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Antiochus Came for the Temple's Gold and Fled to Babylon Without It

Rumor said the Temple held Alexander's gold shields. Antiochus came to strip it, met battle, and left for Babylon with heaviness in his gut.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. A Report of Alexander's Shields
  2. Two Unarmed Men at the Gate
  3. He Went to Babylon Heavy
  4. Bacchides Came Speaking Peace
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A Report of Alexander's Shields

The report reached the king the way reports about money always reach kings, at second hand and slightly improved on the way. There was a very rich temple in Jerusalem, the man said, and in it were coverings of gold, and breastplates, and shields, and the shields had been left there by Alexander son of Philip, the Macedonian who reigned first among the Greeks.

The last part is what moved him. A rich building is only a rich building, but metal left behind by the first Greek king sounds to a later Greek king like family property currently in somebody else's cupboard. So Antiochus did not send anyone ahead to ask whether the coverings were votive, or how much of the story had grown in the telling, or whether the man reporting it had ever stood inside the courtyard. He came to take the city and to spoil it.

Two Unarmed Men at the Gate

He could have found out what that hill cost from two Greek visitors who went up in a quieter year. They were unarmed, there were two of them, and they carried an order from the chief officer instructing the guards to admit them so they could watch the sacrifices. The guards were reluctant anyway. They talked it over, and the visitors stood there while they did it.

The towers rose out of the citadel above them, built of immense stones, higher than the ring of the wall, with engines of war standing ready on the tops. The men who held those posts had given the utmost proof of their loyalty to their country and were not permitted to leave. They came out on feast days and even then only in detachments, so the towers were never empty at any hour of any week, and no stranger got in without a decision being made about him first.

From up there the whole sacred circle lay open to the eye. If two men with a written order had to wait at the bottom, an army arriving without one was going to have to buy every stone.

He Went to Babylon Heavy

Jerusalem had warning, because word of a king moving with intent travels faster than the king does. So the men of the city did not wait behind the wall to be assessed; they came out and rose up against him in battle, and he was not able to take the city or to spoil it.

He fled, and he departed from there with great heaviness, and he turned back toward Babylon. The gold had never been in his hands, and losing it emptied them anyway. Then, while he was still in Persia, a second messenger found him with the rest of it: the armies he had sent into Judea had been broken and put to flight. He had come for shields left by Alexander and he had lost an army on the way to not getting them.

Bacchides Came Speaking Peace

The next general the empire sent did not go anywhere near those towers. Bacchides came to the same city and spoke peace, and it sounded like peace, and it went on sounding like peace for as long as it needed to.

Sixty men decided to believe him. They weighed the face of a Seleucid general who was talking instead of besieging, and every one of them made the same reasonable calculation, which was that a man who wants an arrangement is not a man planning a massacre, and that the last king who came at the walls had gone home with nothing. So they believed him, and they came in. He took the sixty and killed them in a single day.

The bodies were left where they fell, and the old psalm about the flesh of the righteous cast out and their blood shed round about Jerusalem, with none to bury them, stopped being a lament and became a description of the street. Fear and dread fell on all the people, and what they said about the killers was that there was neither truth nor righteousness in them, since they had broken the covenant and the oath they had made.

Bacchides moved his camp on to Bezeth. He hunted down the men who had left him, and some of the people besides, and killed them, and threw them into a great pit.

Up on the citadel the rotations held. The trusty men counted the feast days and went out in their detachments and came back, and the engines sat on the immense stones exactly where they had sat when a king was underneath them wanting gold. A day's march off, at Bezeth, the pit was still being filled.

AntiochusTempleMaccabeesBacchidesJerusalemGold
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From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

The Book of Maccabees I 6:5The Book of Maccabees I

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Sefaria Community Translation · CC-BY

Gold, jewels, artifacts of unimaginable beauty. Where did they all go? Sometimes, the answer lies hidden in the stories we think we know.

The tale in the First Book of Maccabees, a historical book not included in the Hebrew Bible but preserved as ancient Jewish literature. It tells us of a "very rich temple" – the Temple in Jerusalem, of course – "wherein were coverings of gold, and breastplates, and shields." These weren't just any adornments,. They were relics left behind by none other than Alexander the Great himself!

That: armor touched by the hand of the Macedonian king, gleaming gold shimmering in the sacred space. What a sight it must have been.

Someone – we aren't given a name – got a bright (or maybe not-so-bright) idea: why not try and plunder this wealth? The text says that "he came and sought to take the city, and to spoil it; but he was not able." Why? Because the people of Jerusalem, forewarned of this attack, "rose up against him in battle."

The defenders of Jerusalem, standing firm against those who sought to desecrate their holy place and steal their treasures. They fought so fiercely that the would-be looter "fled, and departed thence with great heaviness, and returned to Babylon." Talk about a humiliating defeat!

And the story doesn't end there. As the defeated leader slunk back to Babylon, news reached him in Persia that the armies he had dispatched against Judea had been utterly routed. It's like a double dose of bad news, a cosmic smackdown reminding him that some things are just not meant to be taken.

What does this short passage from Maccabees I tell us? Perhaps it is a reminder that true wealth lies not in gold and jewels, but in the courage and faith of a people willing to defend what is sacred to them. That sometimes, the greatest treasures are not those we can possess, but those we are willing to protect. And sometimes, the universe has a way of reminding us of that, rather forcefully.

Full source
The Book of Maccabees I 7:18The Book of Maccabees I

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Sefaria Community Translation · CC-BY

Maccabees I, chapter 7 drops us into the thick of the Maccabean Revolt, a fight for religious freedom and Jewish sovereignty against the Seleucid Empire. Things are already tense, to say the least, when a moment of betrayal shatters whatever trust still held.

Someone – we know him as Bacchides, a Seleucid general – gains the trust of some Jews. But it’s a false trust. As the text says, "Whereupon they believed him: howbeit he took of them threescore men, and slew them in one day.." Sixty men! Murdered after placing their faith in him.

It's a brutal act, made even more chilling by the justification that follows. Bacchides, or perhaps the author of Maccabees, invokes scripture to justify the slaughter: "according to the words which he wrote, The flesh of thy righteous ones have they cast out, and their blood have they shed round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them." This is a direct quote from (Psalm 79:2-3), a lament over the suffering of the Jewish people. He's using a prayer of mourning, a cry for help, as a rationale for further bloodshed. It’s a twisted, perverse interpretation. He’s weaponizing faith itself. What could be more demoralizing?

The effect is immediate. "Wherefore the fear and dread of them fell upon all the people, who said, There is neither truth nor righteousness in them; for they have broken the covenant and oath that they made." Fear spreads like wildfire. Trust is shattered. The people recognize the utter lack of integrity in Bacchides and his forces. They see that their word means nothing, that covenants are worthless to them.

The passage concludes with yet another act of cruelty. Bacchides moves on, setting up camp in Bezeth. There, he hunts down those who had deserted him – perhaps those who initially supported him but then had second thoughts – and "certain of the people also." He slaughters them and throws their bodies into a "great pit." A mass grave. An anonymous, undignified end.

This isn’t just a historical account; it’s a stark portrayal of the horrors of war, the dangers of unchecked power, and the devastating consequences of broken trust. Without them, we risk descending into the abyss. What does it take to prevent that descent? What does it take to maintain faith in humanity, even when confronted with such brutality? That’s the question this passage leaves us with.

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Letter of Aristeas 1:103Letter of Aristeas

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Letter of Aristeas, Clarendon Press (1913) · CC-BY

The towers were guarded too by most trusty men who had given the utmost proof of their loyalty to their country. These men were never allowed to leave the citadel, except on feast days and then only in detachments.

Nor did they permit any stranger to enter it. They were also very careful when any command came from the chief officer to admit any visitors to inspect the place, as our own experience taught us. They were very reluctant to admit us - though we were but two unarmed men- to view the offering of the sacrifices.

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