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Context No. 1868 of 4322 · 1 Maccabees

Context · Reflection

1 Maccabees 6:55-63: in context

55Lysias heard that Philip, whom Antiochus the king, while he was yet alive, appointed to raise his son Antiochus to be king, 56had returned from Persia and Media, and with him the forces that went with the king, and that he was seeking to take control of the government. 57He made haste, and gave orders to depart. He said to the king and the leaders of the army and to the men, “We get weaker daily, our food is scant, the place where we encamp is strong, and the affairs of the kingdom lie upon us. 58Now therefore let’s negotiate with these men, and make peace with them and with all their nation, 59and covenant with them, that they may walk after their own laws, as before; for because of their laws which we abolished they were angered, and did all these things.” 60The speech pleased the king and the princes, and he sent to them to make peace; and they accepted it. 61The king and the princes swore to them. On these conditions, they came out from the stronghold. 62Then the king entered into mount Zion. He saw the strength of the place, and broke the oath which he had sworn, and gave orders to pull down the wall all around. 63Then he left in haste and returned to Antioch, and found Philip master of the city. He fought against him, and took the city by force.

Pressed by trouble at home, the general Lysias urges the young king to make peace with the Jews, letting them live by their own laws, since it was the forbidding of those laws that had provoked the war. The king and his princes agree, make peace, and swear an oath on the agreed terms; and on the strength of that oath, the Jews come out from their stronghold. But then the king enters Mount Zion, sees how strong the place is, and breaks the oath he had just sworn, ordering the wall torn down before he hurries away.

The king's broken oath is a study in the unreliability of promises made by those who serve only their own advantage. He swore peace, gave his solemn word, and the Jews trusted it enough to come out of their stronghold; and the moment it suited his interest, when he saw the strength of the place he now controlled, he broke his oath without a scruple, tearing down the wall he had sworn to leave. His word meant nothing beyond his advantage; the oath held only as long as keeping it served him. There is a sober realism here about the promises of the self-interested and influential. A promise is only as reliable as the character of the one who makes it; and those who serve only their own advantage will keep their word only so long as it profits them, and break it the moment it does not. To build our trust on such promises is to build on sand; the oath that holds only while it is convenient is no security at all. This is worth remembering both about whom we trust and about what kind of person we ourselves are. We are not to be like this king, whose word held only as long as it served him; the righteous, the psalm says, keeps an oath even when it hurts, and does not change. And when it comes to where we place our ultimate trust, the contrast is with God, whose promises do not depend on his advantage and never fail. God is not a man, that he should lie; has he said, and will he not do it? Where the promises of the influential hold only while convenient, God's word holds absolutely, kept even at cost to himself, unbreakable. The king broke his oath the moment it suited him; God has never broken his. And so our trust is safe not in the shifting promises of the self-interested, but in the faithfulness of a God who keeps his word.

Do I build my trust on the promises of the self-interested and influential, whose word holds only as long as it serves them, as the king broke his oath the moment it suited him, or can I place my ultimate trust in the God whose promises do not depend on his advantage and never fail, and be myself one who keeps my word even when it costs me?

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