Daniel Lesson 30

Rise of Antiochus Epiphanes – Daniel 8

Turn to Daniel 8 and we’ll continue with our profile of the antichrist. Daniel 8 was written to prepare the Jewish people, that is in the near view of the passage, to prepare the Jewish people for the rise of Antiochus Epiphanes, a very, very exciting chapter in Jewish history and one which we believe is not just in the past but is yet to come. Daniel 8 is a passage of Scripture like many passages of Scripture that refer to something that happened in the past but the past history didn’t thoroughly exhaust that passage. So there are things still ambiguous in this passage, things still yet to come, so that whereas there was a real literal Antiochus Epiphanes, there will yet in the future be an even greater man than Antiochus Epiphanes.

The profile of this man as we have seen from Daniel 8 is given for the same reason that modern police work… they look for psychological profiles of hunted criminals and this is to warn believers about this kind of a person. We found at least five things in this antichrist profile in the text. One was that he was a successor to Alexander the Great, so he would be in the Hellenistic line of culture. The second thing was that he was to move south and east of his position, and against “the desire,” it says in the Hebrew, or a word for Jerusalem. Three, he would persecute Jews in the land, that’s important because when this was written in Daniel’s day the Jews were in captivity but this foresees this man, Daniel didn’t even know it was Antiochus Epiphanes, that he persecutes the Jews in the land. The fourth characteristic was that he would assault the entire Old Testament religion and God would permit the assault based on the sin of the Jews at that time, the transgression is full God said. The fifth characteristic is that it happened in the latter time of the Greek kingdom. That would fit Antiochus Epiphanes but there are also strange verses in the same text that says it happens also at the time of the end. So since we have ambiguity, the time of the end of the Greek Empire, but then also the time of the end of all history, this is one of those double passages that happens so frequently.

We are going to spend most of this morning with a history lesson, and we do not apologize for having to go into past history in the detail that we do. Our generation is sadly lacking in history and until you understand history it’s hard to understand some of these passages in Scripture. They are written and to be interpreted in the times in which they were written and we have to go back and understand how this came about. So we’ll be commenting on some of the verses. Last week we went through chapter 8 to give you the overall view; today we are going to go through chapter 8 with a few select verses but giving a great deal of background in past history.

In Daniel 8:8 we see one of the points of this vision and this is going to form some preparation for us this morning in understanding what happens. “Therefore, the he-goat waxed very strong,” and when he was strong, “the great horn was broken,” we said that was the death of Alexander in Babylon in 323 BC, he died an alcoholic in an orgy in the city of Babylon, “and for it,” or in place of it “came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven,” those were Alexander’s generals, Ptolemy, he started the Ptolemaic line in Egypt, Seleucus starting the Seleucid line for Syrian and Babylon, you have Lysimachus in Thrace and eventually Cassander in Macedonia and Greece. These are the four men who took over after Alexander died.

It says also in Daniel 8:21-22, where the angel is asked by Daniel, what do these things mean, and the angel identified, not by name, but he says, “And the rough he-goat is the king of Greece, and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.” That would be Alexander. Verse 22, “Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it,” or in place of it, “four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power.” “…not in his power.” So these four generals were never able to amass the strength, the brilliance, of Alexander’s leadership. And in this period of four kingdoms, just prior to the emergence of Antiochus, there are two events that prepare the way for this man.

As I go through this history I’m going to try to prevent it sympathetically to Antiochus because I want you to understand how Antiochus would have been seen in the ancient world. The average person in the ancient world would not have seen Antiochus, the beast that the Bible teaches him as; they would not have seen him as a beast. He was a nice man, he was a brilliant man. And this is the surprise, a man who would be commended by his generation is pictured in the Bible as an absolute satanically inspired leader. Why does the Bible so radically shift its view of a man that was very popular in his day? The reason is that the Bible sees something in his character that most people do not see. And if I present this sympathetically to Antiochus, hopefully some of you will realize that the same kind of argument that would defend Antiochus can be used to day to defend a lot of activity which, if it were to continue, would destroy Christianity.

There are two events that come before these four kings die away. We’ve come to the second stage of that third kingdom. The first stage was the one horn; the one horn equals Alexander. Alexander dies in 323 BC. The second are the four horns; the four horns are these generals and it is during the period of the four horns that two very, very critical things happen. The first one happened to the Jews. There was a many by the name of Ptolemy, one of these generals, who had taken over Egypt. Ptolemy decided to extend his sphere of influence; he moved northeastward, he entered Jerusalem on a Sabbath day in the year 320 BC and he deported some of the people; I want these Jewish people, they are good administrators, they are stable people, they make good citizens, they make good businessmen, I want them. So he got some of them, he put them in jail and sent them down to a place called Alexandria. Alexandria was a great city in Egypt and he took these Jews and he settled them there. Eventually the Jews multiplied and they took over one-fifth of all the wards of the city of Alexandria; they became very prominent politically, culturally and religiously.

And in Alexandria a strange thing began to happen to the Jewish people, something that had not happened before and that was that they began to fuse themselves and their ideas with Greek ideas. And we call this Hellenization, or the making of the Jewish character into the Greek mold. And in Alexandria we have the beginning of an amalgamation between the Jewish culture and the Greek culture. It was during this period that Ptolemy’s son, Ptolemy II, was the one who, according to tradition, commissioned the translation of the Old Testament into Greek, which sometimes when you read it you’ll see it Roman numeral 70, that’s an abbreviation for the Septuagint; that is the Greek version of the Old Testament. And it was translated sort of like modern translations today, The Living Bible by Ken Taylor or something like that; it’s a modernized translation. That’s what this was; it took the Jewish Scriptures, translated them into Greek so the average person could understand the Bible. And it’s out of that that we get the Bible that Jesus and the Apostles used. They used the Septuagint far more than the Masoretic text or the Hebrew text.

So that’s one event to remember, this is all part of the background to the rise of Antiochus. You have first the rise of Hellenization and this disturbed… the Jewish people have never been agreed on this process of Hellenization.

A second incident happened far to the north, across the Mediterranean Sea. Hellenization is occurring down to the south, but to the north, on the other side of the eastern end of the Mediterranean, Philip V of Macedonia, over across the Aegean Sea, decides that he wants to insure his western boundaries. He sees the Romans rising in strength and he wants to buy a little insurance policy for his national security. So the Romans at this time are involved in the Punic Wars and Philip V of Macedonia agrees to go in against the Romans with Hannibal. And in 215 BC he makes an alliance with Hannibal. So while Hellenization is occurring to the south we have this strange thing that looks completely separated from the Jewish people happening to the north. But it wasn’t separate.

Here’s what happened. The second Punic War ended in 202 BC; when the Roman army was freed from Hannibal, that’s when General Scipio Africanus went down to Carthage and the only way he could get relief from Hannibal and his tremendous tactics with elephants and so on, massively successful indirect strategy, was to invade his home ground. Hannibal came home and was defeated, Carthage fell, the Punic War ended, Roman armies then were free to go take care of Philip V. So they moved eastward and they fought with Philip and took over Greece. So now the Roman Empire has extended eastward to the Aegean. This begins to bother one of the Seleucids, Antiochus IV. This man is the father of Antiochus Epiphanes. It’s not Antiochus Epiphanes but his father, Antiochus III.

Antiochus III decides that he needs a secure western boundary. He’s down here in Syria, and he decides he’s going to go up here and he’s going to liberate Greece from the Romans, a very, very foolish decision to make. Antiochus III invades Greece, and the Romans destroy him through a series of three major defeats. While this is going on he also attains control over Jerusalem in 198 BC, the Seleucids move down and kick the Ptolemys out of Jerusalem. During these three defeats that he experienced, the Romans assaulted him at Thermopylae, which was the place of the famous 300 centuries before held their line. The Romans destroyed him at Thermopylae, they destroyed his navy in the Aegean, they moved further east. They destroyed him finally at the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC. It’s a very famous battle and one that sets the whole ancient world up for the rise of this precursor of the antichrist, because the Battle of Magnesia when it ended was negotiated by the Roman Senate in a very interesting way. It was negotiated much like World War I was negotiated. It ended in tremendous reparations, and this was the heaviest indemnities ever asked in the history of the ancient world. It’s called the peace of Apamea.

The peace of Apamea was settled with the following condition, and as we go through these conditions for the negotiated end, keep in mind the situation. Antiochus III reigns over Judah, and he has to agree to this treaty. This is the treaty that sets up the scene. (1) By the treaty of Apamea Antiochus III must surrender all territory in Asia Minor. These are some of his wealthiest territories. (2) He must surrender all of his elephants so that would be equivalent of giving up all of his heavy armored divisions.(3) He had to surrender all the ships of his fleet; that cut his lines of communications and supply. (4) He had to agree that no troops would be recruited from Asia Minor, the Aegean or Greece, no professional soldiers from that area, and these men made the best soldiers, they were brave, they were courageous, they were men who had excellent skills in hand to hand fighting. (5) The most damaging part of the treaty of Apamea and the one that bred the whole ground more than anything else for the rise of this man was that he had to agree to pay the Romans 15,000 talents, which would be equivalent to 3 or 4 billion dollars today. The Romans insisted that he pay this in 12 annual installments, and to make sure that Antiochus paid up and didn’t go into arrears in his payments, they held as hostage Antiochus IV in Rome. This is interesting because later on there are some things this man is going to do that can be only explained on the basis of the fact that he spent time in Rome. Antiochus IV, the young boy, who eventually becomes Antiochus Epiphanes, spends his childhood in Rome as a political hostage. His father must anti up twelve annual payments totaling billions of dollars.

So here are the two breeding situations: (1) The Hellenization occurring in Alexandria. (2) The Seleucid control over Judea needing vast sums of cash.

Now, we have to go east and examine what happened over here in the Seleucid dynasty. It says in Daniel 8:9 that there would be eventually pressure militarily to the east and to the south. That means that this man is going to have to make a move to the east, he’s going to have to make a move to the south. Why is this all being set up by history? Because the eastern provinces after the peace of Apamea were wealthy, so you have great riches over here in the east. Now these people are smart, they realize that with the loss of territory here, all the indemnity payments are going to have to come out of their tax-paying pocket. So they decide they are going to rebel and they cut off Antiochus III. Well, Antiochus III isn’t going to take that so he sends his armies to the east. He does so, and in the middle of one of the raids somebody comes out of a temple and kills him.

So Antiochus dies. His dynasty, his throne, is taken over by his oldest son, Seleucus IV. Now Seleucus has a younger brother, Antiochus IV in Rome as a hostage. Seleucus is placed in the mess of having lost these provinces, having lost these provinces, where is he going to raise the money to pay the Romans. And if he doesn’t raise the money to pay the Romans he’s going to lose his younger brother. I’m trying to get you to see it from the standpoint of Antiochus’ family and how they felt the pressure. They were under this tremendous pressure to come up with cash. The Romans wouldn’t take notes, they took cash. So what does Seleucus do? He has no other choice; he’s got to raise taxes. Taxed were collected by contract in the ancient world; you contracted out and the guy that could raise the highest amount of taxes got the job. So he went down into Judea and he began to look for some people that would make him the money. He began also to raze the various temples around the ancient world, he’d go in and just walk off with… the temples in the ancient world were equivalent to our central banks; they not only were the place where the idols were kept, they were the place where the currency was kept. So he raided these temples. He also took some money out of the temple in Jerusalem.

While this was going on he had to have a meeting at Antioch. Antioch, by the way, is named after the Antiochus line. So he goes to Antioch and while he’s having a meeting one of his foreign ministers assassinates him. So that leaves only one legal heir to the throne, Antiochus IV, who is in Rome. So now what are they going to do. Well, Antiochus IV says I’ll come home and the Romans say no you’re not; not until we have a hostage. So Antiochus says okay, I’ll tell you what, my brother has a son, how about taking him, Demetrius. So Demetrius goes to take Antiochus’ place, Antiochus comes home.

And while he’s coming home he has a very strange adventure. He starts heading east to take over for his father and he stops in the city called Athens and while in Athens he goes and tours the place, he has learned about the Greeks while as a child in Rome, he respects the culture of the Greeks, he remembers Aristotle and Plato, and so he goes to Athens to talk to the people and he is so wealthy as an independent wealthy son that he starts handing out money in Athens, and the people in Athens are so impressed that they make Antiochus IV an honorary citizen; they dedicate various parts of the city, they give him the key or the scroll or whatever they did in those days to make him an honorary citizen, and he comes back with all of this desire for Hellenism, the desire and respect for the Greek ways of life. And now he begins to reign.

This is the man who is pictured in Daniel 8:10; “And it waxed great,” the little horn became greater and greater, “even to the host of heaven.” In Daniel 8:23 it says, “And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.” Now Antiochus, when he starts to reign, is what we would call a very nice leader. He’s a philanthropist; he was well known for his financial generosity. He would give to the poor; he would give to alleviate social conditions. So he immediately was accepted in many, many cities. He also had a strange habit, he liked to play practical jokes on his citizens, and one of his favorite jokes was that at night he would put a cloak on and go visiting in a city as a beggar or somebody else, he’d just drop in on these various people and wouldn’t introduce himself as who he really was, and this way he had good communication with the people, but also then he’d get back and have a big laugh about. He had a sense of humor.

He was also a good soldier and an excellent administrator. But remember, he’s got to deal with the peace of Apamea, he has got to also make those annual installments or he loses his nephew, Demetrius, in Rome. So how is he going to do it? Being the great administrator he obviously says all right, we’re going to have to reorganize the whole administration, we’re going to have to reorganize our kingdom, and he does this. And he starts by moving eastward and gaining territories which he can tax to pay the cash that he has to give to Rome. He also starts to move southward to get to Egypt. So much for the Seleucids for a moment.

Now to understand Daniel 8:12 we have to deal with Judah; we dealt with two breeding events, Hellenization and the peace of Apamea. We’ve just gone through and shown you how Antiochus IV has risen to power. Slowly the stage is being set. Now there’s one other element in Daniel 8 that we have to explain historically, and that is in verse 12, God says: “An army was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression,” … by reason of transgression! Now that somehow is saying that God is permitting this to happen to punish the Jews for a transgression. We have to say what happened, what was going on in that second century that could be labeled a transgression. So we have to come to Judah and look at developments there.

As the Jews in Alexandria brought into Jewish culture Greek ways and as Hellenization progressed, there was a group of Jews that countered this. Their names—the Hasidim, [also spelled Hassidim or Chassidim] chaseb is the word for loyalty or holiness, the Hasidim, “im” is the Hebrew plural noun; the Hasidim or the holy ones, the loyal ones, the faithful ones; these were the super patriots. And they refused to go along with Hellenization. So we now have the rise of two parties in the Jewish community, the Hellenists and the Hasidim. And tension is slowly building in Judah.

Now into this tension steps Seleucid’s administration. In 174 BC Antiochus Epiphanes, when he takes over up here in Antioch, he appoints the high priest. The Jews are having a problem with their high priest, so Antiochus IV steps in and he appoints a man by the name of Jason. But the deal is, he will appoint Jason only as long as Jason can deliver Jewish money to make cash payments to the Romans for the peace of Apamea. That’s the deal; if Jason can’t deliver the deal, Jason is kicked out. Now the Hasidim obviously didn’t take too kindly to somebody like this interfering with the priesthood. And they didn’t take too kindly when they, with horror, noticed what Jason was doing, because apparently after Jason came back from Judea another deal had been made. Politically all that was known on the part of the citizens was that Jason was going to raise money, so they expected great taxes. That was obviously part of the deal, but what the Hasidim were not quite prepared for is the second part of the deal is that Jason agreed to slowly Hellenize all of Palestine and make Jerusalem a Greek city.

To you that may not seem a lot, but here are some of the things that he did that the Hasidim objected to. First, he opened up a gymnasium in the city of Jerusalem for upper class nobleman. He had kind of an athletic club. You say what’s wrong with that? Because of what went with the athletic club, the Greek way. What Greek way? Well, one of the things that offended the Hasidim was that everybody who was a member of this athletic club had to wear the Greek wide brimmed hat, and this was just offensive that the Jewish young men were losing their national identity and being absorbed into the Greek culture, and they’d walk around with these wide-brimmed hats. This was one thing that set off a lot of disagreement. Another thing the Jews did not like was that all athletic contests were in the nude. And because they were in the nude and the Jewish youth were circumcised, they had made various surgical procedures to try to undo their circumcision, or to cover it up, and this offended the Hasidim because this was a violation of the Abrahamic Covenant. Not only that, but finally they developed a great set of sports fans among the priests, and so the priests would hurry up with their duties and by 1:00 or 2:00 o’clock they decided they were going to take a break and go over to the gym and watch the games. So they started putting sports ahead of their religious duties and this offended the Hasidim.

All this was building up, and then to add insult to injury, Antiochus decides to hold the [can’t understand word] games, which was kind of their equivalent to the Olympics, in a city called Tyre, just to the northwest. Now Tyre you know from Scripture wasn’t the most loved city by the Jews; Tyre was the place where Jezebel came from, it was Tyre where all the gross forms of Baalism came from. It was Tyre where the Carthaginians came from, and the Carthaginians in the Roman world were the last people to practice human sacrifice on a large scale; they were a very degenerate people and they deserved to be eliminated from history. And they were, but Tyre was host to this great set of sports games. Well, everybody that came to the games that year had to bring a gift and the gift had to be dedicated to Bel Melkart, Melkart was the god of Tyre. And so when they cashed their money they would bow down to Melkart, and place the cash.

Now the Hasidim were really infuriated; not only had Jason, the high priest, gone and started Hellenizing slowly the Jerusalem culture, but now he took their cash and was going up to Tyre. Well, Jason had enough sense to realize that he couldn’t survive if he took that money and bowed down to Melkart, so what he did is he said I’ll make a deal with the King of Tyre and I’ll say instead of bowing down to Melkart I’ll give you the cash for your navy. So he went up and gave the cast to the navy and that was an attempt that Jason made to soften up the Hasidim, but he doesn’t. So all during this period the Hasidim become furious and more furious, and finally the straw that breaks the camel’s back, this is all 174 BC, three years later, 171 BC, and this 171 BC is a key year because this begins a seven year period of the abomination. In 171 BC Antiochus decides Jason is not delivering on the cash, he doesn’t like the money flow. So to straighten things out he fires Jason and appoints Menelaus. This man, Menelaus… these are the two men, here’s Jason, he’s high priest, and Menelaus, he’s high priest. The whole office of high priest is no longer something that glorifies God; it’s a sheer political appointment for the sake of tax funds.

But in 171 BC, when this man is appointed, Menelaus is not of the family of Zadok, that is, he is not a proper Levite, he doesn’t qualify by family background, he qualifies only for the priesthood because he can deliver cash to make payments. When this happened, that’s it, as far as the Hasidim are concerned. That marks the abomination; that marks the interference by the state into the sphere of religion, when the state says we will not respect the Mosaic Law of the priesthood.

All this is going on until the year 168 BC; 171 BC begins the desolation. In 168 BC one of the Ptolemys dies and his successors decide they’re going to take Palestine away from the Seleucids. It’s going to be an attack made from the south against, not the Jews, but against Antiochus. They want Palestine in Egypt, and by this time you can well imagine… who do you think if you are a Hasidim which party you favor? Wouldn’t you favor going with Egypt if you had to choose between Egypt and Antiochus, who had Hellenized your city? So there arises a little political intrigue in the middle of war; the Hasidim want to Palestine to defect to the south and rejoin the Ptolemaic dynasties in Egypt.

So Egypt starts war, and the Seleucids with Antiochus IV comes down and Antiochus IV, by the way, he’s replaced his father, he comes down in 168 BC to Egypt with a vast army. Now he has a little problem because Egypt also is under Roman jurisdiction, and Antiochus has just got through, just about now, making those payments, so he doesn’t want to alienate the Romans, but he says look, I’ve got an idea, the Romans are involved in the Third Macedonian War and if I can just go down there and clobber the Egyptians real quick, I’ll present the Romans with a fait accompli so that now they can’t do anything, I’ve already taken over control and we’ll just say let’s work out a new deal.

So he goes down and right in the middle of his campaign in Egypt, the Third Macedonian War ends and here come the Romans, and here’s Antiochus down here messing around in their province. And the Romans don’t take too kindly to this. So the Romans dispatch an envoy and here becomes one of the famous scenes of history, the envoy’s name is Laenas, and that’s not Lioness from peanuts, it’s not even spelled the same way though it’s pronounced the same way. But Laenas comes steps off the boat at Alexandria and he walks up and there’s a great ceremony, the soldiers are spread out on both sides and Laenas walks up to Antiochus, and the scene everyone thought would be gentlemanly, because after all, who happens to be this man from Rome? He was the dorm roommate of Antiochus IV when Antiochus IV was a hostage in Rome. Laenas and Antiochus grew up together, they are old buddies. And so Antiochus says great, now I know the Romans will be favorable to me because who do they send but my old buddy. And so Laenas walks up to him, Antiochus extends the hand of friendship, Laenas looks at him and he takes out from his toga a rolled up scroll from the Senate and plops it down in his hand.

This isn’t quite the thing he was expecting to get in his hand, so he unrolls the scroll and it’s essentially a demand by the Roman Senate to get off our land, get out of here. So Antiochus doesn’t know what to do because here is his buddy, and he pauses and hesitates, and he has the usual political reaction of saying let’s have an investigation and a study of this. So he says I’m sorry, Laenas, we’re just going to have to investigate this and study it a little, I’ve got to talk to my advisors. And Laenas gets down with a stick and he comes over to Antiochus and he draws a circle around him in the ground, they’re standing in a dusty place and he draws a circle right around Antiochus IV, and he says Antiochus, you give me an answer before you step across that circle. And so Antiochus has to say okay, I capitulate, I return, I surrender. Laenas says thank you very much. This is a very, very famous scene of history and it’s one that did something psychologically to Antiochus. The man is not the same after this incident.

Now he has to retreat. He begins moving back to Judah in 168 BC. Things have happened in Judah those weeks that Antiochus was in Egypt. The rumor has gone around that Antiochus IV was killed. And so during his absence in Egypt what happens? Jason takes over from Menelaus. He replaces Menelaus, he throws him out. The Hasidim are clapping; there are celebrations all over Judah for the destruction of Antiochus IV. But Antiochus IV hasn’t been destroyed; he’s been humiliated but he hasn’t been destroyed. And so as his armies retreat and he’s depressed because of this tremendous defeat, he walks through and he sees the Jews celebrating his death, and he sees them enjoying… because Menelaus his high priest has been dethroned.

So he says all right, these Jews are perpetual rebels; I will do two things to them. (1) I will treat the city of Jerusalem as a captive city. So on one Sabbath day he orders all the citizens of Jerusalem together and he says I’m going to make it so you people will never revolt again. And on that Sabbath day he orders his soldiers to tear down the walls of Jerusalem. Well, that’s not too bad until he comes to his second point. He had apparently done a lot of investigation with his staff about this, he said why is it, of all the people in my kingdom I have the most trouble with these Jews all the time. What is it that is different about the Jew? Why is it that I have trouble with the cash, we can’t do this because of their religious law, we can’t do that because of their religious law? And advisors say you know why we can’t do anything with the Jew? Because he’s got that fanatical exclusivist religion; now Antiochus, if you can get rid of the Jewish religion, just destroy their religious beliefs, then you can have unity in your kingdom, then all will be well and you can control these people and you won’t have any more revolts, things will be fine.

That was the worst piece of advice that Antiochus was ever given. And it launched the program beginning in 167 BC, and for three years, from 167 BC to 164 BC there was the most horrible persecution that the Jews had ever known. Here is the plan of Antiochus to subjugate the Jews, to force them to make payments to him, to become integrated with the administration of his vast kingdom: (1) all temple ritual will be suspended. (2) All copies of the sacred Scriptures will be destroyed and burned; anyone found reading the Scriptures will be punished and the Bible will be destroyed in their hand. (3) No special days will any longer be observed, including the Sabbath day. (4) All strict Jewish food laws will be destroyed. (5) Any woman caught circumcising or having a circumcised son will be killed, there will be no more circumcision of the Jewish male. And finally to add insult to injury, if this wasn’t enough to infuriate the Jewish population, what does he do but walk into the temple, desecrates the altar and sacrifices a pig to name of Zeus on their altar. He orders unclean animals to be sacrificed on the Jewish altar, the Olympian Zeus or as he’s known in that part of the world as Baal. When he did this he said that the Jews must worship Baal Shamim, which is the lord of heaven; the word “Baal” is just another word for lord, he said you will all worship Baal Shamim. And the Jews said yeah, we’re going to worship, and they coined another word that went along with it, [can’t understand words], we’ll worship him, and what that was and Antiochus didn’t catch on for a while until somebody that could translate told him what it meant, he said I thought I told them to worship Baal Shamim, and the Jews [can’t understand words], what’s [can’t understand words]? The abomination of desolation, that’s what it means, that’s where that phrase came from. It came from a Jewish play on the words of Baal Shamim, it sounded enough like it so somebody that didn’t know Hebrew wouldn’t distinguish.

Then he not only transformed the altar in the temple, but he demanded that in every major Jewish city there be similar altars set up, to the Baal of this, the Baal of that, the Baal of this, etc. Then he adopted the title of Epiphany for himself. His full title was Antiochus Theos Epiphany, Antiochus Theos—God, Epiphany—God appeared. He saw himself as Zeus incarnate and he began to order worship of himself.

Now what had Daniel said? He said in Daniel 11:8, “he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his,” that is God’s, “sanctuary was cast down.” That is the decree of Antiochus in 167 BC. All during this, of course, the Jews who knew Greek had another way of worshiping. Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus Epiphanes, and then there’d be a murmur in the crowd, Antiochus Epimones, Antiochus Epimones, which is the Greek word for idiot. And still he hadn’t broken the Jewish spirit.

I told you that you could prepare to appreciate this by reading an apocryphal book called the 1 and 2 Maccabees. I want to read a section out of this book because only as you appreciate this will you appreciate references in the New Testament. When the Christians were persecuted they used these persecutions between 167 and 164 BC as their model. The Christian martyrs had a prior Jewish model and the prior Jewish model was the martyrs during this period of the abomination of desolation. I’m going to read a section of this, this is not inspired Scripture but it’s an accurate history of what happened.

“The temple was filled with debauchery and reveling by the Gentiles who dallied with whores and had intercourse with women within the sacred precincts and besides that, brought in for sacrifice things that were unfit. The altar was covered with abominable offerings. On the monthly celebration of the king’s birthday the Jews were taken by bitter constraint to partake of the sacrifices. And when the feast of Dionysus,” this was the hell-raising god of the Greeks, “when the feast of Dionysus came they were compelled to walk in the procession in the honor of Dionysus wearing reeds of ivy. At the suggestion of Ptolemy a decree was issued to the neighboring Greek cities that they should adopt the same policy toward the Jews and make them partake of the sacrifices, and should slay those,” slay “those who did not choose to change over to Greek customs. One could see, therefore, the misery that had come upon them. For example, two women were brought in for having circumcised their children; these women were publicly paraded about the city with their babies hung at their breasts, and then hurled them down headlong from the wall. Others who had assembled in the caves nearby to observe the seventh day secretly were betrayed to Philip and all burned together because their piety kept them from defending themselves on the Sabbath day.”

“Now I urge those who read this book not to be depressed by such calamities, but to recognize these punishments were designed not to destroy but to discipline our people. In fact, not to let the impious alone for long, but to punish them immediately is a sign of great kindness, for in the case of other nations the Lord waits patiently to punish them until they have reached full measure of their sins, but He does not deal in that with us,” Israel, “in order that He may not take vengeance upon us afterwards when our sins have reached their height. Therefore He never withdraws His mercy from us. Though He disciplines us with calamities He does not forsake His people. Let what we have said serve as a reminder; we must go on and tell the story.”

“Eleazar, one of the scribes in the high position and a man now advanced in age and of noble presence, was being forced to open his mouth to eat pig’s flesh but he, welcoming death with honor rather life with pollution, went up to the rack of his own accord, spitting out the pig’s meat, as men ought to do who have the courage to refuse things it is not right to taste, even for the natural love of life. And those who were in charge of that unlawful sacrifice took the man aside because of their long acquaintance with him and privately urged him to bring meat of his own providing, proper for him to use, pretend he was eating the flesh of the sacrificial meal that had been commanded by the king, so that by doing this he might be saved from death and be treated kindly on account of his old friendship with them, but making a high resolve worthy of his years, with the dignity of his old age and the gray hairs which he had reached with distinction, and his excellent life, even from childhood, and moreover according to the holy God-given law, he declared himself quickly telling them to send him to Hades.” Now that’s not equivalent to our hell, that means to death. Now this is the old Jewish [can’t understand word], a man who is having his mouth pried open and ham shoved in it.

“Such pretense, he says, is not worthy of our time of life, lest many of the young men should suppose that Eleazar in his 90^th year has gone over to an alien religion and through my pretense for the sake of living a brief moment longer, those young men should be led astray because of me, while I defile and disgrace my old age. For even if for the present I should avoid the punishment of men, yet whether I live or die I shall not escape the hands of the Almighty. Therefore by giving up my life now I will show myself worthy of my old age and leave to the young men a noble example of how to die a good death, willingly and noble for the revered and holy laws. And when he said this he went at once to the rack, and those who a little before had acted with him in good will now changed to ill will, because the words he uttered were in their opinion sheer madness,” and it goes on to describe how they beat him to death on the rack, broke every bone in his body and then kept on beating until all the blood and everything else came out.

Now that man in his martyrship is what is referred to if you turn to Hebrews 11:35; in that hall of fame, the Maccabean martyrs were the ones thought about. These are models for faith: “Women received their dead raised to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. [36] And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment; [37] They were stoned, they were sawn asunder….” Those are the martyrs of that period, fantastic people, tremendous people who opposed this mad man, Antiochus.

There’s another story about a man and we can only go into it very briefly, of a woman and her sons that happened in the same period, the same time. This shows you the bravery of the Hebrew women: “It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king under torture with whips and cords to partake of the unlawful pig flesh. One of them acting as their spokesman said: what do you intend to ask and learn from us, for we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers.” It describes how their mother was put up there and she had to watch each of her sons killed before her eyes. “The king fell into a rage, he gave orders that pans and caldrons be heated. These were heated immediately and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesman be cut out, that they scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of the brothers and the mother looked on. And when he was utterly helpless the king ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and fry him in the pan. The smoke from the pan spread wildly but the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die saying, ‘The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassed on us as Moses declared in his song which bore witness against the people.” It describes one after another after another after another after another.

It goes on finally to the last son. “And while she was speaking,” this is the mother while this last son is dying the mother says this to her son: “The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory, for though she saw her seven sons perish in a single day she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. She encouraged every one of those sons in the language of their fathers. Filled with a noble spirit she fired her women’s reasoning with a man’s courage and she said to them, ‘I do not know how you came into being in my womb; it was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things will, in His mercy, give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of His laws.” And it describes the speech that she has and “in leaning close to him she spoke in her native tongue as follows,” see, this last son is up to be killed, and the guy says now okay, you go and you tell your son if he would just eat this meat we’ll let him off.

So the Jewish mother walks over and she whispers into the ear of her son, and here’s what she whispers: “My son, have pity on me; I carried you nine months in my womb, and nursed you for three years, and have reared you and brought you up to this point in your life, and have taken care of you. I beseech you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth, and see everything that is in them and recognize that God did not make them out of things which existed. Thus also mankind comes into being; don’t fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers, accept death so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again with your brothers.”

Now these are the tremendous people that you’re witnessing; these people were fortified by the text of Daniel. And so as this went on, obviously it had to erupt in war. And finally in 164 BC war began. The war began with a man by the name of Matthias. If you have some Jewish friends, when we celebrate Christmas they’ll be celebrating Hanukah; in a few moments you’ll know why the Jewish people celebrate Hanukah.

“Matthias was a priest in the village of Modine [sp?]. One day at sunrise the king’s soldiers ride into town. They set up an altar and they say everyone in this town will sacrifice; everyone in this town will come out and we will worship and sacrifice to Zeus.” And so Matthias is the oldest man in the village, he is asked to give the sacrifice. “Matthias answered and said in a loud voice, even if all nations that live under the rule of the king obey him and have chosen to do this to this commandment, departing each one from the religion of his fathers, I and my sons and my brothers will live by the commandment of our fathers. Far be it from us to desert the law and the ordinances; we won’t obey the king’s word by turning aside from our religion to the right or to the left. And after he finished his speech…” it was obvious there was going to be a confrontation so one of the peacemakers, the negotiators, came out quickly and he offered to sacrifice to defuse the situation. And Matthias reached into his robe and he pulled out a sword and stabbed the man and then he told his sons, take care of that king’s men, the king’s representative, and they stabbed and killed him, and that was the beginning of guerilla warfare and what has been known in history as the Maccabean Revolt.

“Matthias soon died and he gave the armies over to two sons; one was Simon and the other was Judas,” not Judas Iscariot, this is another Judas, and Judas’ nickname was “the Hammer.” He was the man that his father said okay, now Judas, you’re a good soldier, you love hand to hand combat, you’re a great killed; all right, I want you to be commander of my forces. Simon, you’re brilliant, I want you to be the advisor. So before his father died he told Simon you’re the advisor, Judas, you’re the commander. So Judas is immediately called Judas the Hammer, and in the Hebrew it’s Maccabeus. So it’s called the Maccabean Revolt, it really isn’t, it’s a Hasmonean Revolt but the popular name, Maccabean, comes from the Hebrew word for hammer. Why was Judas known as Judas the Hammer? Here’s what this man did, the most brilliant thing that had happened up to that point in Jewish history. For 400 years the Jews had not been trained in the military. For 400 long years there was no combat experience. Judas started a Jewish army with zero experience and within a short course of a year or two, three or four years, in that period of time, Judas wiped out four complete armies with his band of totally inexperienced men. And the way he got them trained was he went back to the book of Deuteronomy and he had the whole ceremony for holy war in Deuteronomy 20, and from that he led on to victory and three years later a peace came, in 164 BC, three years later, a peace was negotiated with Roman pressure and the temple was rededicated.

Now Antiochus died in a very strange way. Nobody knows how, he was on a campaign and he suddenly died. But that is kind of hinted at because in Daniel 8:25 it says the end of this man “shall be broken without hand,” he wouldn’t be killed in battle like a normal soldier. He died a very strange death, and that is recorded in the book of Maccabees.

The temple was rededicated and the feasts were begun and the lights were lit, and that is the feast of Hanukah. If you have Jewish friends that’s what they’re celebrating, the cleansing of the temple from the defilement of this man, Antiochus Epiphanes. The temple was rededicated, the stones if the old temple were put away and they waited for a prophet to tell them what to do.

Now this is a lesson of how believers endured under pressure at one point in history. It probably is the most spectacular martyr filled period of Jewish history. I urge you, if you think you have problems, and if you think you have suffering, that you take 1 and 2 Maccabees and read it. It’s exciting reading, it’s not a bunch of genealogies; it’s active, living history. Read that and then read Hebrews 11; Hebrews 11 is how we are to endure. God provides for every need, God provided for these; these are the cloud of witnesses with which we are surrounded. Next week we’ll show this principle that they used, the principle of suffering as unto the Lord under pressure.