After Judas Maccabeus fell in battle, everything he had fought for nearly collapsed. Josephus opens Book XIII of his <i>Antiquities</i> with a bleak picture: the lawless and the disloyal surged back across Judea. A famine gripped the countryside. Jews who could not endure both hunger and persecution abandoned their homeland and went over to the Macedonians. Bacchides, the Seleucid general, rounded up anyone loyal to the Maccabean cause, tortured them, and executed them.
The surviving companions of Judas turned to his brother Jonathan and begged him to take command. Jonathan accepted, declaring he was ready to die for his people just as his brother had. He became the new leader of the Jewish resistance.
Bacchides immediately tried to assassinate him. Jonathan and his brother Simon escaped into the wilderness near the Jordan River, camping by a lake called Asphar. When Jonathan sent his brother John to store their supplies with the friendly Nabatean Arabs, the sons of Ambri ambushed the convoy, killed John, and plundered everything. Jonathan and Simon avenged their brother by attacking a wedding procession of the Ambri clan, killing many and recovering their stolen goods.
Bacchides found Jonathan camped by the Jordan and attacked on the Sabbath, expecting no resistance. But Jonathan had learned from history. He told his men their lives depended on fighting, trapped as they were between the river and the enemy. After praying to God, Jonathan led the charge. He personally struck at Bacchides, who dodged the blow. When the battle turned against them, Jonathan and his men leaped into the Jordan and swam to the far bank. Bacchides did not pursue. A thousand Seleucid soldiers had fallen that day.
Bacchides fortified cities throughout Judea, took hostages from leading families, and imprisoned them in the Jerusalem citadel. But two years later, Jewish collaborators hatched a plan to hand Jonathan over. When the plot was uncovered, Jonathan executed fifty of the conspirators and withdrew to the fortress of Bethbasi in the wilderness. Bacchides besieged him there, but Jonathan slipped out, rallied allies from neighboring tribes, and counterattacked. Simon simultaneously burned the Seleucid siege engines from inside the fortress. Bacchides, furious at the collaborators who had dragged him back to Judea for nothing, executed several of them himself. Jonathan offered peace terms. Bacchides accepted, returned his hostages, and left Judea for good. He never came back.