Scripture Daily

Context No. 1363 of 4322 · 2 Maccabees

Context · Reflection

2 Maccabees 3:9-13: in context

9When he had come to Jerusalem and had been courteously received by the high priest of the city, he told him about the information which had been given, and declared why he had come; and he inquired if in truth these things were so. 10The high priest explained to him that there were in the treasury deposits of widows and orphans, 11and moreover some money belonging to Hyrcanus the son of Tobias, a man in very high place, not as that impious Simon falsely alleged; and that in all there were four hundred talents of silver and two hundred of gold, 12and that it was altogether impossible that wrong should be done to those who had put trust in the holiness of the place, and in the majesty and inviolable sanctity of the temple, honored over all the world. 13But Heliodorus, because of the king’s command given him, said that in any case this money must be confiscated for the king’s treasury.

Heliodorus, an officer of the Seleucid king, has come to Jerusalem to seize the money held in the temple treasury, acting on a report that great wealth lay there for the taking. The high priest explains the truth: much of what is stored is not surplus wealth but deposits belonging to widows and orphans, along with money left by a certain Hyrcanus, and it would be a grave wrong to violate the trust of those who had relied on the sanctity of the holy place. But Heliodorus, bound by the king's command, insists that the money must be confiscated for the royal treasury regardless.

The heart of the scene is what was actually held in that treasury: the deposits of widows and orphans, the savings of the defenseless, entrusted to the temple as the safest place they knew. And against that stands Heliodorus, who will not be moved by the plea; he has his orders, and the fact that the money belongs to the most vulnerable people in the society does not slow him, because the king has commanded and that is enough. It is a familiar and chilling pattern, power reaching to take what belongs to the weak, hiding behind orders and the machinery of the state, unmoved by the human reality of whose little is being seized. The widow and the orphan appear all through scripture as those God watches over with particular care, precisely because they have no one else to defend them; and here their small security is threatened by a power that answers only to itself. The passage sets up a confrontation that God will not leave alone, for as the story goes on Heliodorus is struck down before he can carry out the theft, and the deposits of the defenseless are preserved. There is assurance in that for all who are small and exposed before powers that seem answerable to no one. What is entrusted to God, and those who have no defender but him, are not as unprotected as they appear; the God of the widow and the orphan sees, and in his time he acts.

When I see power reaching to take from the defenseless behind the cover of orders and procedure, can I trust that the God of the widow and the orphan sees and will act, and am I myself ever the one hiding behind orders to justify a wrong against the weak?

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