the heathen, and take heed to the commandments of the law." So he blessed them, and was gathered to his fathers.* Accordingly, upon the decease of his father, Judas assumed the government and direction of his family and countrymen, and erected a standard, with the motto "Who is like unto thee among the gods, O Jehovah;" whence Judas and his brethren were thenceforth denominated MACCABEES.‡ Judas lost no time in endeavouring to complete the great work which his father had begun; and having extirpated the idolaters, with their vessels and utensils, he fortified the towns, rebuilt the fortresses, and placed strong garrisons in the cities of Judah, for their protection and defence; and soon became so powerful, that he vanquished and slew Apollonius and Seron, two commanders of Antiochus, in two successive battles.§ When that monarch first heard of these proceedings of Judas, and the defeat of his generals, he was celebrating certain games at Daphne, near Antioch, in imitation of the Roman triumphs; and in which he gave himself up to every possible excess of luxury, and the most disgusting debauchery. In the fierceness of his rage, he dispatched first Nicanor, and afterwards Lysias, with large armies, and positive instructions to extinguish the whole Jewish nation. Judas, however, was enabled to defeat all their machinations; for he not only defeated Nicanor at Emmaus, and Lysias at Bethsura, but also Timotheus and Bacchides, two other lieu * 1 Macc. ii. 49–69. + Exod. xv. 11. The Hebrew words in English are thus; Mi Camo-ka Baelim Jehovah, whence MCBJ; and where see also many other instances of Jewish names formed from initial letters, as Rambam for Maimo nides, &c. Prid. ii. 224, 225. § Prid. ii. 229, 230. || Prid. ii. 229, 230. tenants of the Syrian monarch; and upon each occasion with an immense destruction of the heathen armies.* This extraordinary hero, having thus driven all the hostile forces out of his country, proceeded to Jerusalem; and having appointed priests, set about clearing the sanctuary, removing the rubbish, and restoring the city and temple, and the worship of Jehovah, to their former condition; and renewed the ceremony of dedication, by a religious festival of eight days' continuance.† The Syrian garrison, however, who still retained possession of the fortress which Apollonius had built on mount Acra, gave these pious Jews great annoyance; wherefore Judas shut them up within their walls, and raised and fortified the mountain of the house, so as to protect his people.+ The Idumæans,§ too, having shewn themselves great enemies to the Jews, he fortified Bethsura as a barrier against the inroads from those people, who now had got possession of Hebron, formerly the capital of the tribe of Judah.|| The surrounding nations were much excited with envy and hatred at the restoration of the Jews, and were upon the point of forming a conspiracy with Antiochus, for the ruin and destruction of their name and nation; when God saw fit to arrest that impious monarch whilst threatening them with wrath and destruction, and declaring he would bury the whole nation in one common grave, in their own city. Whilst thus breathing out slaughter and wickedness, God saw fit to * Prid. ii. 230-236. + Prid. ii. 237-240. Prid. ii. 241. See plans of the city of Jerusalem in Wells' Geography, Jolliffe's Letters, and Buckingham's Travels in Palestine. § Not the Idumæans or Edomites of the Old Testament. Prid. i. 33. ii. 241. || Prid. ii. 242. As to the actual position of this city, see 2 Macc. ii. 5. arrest his progress; for he had hardly uttered the threat when he was seized with a horrible and incurable disorder; vermin issuing from his body, which he saw rotting from day to day before his eyes.* Nor was the Majesty of Heaven satisfied with thus signally disarming and punishing this atrocious persecutor, but constrained him, in his last agonies, to acknowledge the strong hand of him whom he had dared to defy, whose altars he had ventured to pollute, and upon whose chosen ones he had presumed to trample. "Now I remember the evils that I did at Jerusalem, and that I took all the vessels of gold and silver that were therein, and sent to destroy the inhabitants of Judea without a cause. I perceive, therefore, that for this cause these troubles are come upon me; and, behold, I perish through great grief in a strange land."+ Thus, in more modern times, another infidel, whilst expiring in agonies, amidst the polluted, though beautiful, groves of Ferney, was at last compelled to exclaim; Ah! the Galilean, he is too strong for me! Thus, too, does Jehovah compel the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder thereof does he restrain;§ and thus, when the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, does he that sitteth in the heavens laugh, and Jehovah himself has them in derision.|| Ptolemy Macron, who had been another great persecutor Prid. ii. 242-244. + 1 Macc. vi. 12, 13. The Jews in Jerusalem wrote a letter to their brethren in Egypt, congratulating them upon the death of the tyrant, which Whiston considers authentic. 2 Macc. i. Whiston, i. 209. See Dan. xi. &c. as to the kings of the north and the south, illustrated by Prid. ii. 248. and Keith, pp. 390. 448. Barruel, vol. i. 353. 357. 365. 369. || Ps. ii. 2. 4. Ps. lxxvi. 10. of the Jews, although latterly he had shewn them some favour, met with a miserable death soon after the accession of the new sovereign of Syria, Antiochus Eupator, the son of the last monarch; for being taunted on account of his various acts of past treachery, and deprived of all his places, he poisoned himself in despair.* The death, however, of Antiochus Epiphanes had not so broken up the confederacy, but that many of the neighbouring heathen committed great ravages amongst the Jews; and particularly the Edomites, under the command of Gorgias, the governor of Syria, had done them much mischief. Judas Maccabæus, therefore, directed his attention chiefly to this nation, and having fallen in with them at Acrabattene, he slew no less than twenty thousand of them. He also defeated the Beanites, another tribe of Idumea, and having taken two of their fortresses, put to death twenty thousand of that tribe.† The Jewish hero then passing over Jordan, had many severe conflicts with the Ammonites, and having slain great numbers of them, took Jazar and the villages in the vicinity, and then returned to Judea. Timotheus, another lieutenant of the king of Syria, having collected a large army and invaded Judea, with the determination of exterminating the Jews, was successfully encountered by Judas, who slew twenty-one thousand of his enemies; and having taken Gazara, a city in the tribe of Ephraim, slew Timotheus, his brother Chereas, and Apollophanes, another of the Syrian generals.§ Previous to this last battle, Judas and his army turned themselves to pray unto God, and sprinkled earth upon their heads, and girded their loins with sackcloth, and fell down at the foot of the altar, and besought him to be merciful to them, * Prid. ii. 255. + Prid. ii. 256. Prid. ii. 256. and to be an enemy to their enemies, and an adversary to their adversaries, as the law declareth.* Another confederacy was afterwards formed amongst the heathen who resided near to Gilead, and who invaded Tob, and slew one thousand of the Jews, and took their goods for a spoil, and carried their wives and children into captivity. Others of the Jews fleeing to the fortress of Dathema, in Gilead, were besieged by a successor of Timotheus; and at the same time the inhabitants of Tyre, Sidon, and Ptolemais, invaded Galilee. To meet and dissolve this combination, Judas marched himself with eight thousand men to Dathema, taking in his way Bossora, and coming unexpectedly upon the besiegers, routed them with great slaughter; and afterwards took the cities of Maspha, Casphon, Moled, Bosor, and all the other cities of Gilead, slaying all the males and setting the cities on fire, as he had done at Bossora.† Simon Maccabæus having at the same time marched into Galilee, slew great numbers of the enemy, and drove them up to the gates of Ptolemais, and brought with him back to the land of Judah all his afflicted and persecuted brethren, with their families and property.‡ But Joseph and Azarias, two other brothers of this heroic family, whom Judas had left to guard Jerusalem, with strict injunctions not to engage in any enterprise during his absence, disobeyed those orders; and, by an injudicious zeal, undertook an expedition against Jamnia, a sea port on the Mediterranean, when they were defeated by Gorgias, with the loss of two thousand men.§ But their difficulties were not yet at an end; for Lysias, who was regent of Syria during the minority of Antiochus Eupator, collected an army of eighty thousand men, and * 2 Macc. x. 25, 26. Exod. xxiii. 22. Prid. ii. 258. + Prid. ii. 258. § Prid. ii. 259. |