How do rescue and disobedience contrast?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Rescue missions and return accompany Joseph and Azarias’s unauthorized battle and defeat.

Chapter breakdown

After the altar and sanctuary are rebuilt, surrounding nations grow angry and intend to destroy Jacob’s descendants living among them, killing and persecuting some. Judas defeats Esau’s children in Idumea and those in Acrabathane who beset Israelites. Bean’s children had ambushed the people on the way; Judas shuts them in towers and burns them with all inside. Against Ammon and captain Timotheus he wins battles, takes Gazer and its towns and returns to Judea.

Galaad’s threatened Israelites flee to Datheman and send letters about an impending attack under Timotheus, many dead and almost a thousand slain in Tubin with wives, children and spoils taken. During the reading, Galilee’s messengers arrive with torn garments reporting Ptolemais, Tyre and Sidon’s assembled enemies. An assembly considers help. Judas sends Simon with three thousand to Galilee, while he and Jonathan take eight thousand to Galaad. Joseph son of Zacharias and Azarias remain with the rest in Judea, charged to keep the people and make no war until the brothers return. Simon wins battles, pursues to Ptolemais’s gate, kills almost three thousand and brings Galilee and Arbatis’s people, families and possessions to Judea with joy.

Judas and Jonathan cross Jordan and travel three days through desert. Peaceable Nabutheans report people shut in Barasa, Bosor, Alima, Casphor, Mageth, Carnaim and other Galaad cities, with destruction planned next day. Judas suddenly turns toward Bosor, takes it, slays every male, plunders and burns it, then travels by night to the fortress. At morning a vast host has ladders and engines, and the fight and city’s cry are heard. Judas orders fighting for the brethren, comes behind the enemy with three companies, trumpets and prayer, and Timotheus’s army flees, losing almost eight thousand. Maspha is taken, its males killed and city plundered and burned; Casbon, Mageth, Bosor and other cities follow.

Timotheus gathers another army across the torrent at Raphon. Judas’s observers report assembled nations and hired Arabians ready to fight. Timotheus tells his captains that Judas crossing first will prevail, but that if he stays across the water, they will cross and win. This is Timotheus’s prediction, not a universal crossing rule or information shown as given to Judas. Judas stations scribes to keep all advancing, crosses first and is followed. The defeated enemy abandons weapons and flees into Carnaim’s temple, which Judas burns with everything inside after taking the city.

Judas gathers Galaad’s Israelites, small and great, wives and children, and a great army for return to Juda. Fortified Ephron lies across the only way, without right or left bypass. Its gates are blocked with stones. Judas requests harmless passage on foot; refusal leads to assault all day and night, capture, killing every male, razing, plunder and passage over the slain. They cross Jordan to Bethsan’s plain. Judas gathers the hindmost and encourages them until Juda. They reach Mount Sion joyfully and offer holocausts because not one of them was slain until their peaceful return. This statement is retained in its return-march context without making an unsupported casualty accounting for all preceding battles.

Meanwhile Joseph and Azarias hear the victories and expressly propose gaining a name by fighting neighboring Gentiles. They march toward Jamnia; Gorgias meets and routs them to Judea’s border, with about two thousand Israelites falling. The text attributes the overthrow to disobedience, thinking to act manfully, and says they were not of the seed through whom Israel’s salvation came. Juda’s men are magnified and acclaimed. Judas and brothers then take Chebron and its towns in the south, burn walls and towers, march through Samaria toward the aliens and reach Azotus. Some priests fall after going unadvisedly to battle for valor. Judas destroys idol altars, burns gods’ statues, takes spoils and returns. The narration does not add a general guarantee that obedient commanders never suffer losses.

The story inside

The remaining commanders receive a no-war order. The return’s no-loss statement retains its context. Unadvised priests also fall in battle.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The remaining commanders receive a no-war order.
2
The return’s no-loss statement retains its context.
3
Unadvised priests also fall in battle.

Test your recall

What command do Joseph and Azarias disregard?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 105447–105462
5:16. Now when Judas and the people heard these words, a great assembly met together to consider what they should do for their brethren that were in trouble, and were assaulted by them. 5:17. And Judas said to Simon, his brother: Choose thee men, and go, and deliver thy brethren in Galilee: and I, and my brother Jonathan, will go into the country of Galaad: 5:18. And he left Joseph, the son of Zacharias, and Azarias, captains of the people, with the remnant of the army in Judea, to keep it: 5:19. And he commanded them, saying: Take ye the charge of this people; but make no war against the heathens, till we return. 5:20. Now three thousand men were allotted to Simon, to go into Galilee: and eight thousand to Judas, to go into the land of Galaad.
Lines 105491–105512
5:28. Then Judas and his army suddenly turned their march into the desert, to Bosor, and took the city: and he slew every male by the edge of the sword, and took all their spoils, and burnt it with fire. 5:29. And they removed from thence by night, and went till they came to the fortress. 5:30. And it came to pass that early in the morning, when they lifted up their eyes, behold there were people without number, carrying ladders and engines to take the fortress, and assault them. 5:31. And Judas saw that the fight was begun, and the cry of the battle went up to heaven like a trumpet, and a great cry out of the city: 5:32. And he said to his host: Fight ye today for your brethren. 5:33. And he came with three companies behind them, and they sounded their trumpets, and cried out in prayer. 5:34. And the host of Timotheus understood that it was Machabeus, and they fled away before his face and they made a great slaughter of them, and there fell of them in that day almost eight thousand men.
Lines 105562–105587
5:47. And they that were in the city shut themselves in, and stopped up the gates with stones: and Judas sent to them with peaceable words, 5:48. Saying: Let us pass through your land, to go into our own country, and no man shall hurt you; we will only pass through on foot. But they would not open to them. 5:49. Then Judas commanded proclamation to be made in the camp, that they should make an assault, every man in the place where he was. 5:50. And the men of the army drew near, and he assaulted that city all the day, and all the night; and the city was delivered into his hands: 5:51. And they slew every male with the edge of the sword, and he razed the city, and took the spoils thereof, and passed through all the city over them that were slain. 5:52. Then they passed over the Jordan to the great plain that is over against Bethsan. 5:53. And Judas gathered together the hindmost, and he exhorted the people, all the way through, till they came into the land of Juda. 5:54. And they went up to mount Sion with joy and gladness, and offered holocausts, because not one of them was slain, till they had returned in peace.
Lines 105589–105613
5:55. Now in the days that Judas and Jonathan were in the land of Galaad, and Simon his brother in Galilee, before Ptolemais, 5:56. Joseph, the son of Zacharias, and Azarias, captain of the soldiers, heard of the good success, and the battles that were fought, 5:57. And he said: Let us also get us a name, and let us go fight against the Gentiles that are round about us. 5:58. And he gave charge to them that were in his army, and they went towards Jamnia. 5:59. And Gorgias and his men went out of the city, to give them battle. 5:60. And Joseph and Azarias were put to flight, and were pursued unto the borders of Judea: and there fell on that day, of the people of Israel, about two thousand men, and there was a great overthrow of the people: 5:61. Because they did not hearken to Judas and his brethren, thinking that they should do manfully. 5:62. But they were not of the seed of those men by whom salvation was brought to Israel.