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Context No. 1478 of 4322 · 1 Maccabees

Context · Reflection

1 Maccabees 11:1-7: in context

1Then the king of Egypt gathered together great forces, as the sand which is by the sea shore, and many ships, and sought to make himself master of Alexander’s kingdom by deceit, and to add it to his own kingdom. 2He went out into Syria with words of peace, and the people of the cities opened their gates to him and met him; for King Alexander’s command was that they should meet him, because he was his father-in-law. 3Now as he entered into the cities of Ptolemais, he set his forces for a garrison in each city. 4But when he came near to Azotus, they showed him the temple of Dagon burned with fire, and Azotus and its pasture lands destroyed, and the bodies cast out, and those who had been burned, whom he burned in the war, for they had made heaps of them in his way. 5They told the king what Jonathan had done, that they might cast blame on him; but the king kept silent. 6Jonathan met the king with pomp at Joppa, and they greeted one another, and they slept there. 7Jonathan went with the king as far as the river that is called Eleutherus, then returned to Jerusalem.

The king of Egypt gathers an enormous army and a fleet and marches into Syria, but his purpose is hidden. He comes, the text says, with words of peace, seeking by deceit to make himself master of the kingdom that belonged to Alexander, his own son-in-law, and add it to his own. The cities, at Alexander's own command to welcome him, open their gates and receive him warmly, and as he passes through he quietly places his own garrisons in each one. The peace he speaks is a mask; the friendly reception is turned, city by city, into a takeover.

The strategy is an old and effective one: to come with words of peace while intending conquest. The Egyptian king did not attack the cities; he was received by them, welcomed, trusted, his professions of peace and kinship believed, and only then, once inside their gates, did he garrison them for himself. The takeover was accomplished not by force against a wary enemy but by deception against a trusting friend. There is a warning in this about the smooth words of peace that mask a hostile intent. Not everyone who comes speaking peace and friendship means it; some use the language of goodwill precisely because it disarms, because it opens gates that force could not, because a trusting welcome is more easily exploited than a guarded resistance. The cities that opened their gates on the strength of friendly words found garrisons inside them. This does not mean we should meet all peace with suspicion; but it does call for discernment, for watching deeds as well as words, for not being so disarmed by professions of goodwill that we hand over what we should have guarded. Smooth words of peace can be sincere, or they can be a mask; wisdom watches to see which, and does not open every gate to every friendly-sounding stranger. The peace that is only a pretext for takeover has undone many who trusted the words and did not watch the deeds.

Am I discerning about the smooth words of peace and friendship offered me, watching deeds as well as words, or am I so disarmed by professions of goodwill that I open gates I should have guarded, as the cities did to a king whose peace was a mask?

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