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Context No. 1639 of 4322 · 1 Maccabees

Context · Reflection

1 Maccabees 9:43-53: in context

43Bacchides heard it, and he came on the Sabbath day to the banks of the Jordan with a great army. 44Jonathan said to his company, “Let’s stand up now and fight for our lives, for things are different today than they were yesterday and the day before. 45For, behold, the battle is before us and behind us. Moreover the water of the Jordan is on this side and on that side, and marsh and thicket. There is no place to escape. 46Now therefore cry to heaven, that you may be delivered out of the hand of your enemies.” 47So the battle was joined, and Jonathan stretched out his hand to strike Bacchides, and he turned away back from him. 48Jonathan and those who were with him leapt into the Jordan, and swam over to the other side. The enemy didn’t pass over the Jordan against them. 49About a thousand men of Bacchides’ company fell that day; 50and he returned to Jerusalem. They built strong cities in Judea, the stronghold that was in Jericho, and Emmaus, Bethhoron, Bethel, Timnath, Pharathon, and Tephon, with high walls and gates and bars. 51He set garrisons in them to harass Israel. 52He fortified the city Bethsura, Gazara, and the citadel, and put troops and stores of food in them. 53He took the sons of the chief men of the country for hostages, and put them under guard in the citadel at Jerusalem.

Jonathan and his men are caught in a trap. Bacchides comes against them with a great army on the Sabbath, and Jonathan surveys their position: the battle is before them and behind them, the Jordan on either side with marsh and thicket, and no place to escape. He does not despair. Let us stand and fight for our lives, he tells his men; and, cry to heaven, that you may be delivered from the hand of your enemies. They join battle, and Jonathan and his men leap into the Jordan and swim across to safety, while the enemy does not follow. About a thousand of Bacchides' men fall that day.

The response worth learning is Jonathan's when he saw they were trapped. Surrounded, enemies before and behind, water on both sides, no way of escape, he did not give in to despair, and he did not simply trust his own fighting either. His command to his men was, cry to heaven, that you may be delivered. Faced with an impossible corner, his first instinct was to turn to God, to cry to heaven for deliverance. There is a pattern in that for our own impossible corners. When we are trapped, surrounded by trouble with no way out that we can see, the temptation is either to despair or to thrash about in our own strength; Jonathan did neither. He cried to heaven. The first move in a corner is not panic and not merely our own effort, but prayer, the cry to God for the deliverance we cannot arrange ourselves. And notice that Jonathan cried to heaven and also fought and swam; the prayer did not replace the action, but it came first and grounded it. When we find ourselves cornered, with the battle before and behind and no place to escape, the wisest first response is Jonathan's: cry to heaven. God is not trapped by the corners that trap us, and the cry for deliverance rises to him from the tightest of places. To turn first to God in an impossible spot, rather than to despair or to our own frantic effort, is to do what Jonathan did when there was no place to escape.

When I am trapped, surrounded by trouble with no way out I can see, is my first response despair or frantic effort in my own strength, or can I do what Jonathan did in the corner, and cry to heaven for the deliverance I cannot arrange myself?

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