Random Verse from 1 Maccabees
929 verses across 16 chapters, in the Douay-Rheims. One of the seven books the Catholic Bible carries and the Protestant Bible does not.
For the success of war is not in the multitude of the army, but strength cometh from heaven.
1 Maccabees 3:19DRC
Drawing from 929 verses
1 Maccabees is history, told plainly and at speed. A foreign king outlaws Jewish practice, defiles the temple, and expects compliance. A priest named Mattathias refuses, and his sons carry on a revolt that runs for years.
Sixteen chapters, and the events behind Hanukkah sit in the middle of it: the temple retaken, cleansed, and rededicated. If you have wondered where that festival comes from, this is the source.
The book is unusually sober. It does not report miracles. Battles are won by planning, terrain, discipline, and sometimes by not fighting at all, and they are lost for ordinary reasons too. The famous line in chapter 3 about success in war not coming from the size of an army is spoken by a commander who is badly outnumbered and knows exactly what the odds are.
Alongside the fighting it is a story about what a community keeps when keeping it is punishable. Some of the most affecting passages are about people who chose not to fight and died anyway.
It appears in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles rather than Protestant ones. Historians rate it as one of the better sources for the period, which is not something said about many biblical books.
Frequently asked questions
- Is 1 Maccabees in the Bible?
- It is in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, at the end of the Old Testament history books. Protestant Bibles do not include it, though many Protestants read it as history.
- Is 1 Maccabees the story behind Hanukkah?
- Yes. The rededication of the temple after it was retaken is described in chapter 4, and that event is what the festival commemorates.
- What is the difference between 1 and 2 Maccabees?
- They are not a two-part sequence. 1 Maccabees is a longer, plainer chronicle of the whole revolt. 2 Maccabees covers a shorter, partly overlapping stretch in a more emotional style and is more interested in the martyrs than the campaigns.