From: 1 Maccabees 6:1-13
Death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes
[1] King Antiochus was going through the upper provinces when he heard
that Blymais in Persia was a city famed for its wealth in silver and
gold. [2] 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.
[3] 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 [4] and they
withstood him in battle So he fled and in great grief departed from
there to return to Babylon.
[5] Then some one came to him in Persia and reported that the armies
which had gone into the land of Judah had been routed; [6] that Lysias
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, [7] 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.
[8] 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. [9] He lay there for many days,
because deep grief continually gripped him, and he concluded that he
was dying. [10] So he called all his friends and said to them, “Sleep
departs from my eyes and I am downhearted with
worry. [11] l 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.’ [12] 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. [13] 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.”
Commentary:
6:1-17. According to 3:29-31, Antiochus embarked on his expedition to
get funds to counter the drain on the empire caused by the war against
the Jews. And now we are told that the king’s death was brought on by
the reports on that war. The information given here about the death of
Antiochus agrees with that in 2 Maccabees 9:1-29 only in a very
general way. First Maccabees says that Elymais was a city, whereas it
was a region in Persia (Elam) where the capital, Susa, was located.
The king dies as a result of depression caused by reports of the
Jewish victories, and he acknowledges that he has acted wrongly
towards the Jews; but, he does not go so far as to invoke the God of
Israel (as 2 Maccabees says he did). Second Maccabees, moreover,
describes him as suffering a most awful death (not the case here).
However, both books make it clear that Antiochus realized that in
persecuting the Jews and profaning their temple he was taking on
someone much more powerful than himself, and that that was why he was
punished by God. In Christian tradition (St Hippolytus, "In
Danielem", 4, 49; St Jerome, "Commentaria in Danielem", 11), Antiochus
is depicted as the first instance of the Antichrist who for a period
seeks to take God’s place but is eventually overpowered by him.
The death of Antiochus, resulting from his frustration at not being
able to eradicate loyalty to and worship of the true God, symbolizes
in some way the tragic condition of those who go so far as to try to
uproot God from their own lives or that of society.
Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.