The Lord ordained that Judah Maccabee would not die in bed. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle preserved by Moses Gaster in 1899, at the end of six years of leading Israel, the Macedonian general Baqidos (Bacchides) descended upon Judah with 30,000 soldiers while he was camped at Laish. Judah's 3,000 men looked at the opposing army and fled as one. Only his brothers and 800 veterans remained—men who had fought beside him in every war.
Baqidos split his 30,000 troops into two wings: 15,000 on Judah's right, 15,000 on his left. The shouting from both sides was overwhelming. Judah saw that Baqidos commanded the right wing personally, and he did what he had always done—he charged straight at the strongest point.
The beginning of the battle was pure Judah. He and his brothers, the Hasmoneans, tore through the Macedonian lines. Heaps of enemy dead piled up so thick that Judah had to walk on the bodies of the slain to keep advancing. He reached Baqidos himself, sword unsheathed and soaked in blood. The general looked at Judah's face and saw what every enemy had seen—a lion robbed of its prey. Baqidos turned and ran toward Ashdod with his entire right wing collapsing behind him. Judah pursued and cut down all 15,000 men.
But Baqidos escaped into the city. And Judah was now faint and exhausted. The left wing—the second 15,000—found him weakened and surrounded him. Baqidos emerged from Ashdod, and war closed in from every side. Judah Maccabee fell among the men he had already killed.
His brothers Simeon and Jonathan carried his body to Mount Mod'aith and buried him there. All Israel mourned for many days. The chronicle records that Judah served Israel for six years, "and the Lord caused him to prosper all the days of his life." The Book of the Maccabee ends here—with a warrior who never lost a battle until the last one, buried on the mountain where his father's revolution began.