Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
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Codex Sinaiticus Aleph c. AD 330-360 Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325
What is 1 Maccabees 16 about?

With Cendebeus raiding the land, the aged Simon sends his sons John and Judas to lead the army, and they defeat him and drive his forces back. Then treachery strikes from within the family: Ptolemy son of Abubus, Simon's own son-in-law, murders Simon and two of his sons at a banquet in the fortress of Dok near Jericho, and tries to kill John as well. Warned in time, John Hyrcanus escapes and succeeds his father as high priest and leader, and the book closes by noting that the rest of his deeds are written in the chronicle of his high priesthood. Ending on this succession, the chapter carries the Hasmonean house into the generation that will govern the Jews down toward the age of the Gospels.

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 16
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 16

1 Maccabees Chapter 16
16
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What is 1 Maccabees 16 about?

With Cendebeus raiding the land, the aged Simon sends his sons John and Judas to lead the army, and they defeat him and drive his forces back. Then treachery strikes from within the family: Ptolemy son of Abubus, Simon's own son-in-law, murders Simon and two of his sons at a banquet in the fortress of Dok near Jericho, and tries to kill John as well. Warned in time, John Hyrcanus escapes and succeeds his father as high priest and leader, and the book closes by noting that the rest of his deeds are written in the chronicle of his high priesthood. Ending on this succession, the chapter carries the Hasmonean house into the generation that will govern the Jews down toward the age of the Gospels.