Against All Odds, the Success of the Maccabean Revolt

Psalm 121:4, “Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”

The success of the Maccabean Revolt is just one of any number of times that God has protected Israel. The Angel of death took the firstborn of the Egyptians but not the firstborn of the Israelis who had obeyed God’s command concerning the blood of the sacrificial lamb. Later, the Red Sea parted to allow the Israelites to pass through and then closed on the Egyptian army.

A series of documentaries titled “Against All Odds, Israel Survives” were televised several years ago. A number of stories were told including the one of King Saul’s son Jonathan. Jonathan accompanied only by his shield carrier killed dozens of their enemies and routed the rest sending them running for their lives. The ploy used by Jonathan in his surprise attack was used successfully millenniums later by the British. 
Another time Israeli soldiers needed to cross a mine field. The standard operating procedures was to proceed very slowly carefully digging in the sand to expose the mines. As the soldiers were doing this a mighty wind came up long enough to blow the sand away from the landmines allowing the soldiers to walk unharmed through the minefield.

Israel’s being God’s canary in the mine certainly provides the world with the prototype for behavior. When in compliance with God’s word, they prospered. When in rebellion, they suffer the consequences. The United States today is in open rebellion against God on all fronts. Can our judgment be long in coming? We are to look up because our redemption draws near.

As for the events that led up to the Maccabean Revolt, these were indeed dark days for Israel. She was under the rule of Antiochus IV who took for himself the equivalence of “the god who appears or reveals himself.” Arrogant fool that he was, Antiochus IV undertook the eradication of the Jewish religion and establishing Greek polytheism in its place. Copies the Torah were destroyed and circumcision was prohibited. Throughout Israel sacrifices to the pagan gods were to be made.

When officers arrived to carry out Antiochus’ decrees at the village of Modein, an aged priest named Mattathias said the equivalent of “enough is enough.” Mattathias killed both the first Jew who approached the pagan altar to offer sacrifice and the royal official who presided. So Mattathias and his five sons fled to the hills and continued a guerrilla type resistance. After the death of Mattathias his son Judas, also known as The Hammer, got an open rebellion started. Against all odds the much smaller Jewish forces managed to defeat much more powerful Syrian armies. This group recaptured of Jerusalem with the except for the Akra fortress, where the Syrian garrison continued to hold out. Later there was a rededication of the Temple, after the defiled altar had been demolished and rebuilt. This rededication took place on 25 Kislev of 164 BC and is , still celebrated to this day as Hanukkah.

With thanks to Wikipedia: “According to Rabbinic tradition, the victorious Maccabees could only find a small jug of oil that had remained uncontaminated by virtue of a seal, and although it only contained enough oil to sustain the Menorah for one day, it miraculously lasted for eight days, by which time further oil could be procured.”