Between the Testaments · c. 168 BC
Chapter 6
The Abomination of Desolation
1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees are in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles; most Protestant Bibles leave them out or print them apart as the Apocrypha.
Many in Israel were fully resolved and confirmed in themselves not to eat unclean things.They chose to die, that they might not be defiled with the food, and that they might not profane the holy covenant; and they died.
For parents
This chapter tells how the king’s chief collector of tribute attacks Jerusalem, kills many of its people and burns the city, and how innocent people are killed around the sanctuary (1 Maccabees 1:29–37). People are put to death for keeping the law. Mothers who had circumcised their babies are put to death with the babies hung around their necks, and so are their households (1:60–61); in 2 Maccabees 6:10 two mothers are thrown from the wall. People keeping the Sabbath in caves are all burned (2 Maccabees 6:11), and many who would not eat unclean food die (1 Maccabees 1:62–63). One sentence says the Gentiles spent their time with prostitutes and slept with women in the temple (2 Maccabees 6:4); it is all told plainly, without detail.
Two full years had passed since came back from and stripped the in of its gold, its silver and its treasures. Now the king sent a chief collector of to the towns of , and the man came to Jerusalem with a great many men.
He spoke cunning words of peace to the people there, and they believed him. Then, without warning, he attacked the city. He struck it very hard and killed many of the people of Israel.
He looted the city and set it on fire, and he pulled down its houses and the walls all around it. The women and children were led away as captives, and the livestock was seized.
Then they made into a fortress, with a big, strong wall and with strong towers. This became their . They put a sinful people there, men who broke the law, and they made themselves strong in it. They stored up weapons and food there, and they gathered up the plunder of Jerusalem and stored that there too. They became a great danger.
The citadel became a place where they could lie in wait to attack the sanctuary. It was an enemy that never stopped harming Israel. All around the sanctuary they killed innocent people, and they made the sanctuary .
This is what became of Jerusalem:
The people of Jerusalem fled because of them.She became a home for foreigners.She became a stranger to those born in her,and her children left her.Her sanctuary was left a wasteland, like the wilderness.Her feasts were turned into mourning,her Sabbaths into shame,and her honor into scorn.Her dishonor grew as greatas her glory had been,and her greatness was turned into mourning.
King Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom that everyone was to become one people, and each was to give up his own laws. All the nations agreed to do what the king said.
Many from Israel accepted his way of worship. They sacrificed to and broke the .
The king sent messengers with letters to Jerusalem and the towns of Judah. The letters told the people to follow laws that were foreign to the land. They were to put a stop to , sacrifices and in the sanctuary. They were to dishonor the Sabbaths and the feasts. They were to make the sanctuary unclean, and those who were holy as well.
They were to build , temples and shrines for idols, and offer up pork and unclean animals as sacrifices. They were to leave their sons and make their souls foul with everything unclean and unholy. All this was meant to make them forget the law and change all its rules.
Anyone who did not do what the king said would die.
The king wrote all this to his whole kingdom. He put overseers over all the people, and he ordered the towns of Judah to offer sacrifices, one town after another.
Many of the people went over to them: everyone who had abandoned the law. They did wicked things in the land, and they made Israel hide in every hiding place it had.
2 Maccabees says that not long after this the king sent out an old man from to force the Jews to turn from the laws of their ancestors and to stop living by the laws of God. He was also to make the sanctuary in Jerusalem unclean and name it after Olympian . And he was to name the sanctuary at after Zeus the Protector of foreigners, as the people who lived in that place did.
On the fifteenth day of , in the one hundred forty-fifth year, they built an abomination of desolation on the altar. In the towns of Judah on every side, they built altars for idols.
At the doors of the houses and in the streets they burned . They tore up whatever books of the law they came across, and set them on fire.
If anyone was found with a book of the , or if anyone held to the law, the king sentenced him to death. With all their might they did this to the people of Israel they found in the towns, month after month.
On the twenty-fifth day of the month they sacrificed on the idol altar that stood on top of the altar of burnt offering.
2 Maccabees says that the harm that came was harsh and very hard to bear. The filled the temple with wild and shameless partying. They spent their time with and slept with women inside the holy courts, and they brought in things that had no place there.
The altar was piled with disgusting things that the laws forbade.
No one could keep the Sabbath, or the feasts of their ancestors, or even say that they were Jews.
Every month, on the king’s birthday, the Jews were led off and harshly forced to eat from the sacrifices. When the feast called the Dionysia came, they were made to walk in a procession in honor of , wearing wreaths of ivy.
An order went out to the cities nearby, as had suggested. They were to treat the Jews the same way and make them eat from the sacrifices, and they were to kill anyone who would not choose to go over to the Greek ceremonies. So the misery of those days was there for everyone to see.
As the king’s order commanded, women who had circumcised their children were put to death, with the babies hung around their mothers’ necks. The women’s households were put to death too, and so were those who had circumcised the babies.
2 Maccabees tells of two women who were brought in for having circumcised their children. These women were led around the city for everyone to see, with the babies hung from their breasts, and then they were thrown headfirst from the wall.
Others had gathered in the caves nearby to keep the seventh day, the Sabbath, in secret. They were betrayed to Philip, and they were all burned together. Their devotion kept them from defending themselves, because they honored that most holy day.
Many in Israel had firmly made up their minds not to eat anything unclean. They chose to die, so that the food would not make them unclean and they would not dishonor the holy covenant. And they died.
Wrath came upon Israel, very great wrath.