Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
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⚙ Annotations & References ▾
Empires 1 ▾
Ptolemaic Kingdom c. 305-30 BC 51
Manuscript witnesses 2 ▾
Codex Sinaiticus Aleph c. AD 330-360 Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325
What is 1 Maccabees 10 about?

A rival claimant, Alexander Balas, rises against Demetrius, and both kings compete for Jonathan's support. Demetrius grants concessions, but Alexander names Jonathan high priest and sends him the purple robe and golden crown, which Jonathan puts on at the Feast of Tabernacles. When Alexander defeats and kills Demetrius and marries the daughter of Egypt's king, he honors Jonathan still further; Jonathan then defeats the governor Apollonius, takes Joppa and Azotus, and burns the temple of Dagon. The chapter shows the Maccabean house rising in standing and office amid the rivalries of kings, the priesthood restored to the family that led the deliverance.

Historical backdrop

Alexander's empire had shattered into the kingdoms of his generals, and Judea lay under the Seleucids who ruled the East from Antioch. When Antiochus the Fourth outlawed the Law, forced Greek ways on Jerusalem, and raised an altar to Zeus on the altar of the LORD, a priest's family in the hills rose in revolt. The war that followed pitted farmers and their sons against the Seleucid phalanx and its armored war elephants, and it ended with the temple cleansed and rededicated, a rising Jewish state, and envoys sent to a distant new power named Rome. This is the world between the Testaments, the fight that set the stage on which the Gospels open.

The Church Fathers on 1 Maccabees 10
Deuterocanon (Catholic & Orthodox) · Accepted as canonical Scripture by the Catholic and Orthodox traditions and included in the original 1611 KJV (between the Old and New Testaments). Not in the Protestant 66-book canon. Read with the same care you bring to other Scripture, conscious that Protestants and Catholics weigh its authority differently.

1 Maccabees 10

1 Maccabees Chapter 10
10
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What is 1 Maccabees 10 about?

A rival claimant, Alexander Balas, rises against Demetrius, and both kings compete for Jonathan's support. Demetrius grants concessions, but Alexander names Jonathan high priest and sends him the purple robe and golden crown, which Jonathan puts on at the Feast of Tabernacles. When Alexander defeats and kills Demetrius and marries the daughter of Egypt's king, he honors Jonathan still further; Jonathan then defeats the governor Apollonius, takes Joppa and Azotus, and burns the temple of Dagon. The chapter shows the Maccabean house rising in standing and office amid the rivalries of kings, the priesthood restored to the family that led the deliverance.