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.
But 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.