Judah is well versed in both offensive and defensive techniques for a wide array of tactical situations. The Hammer from GOD. Is the ancestral weapon of the Maccabees. It has been passed down through the generation and protected by the Jewish priesthood. Related Posts. By the end of the war, Simon was the only one of the five sons of Mattathias to survive and he ushered in an year period of Jewish independence in Judea , as the Land of Israel was now called.
The kingdom regained boundaries not far short of Solomon's realm and Jewish life flourished. The Hasmoneans claimed not only the throne of Judah , but also the post of High Priest. This assertion of religious authority conflicted with the tradition of the priests coming from the descendants of Moses ' brother Aaron and the tribe of Levi. It did not take long for rival factions to develop and threaten the unity of the kingdom. Ultimately, internal divisions and the appearance of yet another imperial power were to put an end to Jewish independence in the Land of Israel for nearly two centuries.
Sources : Mitchell G. NY: Alpha Books, Download our mobile app for on-the-go access to the Jewish Virtual Library. The Maccabees. Macabbean Women. The Hasmoneans. Setting out in the spring of bc, the Syrian force numbered about 20, men. Pitching an enormous base camp at Emmaus in the foothills just above the Ajalon valley, the triumvirate felt certain they would not be taken unaware in a narrow canyon.
Judas had organized his army into smaller, more manageable units able to fight independently in a somewhat more conventional manner. The Syrians would not be facing a strictly irregular force this time, but a well-trained and well-motivated professional army fighting for its survival against opponents who were there for no other reason than to obey orders. While both sides were making last-minute preparations, the Seleucids were unexpectedly reinforced by a number of fresh troops from Idumea, just south of Judea.
The sprawling bivouac was further crowded by masses of camp followers and slave traders who anticipated a bonanza of merchandise after the expected defeat of the Jewish insurgents. Apart from chains and whips, the slavers also brought hefty amounts of gold and silver in preparation for setting up a lucrative market.
The camp was becoming a richer prize by the hour. Judas and his brothers Simon, Johanan, and Jonathan commanded four 1,man brigades, which they assembled at Mizpah on the road to Beth Horon immediately northwest of Jerusalem. The opposing camps were now within eyesight of each other, and the rebels decided to let their foes make the first move.
They could see from the swarming patrols and bustling activity that the Syrians were preparing to attack first anyway. Gorgias intended to surprise the Jews by assaulting them at night, but the Maccabean espionage network made sure that its commander in chief was forewarned, and he quickly devised a countermeasure.
Ordering a number of bonfires lit, Judas gave Syrian scouts the impression that his camp was fully manned, while he withdrew the bulk of his troops and left a skeleton crew to tend the fires and act as decoys.
In the darkness, the Seleucids predictably mistook this small band for the main body of revolutionaries and set out in pursuit through the narrow defile, where they were bushwhacked by 1, waiting warriors. Judas was stunned to find the opposing army fully prepared for battle, drawn up in its phalanx on the plain in front of its camp at daybreak. With the critical element of surprise gone, Judas again called upon his resourcefulness and divided his command into three 1,man battalions to strike the Seleucids in their vulnerable western flank.
While one of these groups engaged the covering cavalry, the other two assailed the enemy formation from the side. Fortunately for the Jews, the bristling phalanx was facing south, and they had appeared to the west. Had they come up directly in front of it, they probably would have been unable to make their countermove without the Syrians noticing and turning to face them.
As it was, the Seleucids, still knowing just one way to fight, began to yield in bloody hand-to-hand combat. There were still some 12, soldiers in the Emmaus encampment. When the sound of the battle reached the 1, Jewish troops to the north, they assumed that their camp was under assault and charged down from their hidden position. This attack caught the numerically superior Syrians completely off guard, and the Seleucid forces were thrown into disarray.
By this point, the phalanx was collapsing and its survivors were retreating in terror to the presumed safety of their base.
But upon reaching it, they were caught up in grisly pandemonium and cut to pieces among stampeding horses, freight-carrying elephants, and terrified slave traders and their entourages. With remarkable presence of mind, Judas forbade his men to pursue them or begin looting—Gorgias had not yet been finished off. Fearing that they would soon be caught between two bodies of expert, determined warriors, the remaining Syrians succumbed to fear and joined the mass flight to the seacoast, hotly chased by the entire Judean army.
The rebels, meanwhile, helped themselves to the copious treasures of the enemy encampment, including another cache of weapons and other equipment. Lysias survived the destruction at Emmaeus, made it back to Antioch, and wasted no time in raising another force to resume the conflict.
Still hoping to join forces with his Jerusalem garrison, Lysias again set out along the coastal route, but this time he bypassed the lethal uplands and approached through friendly territory, turning north and setting up camp at Beth Zur in southernmost Judea. Intending to march his force of 24, men to Jerusalem and establish it as an impregnable nerve center for his forces throughout the region, Lysias began fanning out his troops in all directions from the Holy City, stamping out rebel resistance as it was encountered.
The flaw with this scenario was that there was no way to reach Jerusalem without traversing the highlands, and the Jews had massed in the ravine-bisected region around Hirbet Beth Heiran.
Judas divided his troops into four units of varying size, with 5, men held in reserve. Lysias had impatiently pulled together a large body of mercenaries and untested, poorly trained conscripts with the intention of overwhelming the revolt through sheer force of numbers. The size of his force made it easy for the Maccabees to track as it tramped conspicuously along the flat coastal plain. Lysias set himself up for disaster when he turned inland and entered the hill country after establishing a base camp on the upland border.
Trudging uphill under the weight of their armor and weapons, the Seleucids were totally vulnerable when 3, screaming Jews charged from a just-bypassed gully.
The unprepared, unmotivated invaders at the head of the column quickly broke and commenced streaming back the way they had come. The mass flight panicked the following units, which were then assailed from both sides of the canyon by two 1,man Jewish columns. There were still 8, Syrians in the base camp, and to engage them Judas had set aside the 5,man reserve force. However, the encamped Syrians immediately took to their collective heels as the decimated advance units fled through their midst with hordes of shrieking Jews in eager pursuit.
By the time the Jewish warriors reached the enemy bivouac, they found no enemies left to fight—they had all stampeded south to the relative security of the Idumean city of Hebron. Judas decided not to chase his beaten enemies into hostile territory. He had already killed 5, of them in yet another military disaster for the unfortunate Antiochus.
With his keen analytical mind, Judas realized that his latest victory had been made much easier than it might have been simply because his counterpart had allowed anger, impatience, arrogance, and fear goad him into acting without adequate preparations. The rebel warlord correctly assumed that his enemy would not yet give up the fight.
The Seleucids were certain to reach out to a more capable commander and send him into Judea with another formidable army. But racked by an internal power struggle, the Syrian regime was in no position to embark on another punitive expedition. There was a hiatus in the war, and Judas spent the lull proclaiming to his countrymen their independence and restoring freedom of worship. There was still the matter of the obtuse Jerusalem garrison, whose members had spent the past few months fortifying themselves and stocking their stronghold with food, water, and weapons while Judas was occupied elsewhere.
While fighting was still in progress, holy men entered the temple, restored it, and removed the pagan profanations. The Talmud records that after the priests consecrated and rededicated the sanctuary in bc, a one-day supply of oil burned for eight days. This miracle marked the beginning of the festival of Hanukkah. Syrian forces elsewhere in the area, unwilling to confront the Maccabees in pitched combat, assaulted unarmed civilians in Galilee and Gilead, east of the Jordan River. Dispatching to Galilee a 3,man rescue expedition commanded by his brother Simon, Judas took another 8, men, forded the Jordan, and embarked for Gilead through the Trans-Jordan desert.
Simon quickly defeated a small enemy force, rescued prisoners, and returned with them to Judea. Meanwhile, Judas concentrated on a string of fortified towns east of the Golan Heights. Slicing into the surprised besiegers from the rear, Judas quickly put them to flight. He next made an exploratory foray to the northwest and engaged the new Syrian commander, Timotheus, who counterattacked out of the city of Raphon. Judas not only turned back this thrust, but also captured and sacked the city.
Having delivered the persecuted Jews of Gilead, he fought his way back through hostile territory and returned to Judea. Realizing the already weakened Seleucid Empire was in turmoil, Judas decided to take advantage of his captured siege equipment and invest the Syrian-held fortress at Acra.
The next Maccabean attack on the bastion came early in bc. The defenders fought it off, aided by the sizable contingent of Hellenist Jews within the fort who were fearful of being executed as traitors should they be captured alive. After the initial storming attempt, Judas reassembled his soldiers into siege positions to compel a slower but inevitable surrender. Syrian agents escaped from Acra and made their way back to Antioch, where they begged Lysias to relieve the embattled defenders.
Mustering an army of 30, heavily armed men and 30 war elephants, Lysias set out for Jerusalem via the same route he had taken the last time, approaching from the south. This army attacked the border town of Beth Zur, forcing Judas to leave off besieging Acra and hurry to meet the unanticipated threat.
0コメント