Judah Maccabee did not wait to be attacked. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle preserved by Moses Gaster in 1899, when the Macedonian general Apolonius marched against Israel with a massive army, Judah charged straight at him. In the fury of battle, Judah spotted Apolonius in the center of the Macedonian formation, ran toward him through a valley of soldiers, cut his way through with strikes to the right and left, and killed the general with his own hands. He took Apolonius's sword and used it for the rest of his wars.
General Seron came next with an even larger force, taunting: "I will make a great name by conquering Judah." The Hassidim were terrified—they were few and had not eaten. Judah rallied them: "Victory does not depend upon numbers. It is easy for many to be defeated by the few." They attacked and routed Seron's army entirely.
Then came Gorgiash with 40,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry, accompanied by merchants carrying gold to purchase captured Jewish youths as slaves. Judah gathered his people at Mizpah, the ancient place of prayer, and they fasted. After praying, Judah divided his force into four companies led by himself and his brothers Simeon, Jonathan, and Johanan. They crushed Gorgiash's army, killing 9,000 and seizing the merchants' gold, which they distributed among the poor.
The Macedonian general Nicanor attacked with 40,000 men. Judah prayed, invoking how God had sent an angel to destroy 185,000 of Sennacherib's army in a single night. The priests blew their trumpets, the people shouted, and Judah leaped into battle. Nine thousand Macedonians fell. Meanwhile, Antiochus himself—marching home from a failed campaign in Persia—was struck by God with a terrible plague. His flesh rotted from his bones, his bowels spilled onto the ground, and he begged God for mercy, promising to convert and proclaim Israel's God. But God did not listen. Antiochus died in shame, in a strange land, his body falling apart on the road home.