Scripture Daily

Context No. 587 of 4322 · 1 Maccabees

Context · Reflection

1 Maccabees 10:7-14: in context

7Jonathan came to Jerusalem, and read the letter in the hearing of all the people, and of those who were in the citadel. 8They were very afraid when they heard that the king had given him authority to gather together an army. 9Those in the citadel released the hostages to Jonathan, and he restored them to their parents. 10Jonathan lived in Jerusalem and began to build and renew the city. 11He commanded those who did the work to build the walls and encircle Mount Zion with square stones for defense; and they did so. 12The foreigners who were in the strongholds which Bacchides had built fled away. 13Each man left his place and departed into his own land. 14Only at Bethsura, there were left some of those who had forsaken the law and the commandments, for it was a place of refuge to them.

Jonathan has just been handed a season of unexpected favor. The rival kings are courting him, hostages held against his people are released, and he suddenly has authority and a free hand where before there had been only oppression. It is exactly the kind of window that could be spent a hundred ways, on revenge against old enemies, on personal enrichment, on consolidating his own position. Watch what Jonathan actually does with it. He restores the freed hostages to their parents. He settles in Jerusalem and begins to rebuild and renew the city. He sets workers to raising the walls and fortifying Mount Zion with squared stones. He uses the window to build up what had been broken down.

That is a telling use of a season of favor. Jonathan did not treat his sudden advantage as a chance to grab or to settle scores; he treated it as an opportunity to restore, to strengthen, to reunite captured children with their families and to rebuild the defenses of his people. The favor was real but it would not last forever, and he spent it constructively, on things that would still stand when the political winds shifted again. He built walls, not monuments to himself, and he gave families back their children rather than taking his enemies' children in return.

That asks me what I do with my own windows of favor, the seasons when things go my way, when I have influence, margin, advantage, opportunity. It is easy to spend such seasons on myself, on comfort, on consolidating my position, or on evening old scores. Jonathan spent his on rebuilding and restoring, on strengthening his people and reuniting families. When I am given a season of favor and a free hand, do I use it to build up what is broken and to restore, or do I fritter it away on myself, or worse, on getting even?

Sources