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Context No. 1867 of 4322 · 1 Maccabees

Context · Reflection

1 Maccabees 10:26-33: in context

26Since as you have kept your covenants with us, and continued in our friendship, and have not joined yourselves to our enemies, we have heard of this, and are glad. 27Now continue still to keep faith with us, and we will repay you with good in return for your dealings with us. 28We will grant you many immunities and give you gifts. 29“Now I free you and release all the Jews from the tributes, from the salt tax, and from the crown levies. 30Instead of the third part of the seed, and instead of half of the fruit of the trees, which falls to me to receive, I release it from this day and henceforth, so that I will not take it from the land of Judah, and from the three districts which are added to it from the country of Samaria and Galilee, from this day forth and for all time. 31Let Jerusalem be holy and free, with her borders, tithes, and taxes. 32I yield up also my authority over the citadel which is at Jerusalem, and give it to the high priest, that he may appoint in it men whom he chooses to keep it. 33Every soul of the Jews who has been carried captive from the land of Judah into any part of my kingdom, I set at liberty without payment. Let all officials also cancel the taxes on their livestock.

King Demetrius, competing for the loyalty of the Jews against a rival, sends them a letter full of generous offers. Because you have kept faith with us, he writes, continue to do so, and we will repay you with good; we will grant you many favors and gifts. And he lists them: release from tributes and taxes, freedom for Jerusalem, the return of captives without payment. The favors are lavish, and their purpose is plain: to win the Jews' allegiance to his side.

The generosity here is real, but it is not disinterested. Demetrius is not moved by love for the Jews; he is competing for their loyalty, and his lavish offers are a bid to buy their allegiance for his own advantage. The tax relief, the freedoms, the gifts, are strings attached to a request: keep faith with us, take our side, and we will repay you. It is the self-interested generosity of the influential, favors extended to gain something in return. There is a wisdom to be learned here about the generous overtures of the influential and self-interested. When those with power offer us lavish favors, it is worth asking what they are buying; often such generosity comes with strings, given not out of care for us but to win our loyalty for their own ends, and to be withdrawn the moment it no longer serves them. The very next episodes in the history show kings breaking the promises they made when it suited them. So the favors of the self-interested influential are an uncertain foundation; they are given to gain advantage, and can be revoked when the advantage changes. This warns us against selling our loyalty, our integrity, or our allegiance to God, for the favors and advancement that the influential may offer to buy us. It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in princes, the psalm says; the favor of the influential is a shifting thing, but God's faithfulness does not change. When generous offers come from those who are buying something, the wise are discerning, not so hungry for the favors that they are bought, and not placing their trust in a generosity that serves the giver's interest and can vanish when it suits him. Our security and our loyalty belong to God, whose favor is not a bid for advantage but a faithful love that does not change.

When those with power offer me lavish favors, am I so drawn by the generosity that I fail to ask what they are buying, ready to sell my loyalty or my integrity for their gifts, or can I be discerning about the self-interested generosity of the influential, placing my trust not in the shifting favor of princes but in the God whose faithful love is not a bid for advantage?

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