was a fortified town sitting on the road west toward the Jordan crossing. A walled city's main street ran from one gate to the other, so passing "through the midst" meant being let in at one gate and out at the far one.
5:48
"We will only pass through on foot" is an undertaking to walk straight through, taking nothing and doing no damage; "howbeit" means but.
5:49
Ordering every man to pitch his tent where he stood meant the march stopped on the spot and turned into a siege.
5:51
"Rased" is razed, leveled to the ground. It is the opposite of raised, which the spelling can suggest to a modern eye.
5:52
Bethsan is Beth-shan, later called Scythopolis, standing where the Jezreel valley meets the Jordan; the "great plain" is that valley.
5:54
Mount Sion is Mount Zion, used in this book for the temple hill in Jerusalem. A burnt offering was a sacrifice burned whole on the altar rather than shared out as food; here it marks the safe return of the whole company.
5:56
These are the officers Judas had left behind in verse 18 to hold Judea while the brothers were away.
5:57
"Let us also get us a name" means let us win a reputation for ourselves too.
5:58
Jamnia is Jabneh, a city on the coastal plain southwest of Judea.
5:59
Gorgias is a Seleucid general who had commanded against Judas in the earlier campaigns and held the coastal district.
5:61
"Overthrow" here means a defeat suffered, not a government brought down.
5:62
The family meant is that of Mattathias and his sons, the line to which this book credits Israel's deliverance; Joseph and Azarias did not belong to it.
5:64
"Joyful acclamations" are shouts of welcome and praise called out by a crowd.
5:65
Hebron is an ancient town in the hills south of Jerusalem, in this period held by the Idumeans.
5:66
"The land of the Philistines" is the coastal plain southwest of Judea; the old name stuck to the region long after the Philistines themselves had ceased to exist as a distinct people. Samaria is the region lying between Judea and Galilee.
5:67
Priests served at the altar in Jerusalem; fighting was not their office. "Unadvisedly" means without orders and without taking counsel, acting on their own initiative rather than under command.
5:68
Azotus is Ashdod, one of the five old Philistine cities, near the coast. The "carved images" are the statues of the gods worshiped there.

Read 1 Maccabees 5