The King's Sickbed in a Strange Land: On Suffering and the Comfort of Repentance

The Last Days of Antiochus Epiphanes King Anti′ochus was going through the upper provinces when he heard that Elyma′is in Persia was a city famed for its wealth in silver and gold. Its temple was very rich, containing golden shields, breastplates, and weapons left there by Alexander, the son of Philip, the Macedonian king who first reigned over the Greeks. So he came and tried to take the city and plunder it, but he could not, because his plan became known to the men of the city and they withstood him in battle. So he fled and in great grief departed from there to return to Babylon. Then some one came to him in Persia and reported that the armies which had gone into the land of Judah had been routed; that Lys′ias had gone first with a strong force, but had turned and fled before the Jews; that the Jews had grown strong from the arms, supplies, and abundant spoils which they had taken from the armies they had cut down; that they had torn down the abomination which he had erected upon the altar in Jerusalem; and that they had surrounded the sanctuary with high walls as before, and also Beth-zur, his city. When the king heard this news, he was astounded and badly shaken. He took to his bed and became sick from grief, because things had not turned out for him as he had planned. He lay there for many days, because deep grief continually gripped him, and he concluded that he was dying. So he called all his friends and said to them, “Sleep departs from my eyes and I am downhearted with worry. I said to myself, ‘To what distress I have come! And into what a great flood I now am plunged! For I was kind and beloved in my power.’ But now I remember the evils I did in Jerusalem. I seized all her vessels of silver and gold; and I sent to destroy the inhabitants of Judah without good reason. I know that it is because of this that these evils have come upon me; and behold, I am perishing of deep grief in a strange land.” Then he called for Philip, one of his friends, and made him ruler over all his kingdom. He gave him the crown and his robe and the signet, that he might guide Anti′ochus his son and bring him up to be king. Thus Anti′ochus the king died there in the one hundred and forty-ninth year. And when Lys′ias learned that the king was dead, he set up Anti′ochus the king’s son to reign. Lys′ias had brought him up as a boy, and he named him Eu′pator. Renewed Attacks from Syria Now the men in the citadel kept hemming Israel in around the sanctuary. They were trying in every way to harm them and strengthen the Gentiles. So Judas decided to destroy them, and assembled all the people to besiege them. They gathered together and besieged the citadel in the one hundred and fiftieth year; and he built siege towers and other engines of war. But some of the garrison escaped from the siege and some of the ungodly Israelites joined them. They went to the king and said, “How long will you fail to do justice and to avenge our brethren? We were happy to serve your father, to live by what he said and to follow his commands. For this reason the sons of our people besieged the citadel and became hostile to us; moreover, they have put to death as many of us as they have caught, and they have seized our inheritances. And not against us alone have they stretched out their hands, but also against all the lands on their borders. And behold, today they have encamped against the citadel in Jerusalem to take it; they have fortified both the sanctuary and Beth-zur; and unless you quickly prevent them, they will do still greater things, and you will not be able to stop them.” The king was enraged when he heard this. He assembled all his friends, the commanders of his forces and those in authority. And mercenary forces came to him from other kingdoms and from islands of the seas. The number of his forces was a hundred thousand foot soldiers, twenty thousand horsemen, and thirty-two elephants accustomed to war. They came through Idume′a and encamped against Beth-zur, and for many days they fought and built engines of war; but the Jews sallied out and burned these with fire, and fought manfully. The Battle at Beth-zechariah Then Judas marched away from the citadel and encamped at Beth-zechari′ah, opposite the camp of the king. Early in the morning the king rose and took his army by a forced march along the road to Beth-zechari′ah, and his troops made ready for battle and sounded their trumpets. They showed the elephants the juice of grapes and mulberries, to arouse them for battle. And they distributed the beasts among the phalanxes; with each elephant they stationed a thousand men armed with coats of mail, and with brass helmets on their heads; and five hundred picked horsemen were assigned to each beast. These took their position beforehand wherever the beast was; wherever it went they went with it, and they never left it. And upon the elephants were wooden towers, strong and covered; they were fastened upon each beast by special harness, and up

1 Maccabees 6:1–20 records the frustrated plunder of Elymais, the failed campaign in Judah, and Antiochus Epiphanes' anguished deathbed confession. The passage is unusual in the Apocrypha for showing a pagan king naming his own sins as the cause of his suffering — a rare glimpse of conscience at work outside the covenant people.