3 Maccabees chapter 6
[This chapter is in Orthodox Bibles] The prayer of Eleazar. Two angels rescue the Jewish people. The Jewish people celebrate.
Note. The Book of Third Maccabees is recognized as Deuterocanonical Scripture by the Orthodox Churches
THE PRAYER OF ELEAZAR
VERSE 1. Then Eleazar, an illustrious priest of the country, who had attained to length of days, and whose life had been adorned with virtue, caused the elders who were around him to cease to cry out to the holy God, and prayed this:
Eleazar. This is the name of a high priest in the Letter of Aristeas 41.
It is also the name of a principal scribe and martyr in 2 Maccabees:
2 Maccabees 6:30. and when he was at the point to die with the blows, he groaned aloud and said, “To the Lord, who has the holy knowledge, it is manifest that, while I might have been delivered from death, I endure severe pains in my body by being scourged; but in soul I gladly suffer these things because of my fear of him.”
VERSE 2. “O king, mighty in power, most high, Almighty God, who regulates the whole creation with your tender mercy,
VERSE 3. look at the seed of Abraham, at the children of the sanctified Jacob, your sanctified inheritance, O Father, now being wrongfully destroyed as foreigners in a foreign land.
wrongfully destroyed as foreigners. Or perishing as foreigners.
VERSE 4. You destroyed Pharaoh with his army of chariots when that lord of this same Egypt was uplifted with lawless daring and loud-sounding tongue. Shedding the beams of your mercy upon the race of Israel, you overwhelmed him and his proud army.
VERSE 5. When Sennacherim, the grievous king of the Assyrians, exulting in his countless army, had subdued the whole land with his spear and was lifting himself against your holy city with boastings grievous to be endured, you, O Lord, demolished him and displayed your might to many nations.
VERSE 6. When the three friends in the land of Babylon of their own will exposed their lives to the fire rather than serve vain things, you sent a moist coolness through the fiery furnace, and brought the fire on all their adversaries.
the three friends. See Daniel chapter 3:
Daniel 3:13. Then Nebuchadnezzar in rage and fury commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought. Then these men were brought before the king.
you sent a moist coolness through the fiery furnace. This suggests the LORD God surrounded the three friends with cool air inside the blast furnace:
Song of the Three Children verse 50. and made the midst of the furnace as it had been a moist whistling wind, so that the fire didn’t touch them at all. It neither hurt nor troubled them.
VERSE 7. It was you who, when Daniel was hurled, through slander and envy, as a prey to lions down below, brought him back again unharmed to light.
VERSE 8. When Jonah was pining away in the belly of the sea-born monster, you looked at him, O Father, and recovered him to the sight of his own.
VERSE 9. Now, you who hate insolence, you who abound in mercy, you who are the protector of all things, appear quickly to those of the race of Israel, who are insulted by abhorred, lawless gentiles.
VERSE 10. If our life during our exile has been stained with iniquity, deliver us from the hand of the enemy, and destroy us, O Lord, by the death which you prefer.
If our life during our exile has been stained. This does not admit any iniquity.
Rather, it is conditional. “If” we committed iniquity.
VERSE 11. Don’t let the vain-minded congratulate vain idols at the destruction of your beloved, saying, ‘Their god didn’t deliver them.’
VERSE 12. You who are All-powerful and Almighty, O Eternal One, behold! Have mercy on us who are being withdrawn from life, like traitors, by the unreasoning insolence of lawless men.
VERSE 13. Let the heathen cower before your invincible might today, O glorious One, who have all power to save the race of Jacob.
VERSE 14. The whole band of infants and their parents ask you with tears.
VERSE 15. Let it be shown to all the nations that you are with us, O Lord, and have not turned your face away from us, but as you said that you would not forget them even in the land of their enemies, so fulfill this saying, O Lord.”
TWO ANGELS RESCUE THE JEWISH PEOPLE
VERSE 16. Now, at the time that Eleazar had ended his prayer, the king came along to the hippodrome with the wild animals, and with his tumultuous power.
VERSE 17. When the Jews saw this, they uttered a loud cry to heaven so that the adjacent valleys resounded and caused an irrepressible lamentation throughout the army.
they uttered a loud cry to heaven. They shout!
irrepressible lamentation. Or uncontrollable terror.
VERSE 18. Then the all-glorious, all-powerful, and true God, displayed his holy countenance, and opened the gates of heaven, from which two angels, dreadful of form, came down and were visible to all but the Jews.
This verse is fantastic! Would you consider memorizing it? More great verses to memorize from Third Maccabees and from the entire Bible.
two angels. To this dire situation, wherein the Jewish people are to be exterminated, how does the LORD God respond?
By sending two angels.
Just two.
visible to all but the Jews. The bad guys witness the presence of the supernatural forces of heaven about to mow them down.
VERSE 19. They stood opposite, and filled the enemies’ army with confusion and cowardice, and bound them with immoveable shackles.
This verse is fantastic! Would you consider memorizing it? More great verses to memorize from Third Maccabees and from the entire Bible.
They stood opposite. The forces of heaven are arrayed against anyone who wants to harm the Jewish people.
VERSE 20. A cold shudder came over the person of the king, and oblivion paralyzed the vehemence of his spirit.
VERSE 21. They turned back the animals on the armed forces who followed them; and the animals trampled them and destroyed them.
VERSE 22. The king’s wrath was converted into compassion; and he wept at the things he had devised.
This is the moment of reversal.
VERSE 23. For when he heard the cry, and saw them all on the verge of destruction, with tears he angrily threatened his friends, saying,
he angrily threatened his friends. Pharaoh Philopator blames his Friends, even though it is he who took the initiative.
VERSE 24. “You have governed badly, and have exceeded tyrants in cruelty. You have labored to deprive me, your benefactor, at once of my dominion and my life, by secretly devising measures injurious to the kingdom.
VERSE 25. Who has gathered here, unreasonably removing each from his home, those who, in fidelity to us, had held the fortresses of the country?
VERSE 26. Who has consigned to unmerited punishments those who in good will toward us from the beginning have in all things surpassed all nations, and who often have engaged in the most dangerous undertakings?
VERSE 27. Loose, loose the unjust bonds! Send them to their homes in peace, begging pardon for what has been done.
VERSE 28. Release the sons of the almighty living God of heaven, who from our ancestors’ times until now has granted a glorious and uninterrupted prosperity to our affairs.”
the sons of the almighty living God of heaven. This is how Pharaoh Philopater now sees the Jewish people.
It is a remarkable statement.
VERSE 29. He said these things, and they, released the same moment, having now escaped death, praised God their holy Savior.
THE JEWISH PEOPLE CELEBRATE
VERSE 30. The king then departed to the city, and called his financier to himself, and asked him provide a seven days’ quantity of wine and other materials for feasting for the Jews. He decided that they should keep a cheerful festival of deliverance in the very place in which they expected to meet with their destruction.
VERSE 31. Then they who were before despised and near to hades, yes, rather advanced into it, partook of the cup of salvation, instead of a grievous and lamentable death. Full of exultation, they apportioned the place intended for their fall and burial into banqueting booths.
the cup of salvation. Or a banquet of deliverance.
VERSE 32. Ceasing their miserable strain of woe, they took up the subject of their fatherland, singing in praise to God their wonder-working Savior. All groans and all wailing were laid aside. They formed dances as a sign of peaceful joy.
singing in praise to God. Or singing the song of their ancestors.
VERSE 33. So the king also collected a number of guests for the occasion, and returned unceasing thanks with much magnificence for the unexpected deliverance afforded him.
VERSE 34. Those who had marked them out as for death and for carrion, and had registered them with joy, howled aloud, and were clothed with shame, and had the fire of their rage ingloriously put out.
for carrion. That is, “as food for birds.”
VERSE 35. But the Jews, as we just said, instituted a dance, and then gave themselves up to feasting, glad thanksgiving, and psalms.
VERSE 36. They made a public ordinance to commemorate these things for generations to come, as long as they should be sojourners. They thus established these days as days of mirth, not for the purpose of drinking or luxury, but because God had saved them.
They made a public ordinance. This mirrors the the establishment of Purim.
See Esther 9:20-32. Mordecai establishes a new feast called Purim.
VERSE 37. They requested the king to send them back to their homes.
VERSE 38. They were being enrolled from the twenty-fifth of Pachon to the fourth of Epiphi, a period of forty days. The measures taken for their destruction lasted from the fifth of Epiphi till the seventh, that is, three days.
VERSE 39. The Ruler over all during this time manifested his mercy gloriously, and delivered them all together unharmed.
VERSE 40. They feasted upon the king’s provision up to the fourteenth day, then asked to be sent away.
VERSE 41. The king commended them, and wrote the following letter, of magnanimous import for them, to the commanders of every city:
3 MACCABEES
CHAPTERS: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07
RESOURCES: Summary, Outline, Memorize, The Greatest God
Unless otherwise noted, all Bible quotations on this page are from the World English Bible and the World Messianic Edition. These translations have no copyright restrictions. They are in the Public Domain.