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Mattathiah Killed the Officer and Fled to the Mountains

At Modiim a priest tears down an altar, kills a Macedonian officer, and flees. His deathbed charge names each son's role in the war ahead.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Altar at Modiim
  2. What the Mountains Gave Them
  3. The Father Who Gave Orders From His Deathbed
  4. Judah Found a Desolate Temple
  5. Fire From a Stone

The Altar at Modiim

The Macedonian officers arrive at Modiim with a simple order and an expectation of compliance. One man from the town steps forward to sacrifice at the altar they have set up. He is not Mattathiah. He is someone who has decided that survival requires this one concession.

Mattathiah moves before the man can complete the act. He kills the man at the altar. He kills the officer. He pulls the altar down. Then he stands in the open square of Modiim and calls out: Whoever is zealous for God and for His Law, follow me.

He and his five sons run for the mountains. Behind them, Modiim burns into memory as the place where the revolt began. Not with a strategy session, not with a treaty, not with diplomatic calculation. With a priest watching covenant worship replaced by coercion, and deciding in a single moment that this was the line.

What the Mountains Gave Them

The hills provide two things: distance from Antiochus's forces and time to build something. Families come. Fighters come. People who have been hiding their observance come out of where they have been hiding. The mountain camp is rough and hungry and cold, but it breathes. Mattathiah does not have an army when he flees Modiim. By the time he is dying, he has five sons who can lead one.

He uses his last breath to name what each of them must do.

The Father Who Gave Orders From His Deathbed

I know that fierce battles will be waged in Judah, he tells them. He is not offering comfort or reassurance. He is telling them what the coming years look like. Then he tells them how to meet it. Be zealous for God, for His sanctuary, for His people. Fight. Do not be afraid of death. If you die in battle, your brethren will receive you and your portion will be shared with you.

He names ancestors who had acted with similar zeal. Abraham who fought four kings. Joseph who kept God's law in a foreign land. Phinehas who acted when no one else would and received a covenant of eternal priesthood. Each name is a precedent. Mattathiah is handing his sons a tradition of action, not merely a tradition of suffering.

Then he names Judah to lead the army. Simon to advise. He distributes roles across all five. The deathbed is not an ending. It is the first strategy meeting of the Maccabean war.

Judah Found a Desolate Temple

After routing Seleucid forces in successive campaigns, Judah Maccabee marches to Jerusalem. What his soldiers find at the Temple breaks them. The sanctuary is desolate. The gates are burned. Weeds grow in the courtyards. They tear their clothes, throw ashes on their heads, and lie face-down on the stone.

Then they rise and begin the work of restoration. The foreign altars come down. The sanctuary is cleansed. A new altar is constructed. But when the wood is arranged and the sacrificial flesh is placed upon it, the holy fire that had burned since Moses is gone. The sacred flame that had not been replaced or renewed through all the intervening generations is simply absent.

Fire From a Stone

They call out to God in prayer. Fire bursts from a stone on the altar. It ignites the wood. The offering rises. This is not the fire that burned from Moses's time, which is gone. This is a new fire, given in answer to prayer, beginning a new chapter.

On the twenty-fifth of Kislev, Judah and the Hassidim celebrate the rededication for eight days. The holiday does not commemorate the victory alone. It commemorates the moment the sanctuary that Mattathiah died for was returned to the service it was built for.

MaccabeesHanukkahTempleJudah
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From the tradition

Sources

4 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Chronicles of Jerahmeel XCChronicles of Jerahmeel (Gaster, 1899)

The breaking point came at Mod'aith. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle preserved by Moses Gaster in 1899, after Antiochus departed for Macedon, he left behind officers with a single command: "Blot out the very memory of Judah from the face of the earth. Let anyone who even mentions the name 'Jew' be slain. But let those willing to assimilate live, and call them 'Javan.'"

Phillipos and his captains carried out these orders ruthlessly, killing every Jew they found observing the Torah. The sole exception was a group that had fled with Mattathiah ben Jochanan to the town of Mod'aith. Mattathiah refused to bear the reproach of seeing God's law trampled.

When the Macedonian officers arrived at Mod'aith and set up an altar for idol worship, they ordered the people to sacrifice. A Jewish man stepped forward to comply. Mattathiah drew his sword and killed him on the spot. Then he turned on the Macedonian officer and killed him too, pulling down the altar with his own hands.

Standing in the town square, Mattathiah raised his voice: "Whoever is zealous for the Lord, let him follow me!" He and his five sons fled to the mountains, where the pious faithful, the Hassidim, gathered around them. Their numbers grew. Mattathiah became the first to raise his hand against the Macedonian kingdom, and he issued a ruling that would reshape Jewish law: the obligation to fight even on the Sabbath when survival demanded it.

With his sons and brothers, Mattathiah led the Hassidim across the land of Judah. They pursued those who had hidden from the oppressors, rallied the fearful, and struck down collaborators until none remained. They circumcised their sons. The chronicle declares that through Mattathiah, "great salvation was brought about by the Lord."

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Chronicles of Jerahmeel XCIChronicles of Jerahmeel (Gaster, 1899)

Mattathiah was dying. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle preserved by Moses Gaster in 1899, the father of the Maccabean revolt called his five sons to his bedside for a final charge. He did not offer comfort. He offered a battle plan.

"I know that fierce battles will be waged in the land of Judah," he told them. "Now, my sons, be zealous for your God, for His sanctuary, and for His people. Fight, and do not be afraid of death. If you die in battle, you will be received among your brethren, and their portion shall be shared with you." He reminded them of every ancestor who had fought with zeal, Abraham, who battled the four kings; Joseph, who kept God's commandments in a foreign land; Phinehas, who acted with righteous fury and received an eternal covenant of priesthood; Joshua, who became judge of Israel through obedience; David, who inherited the throne through mercy.

Then Mattathiah turned to the question of leadership. He appointed Simeon, his wisest son, as the family's counselor: "He shall be a father unto you." For the battlefield, he chose Judah, the one they would call Maccabee. "He shall go forth and wage your wars," Mattathiah declared, "and he will gather our people about him."

Mattathiah died and was buried at Mod'aith, mourned by all Israel. His son Judah rose to take his place. The chronicle describes him as a figure who struck terror into kings, appearing to his enemies "as a roaring lion seeking prey appears to cattle." Jacob rejoiced at his deeds from beyond, for Judah's name rang from one end of the world to the other. The text concludes with a blessing rarely given to a warrior: "Peace and repose upon his righteous couch, for he did not withhold his soul from death to defend Israel, God's people."

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Antiquities XII.8-9Antiquities of the Jews (Josephus)

After routing the Seleucid armies, Judas Maccabeus did not rest. Josephus records that the surrounding nations, alarmed by the sudden revival of Jewish power, attacked Jewish communities on every border. Judas launched campaign after campaign. He struck the Idumeans at Acrabattene, crushed the Ammonites under their commander Timotheus, and captured the city of Jazer. His brother Simon took 3,000 soldiers into Galilee and drove the enemy to the gates of Ptolemais, killing 3,000.

The most important moment was still ahead. Judas marched his army to Jerusalem, and what they found at the Temple broke them. The sanctuary was desolate. The gates were burned. Weeds grew in the courtyards as if in a forest. The soldiers tore their clothes, threw ashes on their heads, and fell on their faces in grief.

Judas sent a detachment to keep the citadel garrison pinned down while his men went to work. They purified the Temple, removed every contaminated stone, built a new altar of unhewn stone, crafted new sacred vessels, and fashioned a new menorah, a new table of showbread, and a new altar of incense. When everything was ready, they lit the menorah, burned incense, laid out the showbread, and offered burnt offerings on the new altar.

The date was the twenty-fifth of the month of Kislev, exactly three years to the day after Antiochus had desecrated the Temple. Josephus notes that this fulfilled a prophecy of Daniel, given some 408 years earlier, that the Macedonians would suspend Jewish worship for a time.

Judas celebrated the restoration for eight days with rich sacrifices, hymns, and psalms. The people were overjoyed beyond all expectation. They passed a law that future generations should observe this festival annually for eight days. Josephus adds a detail about the festival's name: "From that time to this we celebrate this festival, and call it Lights. I suppose the reason was because this liberty beyond our hopes appeared to us, and that thence was the name given to that festival." This is the origin of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, recorded by a Jewish historian writing barely two centuries after the Maccabees themselves.

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Chronicles of Jerahmeel XCIVChronicles of Jerahmeel (Gaster, 1899)

When Judah Maccabee and the Hassidim entered Jerusalem, the Temple was an abomination. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle preserved by Moses Gaster in 1899, the altars the foreigners had built still stood. Judah tore them down, cleansed the sanctuary of every defilement, and constructed a new altar. They arranged the wood and placed the sacrificial flesh upon it. But the holy fire, the sacred flame that had burned since the time of Moses, was gone.

They called out to God in prayer. Fire burst forth from a stone upon the altar, igniting the wood and the offering. This miraculous flame remained with Israel until the time of the third captivity. On the 25th of Kislev, Judah and his people celebrated the rededication of the Temple for eight days with songs and praises. This, the chronicle tells us, is the origin of the festival of Hanukkah.

Peace did not last. The nations surrounding Judah, in Gilead, Ammon, and the coastal cities, launched attacks on every side. Timotheos, a powerful enemy commander, gathered a vast army and fortified cities against the Jews. Judah marched his forces across the Jordan, captured strongholds, and liberated besieged Jewish communities. At the fortified city of Kaspon, whose inhabitants cursed Judah and slandered his people, he called upon God: "At the sound of the trumpet You delivered Jericho by the hands of Your servant Joshua. Now deliver this city into our hands."

Judah took his shield in his left hand and his sword in his right, and for two days his forces did not cease their assault. They conquered the city and put the enemy to the sword. Timotheos fled and hid in a pit. His brothers were captured and beheaded. The spoils were carried to Jerusalem with psalms, praises, and thanksgivings, singing the songs of David, King of Israel, "to the Lord, whose mercy endures forever."

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