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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.

From: Luke 20:27-40

The Resurrection of the Dead

[27] There came to Him (Jesus) some Sadducees, those who say that there
is no resurrection, [28] and they asked Him a question saying,
"Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife
but no children, the man must take the wife and raise up children for
his brother. [29] Now there were seven brothers; the first took a
wife, and died without children; [30] and the second [31] and the third
took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. [32]
Afterward the woman also died. [33] In the resurrection, therefore,
whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife."

[34] And Jesus said to them, "The sons of this age marry and are given
in marriage; [35] but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that
age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given
in marriage, [36] for they cannot die any more, because they are equal
to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. [37]
But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about
the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of
Isaac and the God of Jacob. [38] Now He is not God of the dead, but of
the living; for all live to Him." [39] And some of scribes answered,
"Teacher, You have spoken well." [40] For they no longer dared to ask
Him any question.

Commentary:

27-40. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the body or
the immortality of the soul. They came along to ask Jesus a question
which is apparently unanswerable. According to the Levirate law (cf.
Deuteronomy 25:5ff), if a man died without issue, his brother was duty
bound to marry his widow to provide his brother with descendants. The
consequences of this law would seem to give rise to a ridiculous
situation at the resurrection of the dead.

Our Lord replies by reaffirming that there will be a resurrection; and
by explaining the properties of those who have risen again, the
Sadducees' argument simply evaporates. In this world people marry in
order to continue the species: that is the primary aim of marriage.
After the resurrection there will be no more marriage because people
will not die anymore.

Quoting Sacred Scripture (Exodus 3:2, 6) our Lord shows the grave
mistake the Sadducees make, and He argues: God is not the God of the
dead but of the living, that is to say, there exists a permanent
relationship between God and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who have been
dead for years. Therefore, although these just men have died as far as
their bodies are concerned, they are alive, truly alive, in God--their
souls are immortal--and they are awaiting the resurrection of their
bodies.

See also the notes on Matthew 22:23-33 and Mark 12:18-27.

[The note on Matthew 22:23-33 states:

23-33. The Sadducees argue against belief in the resurrection of the
dead on the basis of the Levirate law, a Jewish law which laid down
that when a married man died without issue, one of his brothers,
according to a fixed order, should marry his widow and the first son of
that union be given the dead man's name. By outlining an extreme cases
the Sadducees make the law and belief in resurrection look ridiculous.
In His reply, Jesus shows up the frivolity of their objections and
asserts the truth of the resurrection of the dead.]

[The note on Mark 12:18-27 states:

18-27. Before answering the difficulty proposed by the Sadducees, Jesus
wants to identify the source of the problem--man's tendency to confine
the greatness of God inside a human framework through excessive
reliance on reason, not giving due weight to divine Revelation and the
power of God. A person can have difficulty with the truths of faith;
this is not surprising, for these truths are above human reason. But
it is ridiculous to try to find contradictions in the revealed word of
God; this only leads away from any solution of difficulty and may make
it impossible to find one's way back to God. We need to approach
Sacred Scripture, and, in general, the things of God, with the humility
which faith demands. In the passage about the burning bush, which
Jesus quotes to the Sadducees, God says this to Moses: "Put off your
shoes from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground"
(Exodus 3:5).]