Context No. 3485 of 4322 · 1 Maccabees

1 Maccabees 6:48-54: in context

48But the soldiers of the king’s army went up to Jerusalem to meet them, and the king encamped toward Judea and toward mount Zion. 49He made peace with the people of Bethsura. He came out of the city because they had no food there to endure the siege, because it was a Sabbath to the land. 50The king took Bethsura, and appointed a garrison there to keep it. 51He encamped against the sanctuary many days; and set there mounds to shoot from, and engines of war, and machines for throwing fire and stones, and weapons to throw darts, and slings. 52The Jews also made engines of war against their engines, and fought for many days. 53But there was no food in the sanctuary, because it was the seventh year, and those who fled for safety into Judea from among the Gentiles had eaten up the rest of the stores. 54There were only a few people left in the sanctuary, because the famine prevailed against them, and they were scattered, each man to his own place.

The defenders of the sanctuary face a grinding siege, and their situation grows desperate, not because they lacked courage, but because they had no food. It was the seventh year, the Sabbath year, when the land was left to rest and no crops were stored. Their very faithfulness to God's law left them without provisions when the siege came, and many had to slip away, scattered by famine.

It is a hard, honest moment. Obedience to God did not spare them hardship; in a sense it contributed to it. There is no pretense here that faithfulness always brings an immediate earthly advantage. Sometimes keeping God's ways is costly, and the faithful suffer real want. Scripture does not hide this. And yet the larger story of the Maccabees shows that God did not, in the end, abandon his people. Faithfulness may bring hardship in the short run, but the God we obey is faithful over the long story, and the harvest, though delayed, does come to those who do not give up.

When faithfulness to God brings hardship rather than immediate advantage, do I hold to it anyway, trusting God's faithfulness over the long story rather than only the short run?

Sources

1 Maccabees 6:53: "But there was no food in the sanctuary, because it was the seventh year."
1 Maccabees 6:54: "There were only a few people left in the sanctuary, because the famine prevailed against them, and they were scattered."
Galatians 6:9: "Let's not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season if we don't give up."