Even though this book is often called “Second Maccabees”, it should not be understood as the first part of many others that tell one grand story about “the Maccabees”. Rather, 2 Maccabees is one account among the many others revolving around one person: Judah the Maccabee or Judas Maccabeus. The Hebrew word ‘Maccabee’ or Greek ‘Maccabeus’ simply means “hammer” and it referred to the strength of Judah who crushed his enemies like a hammer. It later came to refer to the whole of his family lineage.

While 1 Maccabees tells the story of the Maccabees with an emphasis on the history of the Hasmonean Dynasty, 2 Maccabees is all about the restoration of the Temple by Judah the Maccabee. With the restoration of the Temple as its foundation, 2 Maccabees looks forward to the hope of the resurrection of those who are faithful to the God who fills and lives in the Temple. The book is apparently an abridged version of an earlier collection of five books by another author named Jason of Cyrene. The book is split in half: the first half focuses on Jerusalem spiraling out of control and ending in the ultimate corrupting of the Temple and slaughtering of faithful Jews; the second half focuses on Judah Maccabee fighting to free Jerusalem and restoring the Temple. All this is introduced with an opening letter that gives the background and purpose for the book.

CHAPTERS 1-2

This opening of the letter addresses the book to Jews in Egypt from Jews in Jerusalem. The letter is an encouragement to continue in faithfulness to God through following the Torah, praying to Him, and by celebrating a new festival.

It then recounts a king, Antoichus the Third, going to marry a goddess in Persia named Nanea. When he enters the temple, the priests have already hidden themselves in a secret chamber above and start throwing stones at him.

Then, the letter tells of how fire from the altar of the first temple was taken and hidden for when the temple was rebuilt. After, when Nehemiah goes to lead the project to reconstruct the Temple, he finds a special thick liquid where there was the fire of the altar before. When they pour the liquid over the sacrifice for the new Temple, the sun shines on it and it goes up in flames. Then, Nehemiah prays for the people of Israel to be freed from the oppression of the Gentiles and to stay faithful to His promise to Moses to be with them in their land.

The Prophet Jeremiah was the one that had hidden that fire, apparently, and also the ark of the covenant and altar of incense. Before him, Solomon prayed at the ordination of the Temple and God responded to him by sending fire to burn his sacrifices and, before him, Moses had prayed at the ordination of the Tabernacle and God responded in the same way. Nehemiah also did this and Judah the Maccabee will do it again at the first Feast of the Rededication of the Temple.

CHAPTERS 3-7

In the middle section, it begins with the high priest Onias being faithful and following the laws of God. Because of his faithfulness, the whole city of Jerusalem is at peace and the Temple is honored by everyone.

However, this all quickly takes a turn when a man named Simon is introduced and is at odds with Onias. When he cannot come to an agreement with Onias, he turns to tell a local governor, Apollonius, that the Temple is full of funds for sacrifices that he could take for himself and he sends someone named Heliodorus to enter into the Temple and to take the funds for himself.

When Jerusalem sees him come to attempt to enter into the Temple, Onias the high priest falls to the ground and calls to God to protect them. In fear, the whole city rushes out of their houses to join in prayer that a Gentile does not enter the Temple that only the high priest could enter once a year.

However, Heliodorus continues to go into the Temple and is met suddenly with two angels that come down on chariots to kick him to the ground and whip him until he is lying on the ground. Heliodorus is taken away injured on a stretcher and Onias prays that he will be restored back to full health. Heliodorus is full of fear of God and offers up sacrifices to him.

But Simon still hates Onias and claims that he had caused the harm done to Heliodorus. Simon even sends people to try to murder Onias.

However, a new king, Antiochus Epiphanes, the Fourth, gives the high priesthood away for money to another Jew named Jason. He set up new laws that prohibited Jews from being faithful to the Torah and promoted the Greek way of life to distract others from being faithful to God. The people not only abandon the Temple sacrifices but even use money from the Temple to buy sacrifices to Greek gods! It’s all a total disaster!

However, it only gets worse: As all the Jews are unfaithful to the Torah, this all only leads to all the evil that comes after. The high priesthood is bought out once again for an even higher price by a man named Menelaus and Jason flees the city in fear. The new Menelaeus is no better than Jason and gives over the gold from the Temple to other governors and even has Onias murdered! This all leads to having his murderer being murdered and even more chaos breaking out.

Jason comes back to Jerusalem with an army to kill other Jews and take the city for himself. Antiochus hears that there is war in Jerusalem and he’s mad. So he comes with his army, kills tens of thousands, and even goes to actually enter into the Temple himself! This time, because the nation had turned their back on God and become faithless, God does not stop Antoichus from entering into the Temple and punishing the nation. For the time that Israel is unfaithful to God, God does not come to help them. And so Antiochus goes on to have Apollinus kill all the adult men and sell the others as slaves; they also lead another attack on Jews on the Sabbath when they can’t fight back.

However, as all evil takes over, the author provides us with some hope: that “what was forsaken in the wrath of the Almighty was restored again in all its glory when the great Lord became reconciled.” (5:20). During all the tragedy, Judah the Maccabee and others go with him into the desert to be away from the evil for some time.

Then, in chapters 6 and 7, all of the evil culminates in the worst persecution of the Jews: Antoichus prohibits the Jews from following the Torah and turns the Temple of the Lord into a Temple to Zeus! He introduces all types of uncleanness into the Temple and even offers up unclean animals to Zeus at the Temple!

This is followed by two detailed stories of Jews who are tortured to death in horrific ways because they refuse to deny God by being unfaithful to the Torah in any way. Though the people attempt to persuade them to turn away or even pretend to disobey, they will not budge. They are confident that God will raise up their dead bodies and give them life again and so they cannot give into any of the corruption that is happening around them.

So, first, an old high priest is martyred, and after him, a family of seven sons give up their life one by one to stay faithful to God while all encouraging one another. And, lastly, after all her sons had just been slaughtered in front of her own eyes, the mother gives up her life as well. The sins of some Jews had brought unspeakable evil on the whole nation. But, in the same way, the faithfulness of some unto death, is seen by God and what follows His freeing His people from their oppression.

CHAPTERS 8-15:36

It’s in the opening of the next section that we start to see how the whole story takes a turn. Judah the Maccabee, who was barely mentioned hiding in the hills earlier, comes back. He comes to gather other Jews to pray to God to see the corrupted Temple and all the evil of those that had turned away and to respond to the death of those that had followed him faithfully.

He goes throughout with his army defeating Gentiles in battle after battle. A governor notices him and sends Nicanor to destroy him. While many of his men leave in fear, Judah the Maccabee encourages the rest to fight for God; they crush Nicanor’s army and send him running away to warn king Antiochus that God is fighting for Judah!

Antiochus is enraged to hear how Judah is fighting off all his forces. He comes to Jerusalem to destroy all the Jews. But, the moment that he stops speaking, God attacks him with pain in his bowels - He is so hurt that he falls off his chariot and breaks every one of his bones! He is in so much pain and humiliation that he repents and says, “It is right to be subject to God; mortals should not think they are equal to God.” (9:12). He proclaims that Jerusalem should be freed and that they should restore the city and he dies from his sickness.

So Judah restores the Temple: they tear down the altar that was made unclean by pigs sacrificed on it, rebuild the Temple, reset all of its furniture, and pray to God. Similar to the Festival of Booths, they celebrate rededicating the Temple for 8 days beginning on the twenty fifth of Chislev.

In chapter 11, Judah the Maccabee continues to defend Jerusalem from the Gentiles that come to take it back. When the Gentiles find they can’t win the fight, the new King Antiochus agrees to let them live by the Torah and even other nations and the Romans support them.

However, some nations are not in agreement and Judah must continue to defend Judea from their attacks. At the height of this, they send Nicanor to destroy Judah again. However, Nicanor knows of Judah’s successes and becomes his friend. He stays in Jerusalem and even encourages Judah to get married and settle down.

When another man named Alcimus tells the king that Nicanor had betrayed him, he quickly tries to trap and kill Judah. When he tries to take Judah from Jerusalem, the people will not let him in and he swears to destroy the Temple. The priests and people are afraid again and they call out to God to save them.

At the same time, Judah is encouraged in a dream to defend Jerusalem again. He encourages all his men to fight for the Temple and their families and asks for God to let them win the war. They wage war against Nicanor, slay thousands, and even defeat Nicanor himself.

The book concludes with them celebrating a second feast for defeating Nicanor and this feast is compared to the Feast of Purim where Esther saves her people from being destroyed by a foreign nation (See Esther 9).

These two feasts are key moments in 2 Maccabees and they show the main point of the book: God is continuing to work to protect His people in exile as He has throughout the story of the Old Testament. In the way that 2 Maccabees has told the story, it highlights two important points: Though God will let some bring disaster on all of Judea through their unfaithfulness to Him, He also sees the oppression of the few that are faithful. God will not let His people be destroyed but will ultimately save them in the end. Even if He doesn’t show them freedom in this world, He will respond by resurrecting them in the world to come.

Another major theme in 2 Maccabees is the resurrection - This is ultimately tied to the rededication of the Temple. The rededication of the Temple and restoration of Judea as its own people in history also gives hope to those that will not see its ultimate restoration with the coming of the Messiah. Though they may die before the Messiah comes, they can have hope in the face of their persecutions that God will one day deliver them from even death and raise them from the dead. That’s what 2 Maccabees is all about.

COMPARE TO THE ALLEGORY OF JUDITH & ACCOUNTS IN I & IV MACCABEES!