1 Maccabees 3:23-37: a reflection

23Now when he had finished speaking, he rushed suddenly against Seron and his army, and they were defeated before him. 24They pursued them down the descent of Bethhoron to the plain, and about eight hundred men of them fell; but the rest fled into the land of the Philistines. 25The fear of Judas and his kindred, and the dread of them, began to fall on the nations around them. 26His fame reached the king, and every nation told of the battles of Judas. 27But when King Antiochus heard these words, he was full of indignation; and he sent and gathered together all the forces of his realm, an exceedingly strong army. 28He opened his treasury and gave his forces pay for a year, and commanded them to be ready for every need. 29He saw that the money was gone from his treasures, and that the tributes of the country were small, because of the dissension and disaster which he had brought upon the land, to the end that he might take away the laws which had been from the first days. 30He was afraid that he wouldn’t have enough as at other times for the charges and the gifts which he used to give with a liberal hand, more abundantly than the kings who were before him. 31And he was exceedingly perplexed in his mind, and he determined to go into Persia, and to take the tributes of those countries, and to gather much money. 32He left Lysias, an honorable man, and one of royal lineage, to be over the affairs of the king from the river Euphrates to the borders of Egypt, 33and to bring up his son Antiochus, until he came again. 34He delivered to Lysias half of his forces and the elephants, and gave him charge of all the things that he would have done, and concerning those who lived in Judea and in Jerusalem, 35that he should send an army against them to root out and destroy the strength of Israel and the remnant of Jerusalem, and to take away their memory from the place, 36and that he should make foreigners live in all their territory, and should divide their land to them by lot. 37The king took the half that remained of the forces, and left Antioch, his royal city, in the one hundred forty seventh year; and he passed over the river Euphrates, and went through the upper countries.

As Judas Maccabeus wins victory after victory, King Antiochus, who had set out to crush God's people, finds himself in trouble, and the trouble is of his own making. He is enraged, but he is also short of money, and the text explains why: his treasury was drained because of the strife and disaster he himself had brought on the land, and because of the lavish spending of his own campaigns. His oppression had emptied his own coffers. His wickedness was undermining itself.

Notice the irony. Antiochus looks formidable, gathering a huge army, sending forces to destroy Jerusalem. But underneath the show of strength, his position is crumbling, hollowed out by his own cruelty and excess. The very oppression meant to secure his position was draining the resources it depended on. Evil, it turns out, is often self-defeating; it eats away at its own foundations even while it looks strong.

There is hope in that when we face forces that seem overwhelming, arrayed against what is good, apparently unstoppable. Things are not always as they appear. The oppressive force that looks secure may be inwardly crumbling, undone by its own wrongdoing, while God's faithful, though small and outnumbered, are quietly being lifted up. Do not measure the outcome by the size of the army arrayed against you. The great often fall by their own weight, and God's purposes, carried by the faithful few, outlast the forces that oppose them. Take heart; what looks unstoppable is not as secure as it seems.

Lord, the oppressor who looks unstoppable may be inwardly crumbling, undone by his own wrongdoing, while your faithful few are quietly lifted up. When I face forces that seem overwhelming, help me not to measure the outcome by the size of what stands against me. Give me hope that evil is self-defeating, and that your purposes outlast every power that opposes them.