Between the Testaments · c. 168 BC
Chapter 7
Eleazar and the Seven Brothers
2 Maccabees is in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles; most Protestant Bibles leave it out or print it apart as the Apocrypha.
One of them made himself the spokesman and said, “What would you ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.”
For parents
This chapter tells how an old man, Eleazar, is beaten to death for refusing to eat pork (2 Maccabees 6:18–31), and how seven brothers are tortured and killed one after another while their mother watches, before she dies too (7:1–41). The tortures are named in a few plain words, without gory detail: a tongue cut out, the skin torn from the head, hands and feet cut off, and a man put alive into a hot pan over the fire (7:1–7). Parents may want to read it first, or read it together.
Here the writer of this book stops to speak to the people reading it. “Don’t be discouraged by these disasters,” he urges them. “Understand that these punishments were not meant to destroy our people, but to correct them.
“It is a sign of great kindness when those who act wickedly are not left alone for long, but are punished right away. With the other nations, the Sovereign Lord waits patiently. He holds back their punishment until their sins have reached the limit. But with us he does not wait. That way he will not take vengeance on us later, when our sins are at their worst. That is why he never takes his mercy away from us. He corrects his own people with disaster, but he does not abandon them.
“Let this be enough of a reminder. After these few words, I must get back to the story.”
was one of the leading , a very old man with a noble face. Now he was being made to open his mouth and eat .
But he would rather die with honor than stay alive and be defiled. He spat the meat out, and then he walked willingly to the instrument of torture. That is how people should come forward when they are determined to refuse what the law forbids them to taste, even to save their own lives.
The men in charge of that forbidden feast of sacrifices had known Eleazar for a long time, so they took him aside and begged him in private. He could bring meat of his own, meat he was allowed to eat, and only pretend to do what had commanded: eat the meat from the sacrifice. That way he would escape death, and they could treat him kindly for the sake of their old friendship.
But Eleazar made a noble decision. It was worthy of his years and of the dignity of old age. It was worthy of the gray hair he had reached with honor, and of the fine upbringing he had received from childhood. Or rather, it was worthy of the holy laws God had set in place. So he told them what he had decided: they should send him to , and quickly.
“Pretending doesn’t suit people of our age,” he said. “Many of the young would think that Eleazar, a man of ninety, had gone over to a foreign religion. My pretending would lead them astray, and all for the sake of this short life that lasts only a moment. And I would defile and disgrace myself in my old age.
“For now, I might escape punishment from men. But whether I live or die, I would not escape the hands of . So I will give up my life bravely now, and prove myself worthy of my old age. I will leave behind a noble example for the young: to die willingly and nobly, a glorious death, for our holy and honored laws.” As soon as he had said this, he went to the instrument of torture.
Only a little while before, these men had shown him good will. Now their good will turned to ill will, because they thought his words were sheer madness.
When the blows had brought him close to death, he groaned aloud. “The Lord, who has holy knowledge, knows this well,” he said. “I could have been saved from death, yet I am bearing severe pain in my body from this whipping. But in my soul I suffer it gladly, because I fear him.”
So this man died too. He left his death as a noble example and a memorial of goodness, not only to the young but to most of his nation.
By the king’s command, seven brothers and their mother were taken. They were beaten cruelly with whips and cords, to force them to taste the detestable pork.
One of them spoke for all the rest. “What do you want to ask us? What are you trying to learn from us? We are ready to die rather than break the laws of our ancestors.”
The king was furious. He ordered pans and cauldrons to be heated, and as soon as they were hot, he gave his orders. The brother who had spoken for them was to have his tongue cut out, the skin torn from his head, and his hands and feet cut off, while his brothers and his mother looked on.
When he had been completely maimed, the king ordered him taken to the fire while he was still alive, and burned in the pan.
As the smoke from the pan spread far, the other brothers and their mother urged one another to die nobly. “The Lord God sees,” they said, “and truly he hears our plea, just as said in his song, the song that speaks as a witness against the people, right to their faces: ‘And he will have compassion on his servants.’”
When the first had died this way, they brought out the second to mock him. They tore the skin and hair from his head and asked him, “Will you eat now, before your body is punished in every limb?”
He answered in the language of his ancestors. “No.” So he too went through the tortures that came next, one after another, just as the first had.
With his last breath, he said, “You, miscreant, release us out of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us who have died for his laws up to an everlasting renewal of life.”
After him, they mocked the third. When they demanded it, he quickly put out his tongue, and he bravely stretched out his hands.
“I got these from heaven,” he said nobly. “For the sake of his laws I think nothing of them, and I hope to receive them back from him again.”
The king himself and the men with him were astonished at the young man’s soul, because he counted the pain as nothing.
When he too was dead, they mistreated and tortured the fourth in the same way.
As he came near death, he said, “It is good to die at the hands of men and look for the hope which is given by God, that we will be raised up again by him. For as for you, you will have no resurrection to life.”
Next they brought the fifth and mistreated him.
But he looked at the king. “You have power over people,” he said, “so you do whatever you like, even though you yourself are mortal. But don’t think God has given up on our people. Keep on as you are, then, and see how God in his great majesty will torture you and your descendants!”
After him they brought the sixth. As he was about to die, he said, “Don’t fool yourself. We are suffering these things because of what we ourselves have done: we sinned against our own God. Astounding things have happened. But don’t think you will escape punishment after trying to fight against God!”
But above all, the mother was marvelous, and she deserves to be remembered with honor. In the space of one day she watched seven sons die, and she bore the sight with courage, because of her hope in the Lord.
Filled with a noble spirit, she put a man’s courage into her woman’s thoughts. In their ancestors’ language, she urged each one of them on. “I don’t know how you came into my womb,” she said. “It wasn’t I who gave you your spirit and your life. It wasn’t I who arranged the first elements of each one of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the first origin of man and devised the first origin of all things, in mercy gives back to you again both your spirit and your life, as you now treat yourselves with contempt for his laws’ sake.”
Antiochus thought he was being looked down on, and he suspected the voice was speaking against him. The youngest son was still alive. The king did not only appeal to him with words. He also swore oaths: if the young man would turn away from the ways of his ancestors, the king would make him a wealthy man and raise him to high honor. He would make him his friend and trust him with the affairs of state.
But the young man would not listen at all. So the king called the young man’s mother over and pressed her to advise the boy to save himself. After the king had urged her for a long time, she agreed to persuade her son.
She leaned toward her son, mocking the cruel tyrant, and spoke in her ancestors’ language. “My son, have pity on me. For nine months I carried you in my womb, and for three years I nursed you. I fed you, brought you up to the age you are now, and looked after you. I beg you, my child, to lift your eyes to the sky and the earth, and to see all things that are in it, and thus to recognize that God made them not of things that were, and that the race of men in this way comes into being. Don’t be afraid of this butcher. Prove that you are worthy of your brothers, and accept your death, so that I may receive you again with your brothers, in God’s mercy.”
Before she had finished, the young man spoke up. “What are you all waiting for? I won’t obey the king’s command. I listen to what the law commands, the law given through Moses to our ancestors. You have thought up every kind of harm against the , but you will never escape God’s hands.
“We are suffering because of our own sins. If our living Lord has been angry with us for a short while, to scold and correct us, he will make peace with his own servants again. But you, unholy man, the most wicked of all, don’t puff yourself up for nothing in your wild pride. Your hopes are uncertain, and you are lifting your hand to strike heaven’s children. You have not yet escaped the judgment of God Almighty, who sees everything.
“These brothers of ours have suffered a short pain that brings everlasting life, and now they have died under God’s . But you, through God’s judgment, will receive the punishment your arrogance deserves.
“Like my brothers, I give up body and soul for the laws of our ancestors. I call on God to be gracious to our nation soon. I pray that, through trials and plagues, you will confess that he alone is God. And I pray that in me and my brothers you may bring to an end the anger of the Almighty, which has justly come on our whole race.”
The king flew into a rage. The young man’s mocking was more than he could stand, and he dealt with him more cruelly than with all the others. So this son too died pure, putting his whole trust in the Lord.
Last of all, after her sons, the mother died.
“Let that be enough,” the writer says, “about the feasts of sacrifice and the terrible tortures.”