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Context No. 1724 of 4322 · 1 Maccabees

Context · Reflection

1 Maccabees 7:39-50: in context

39Then Nicanor went out from Jerusalem and encamped in Bethhoron, and there the Syrian army met him. 40Judas encamped in Adasa with three thousand men. Judas prayed and said, 41“When those who came from the king blasphemed, your angel went out, and struck among them one hundred eighty-five thousand. 42Even so, crush this army before us today, and let all the rest know that he has spoken wickedly against your sanctuary. Judge him according to his wickedness.” 43On the thirteenth day of the month Adar, the armies met in battle. Nicanor’s army was defeated, and he himself was the first to fall in the battle. 44Now when his army saw that Nicanor had fallen, they threw away their weapons and fled. 45They pursued them a day’s journey from Adasa until you come to Gazara, and they sounded an alarm after them with the signal trumpets. 46Men came out of all the surrounding villages of Judea, and outflanked them. These turned them back on those, and they all fell by the sword. There wasn’t one of them left. 47The Jews took the spoils and the booty, and they cut off Nicanor’s head and his right hand, which he had stretched out so arrogantly, and brought them, and hung them up beside Jerusalem. 48The people were exceedingly glad, and they kept that day as a day of great gladness. 49They ordained to keep this day year by year on the thirteenth day of Adar. 50So the land of Judah had rest a few days.

Nicanor, the Syrian general, has threatened the temple and spoken arrogantly against it. Now his army meets Judas Maccabeus at Adasa. Judas has only three thousand men, and before the battle he prays, recalling how God's angel once struck down the vast army of Sennacherib after its blasphemy. Crush this army before us today, he prays, and let all know that Nicanor has spoken wickedly against your sanctuary; judge him according to his wickedness. In the battle, Nicanor is the first to fall; his army breaks and is destroyed, and the land has rest.

Notice the ground of Judas's prayer. He does not simply ask for victory because he wants to win; he appeals to God on the ground of God's own honor, which Nicanor had insulted. Nicanor had spoken arrogantly against the sanctuary, blaspheming what was holy; and Judas asks God to vindicate his own name against the one who had mocked it: let all know that he has spoken wickedly against your sanctuary. The prayer rests on the truth that God will not finally be mocked, that those who scorn what is holy and set themselves against God answer to him. And the outcome bears it out: the blasphemer falls first, and his boasting comes to nothing. There is a truth here worth holding when we see holy things mocked and God defied, as we often do. It can seem, for a time, that those who scorn God and treat what is sacred with contempt do so freely, without consequence, that the mockers have the upper hand and God does nothing. But God is not mocked. The arrogance that defies him and scorns what is holy does not have the last word; in his time, the boast that was raised against him comes to nothing, as Nicanor's did. This is not license for us to wish harm on those who mock; the vindication belongs to God, not to our own vengeance. But it is an assurance that God's honor is safe in his own hands, that the defiance of the arrogant against him is not the final word, and that we can leave the vindicating of God's name to God, who will not be mocked forever. Judas prayed for God to defend his own honor against the blasphemer, and God did.

When I see holy things mocked and God defied, seemingly without consequence, do I conclude that the scoffers have the last word and God does nothing, or can I trust, as Judas did, that God is not mocked, that his honor is safe in his own hands, and that the arrogance raised against him will in his time come to nothing?

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