After Antiochus Eupator fell to Demetrius son of Seleucus, a new threat emerged—and this time it came from a Jewish traitor. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle preserved by Moses Gaster in 1899, a priest named Alkimos had eaten swine's flesh during the reign of Antiochus. Now he went to Demetrius and poisoned the king's mind against Judah Maccabee and the Hassidim, calling them rebels who would never let the kingdom have peace.
Demetrius sent Nicanor with an army to destroy Judah. Nicanor first tried deception, approaching Judah with words of peace and friendship, hoping to lure him into a trap. When Judah's men detected the treachery and the ambush failed, Nicanor turned to open war. He stretched out his hand toward God's Temple and swore an oath: "If you do not deliver Judah and his army into my hands, I will burn this Temple to the ground when I return."
The priests inside the sanctuary heard him. They wept and prayed before the altar: "O Lord, You chose this house to bear Your name. Avenge us against this man and his army." Nicanor marched to battle with full confidence. Judah, outnumbered, prayed for divine intervention—reminding God how He had sent an angel to destroy Sennacherib's 185,000 soldiers in a single night.
The battle was decisive. Nicanor's army was shattered, and Nicanor himself was killed. Judah's men cut off his head and the arm he had stretched out against God's Temple, and hung them before the Temple gate. That gate has been called "the Gate of Nicanor" from that day forward. The people sang the Psalms of David, concluding with "For He is good, and His mercy endures forever." The Jews celebrate this victory on the 13th of Adar—one day before Purim—with feasting and wine.