approved of the whole that a book of remembrance was written before the Lord-all their names were carefully registered in heaven. Here is an allusion to records kept by kings, Esth. vi. 1, of such as had performed signal services, and who should be the first to be rewarded. Verse 17. They shall be mine] I will acknowledge them as my subjects and followers; in the day, especially, when I come to punish the wicked and reward the righteous. When I make up my jewels] D segullah, my peculium, my proper treasure; that which is a man's own, and most prized by him. Not jewels; for in no part of the Bible does the word mean a gem or precious stone of any kind. The interpretations frequently given of the word in this verse, comparing saints to jewels, are forced and false. I will spare them] When I come to visit the wicked, I will take care of them. I will act towards them as of Jerusalem. a tender father would act towards his most loving and obedient son. Verse 18. Then shall ye return] To your senses, when perhaps too late; and discern-see the difference which God makes, between the righteous and the wicked, which will be most marked and awful. Between him that serveth God] Your obedience to whom, ye said, would be unprofitable to you. And him that serveth him not.] Of whom ye said, his disobedience would be no prejudice to him. You will find the former received into the kingdom of glory; and the latter, with yourselves, thrust down into the bitter pains of an eternal death. Reader, ponder these things. In the great day of the Lord, at least, if not long before, it will be fully discovered who have been the truly wise people; those who took up their cross and followed Christ; or those who satisfied the flesh, with its affections and desires, following a multitude to do evil. CHAPTER IV. God's awful judgments on the wicked, 1.`. Great blessedness of the righteous, 2, 3. The prophet then, with a solemnity becoming the last of the prophets, closes the Sacred Canon with enjoining the strict observance of the law till the forerunner already promised should appear, in the spirit of Elijah, to introduce the Messiah, and begin a new and everlasting dispensation, 4–6. The everywhere invigorating the seeds of righteousness, Verse 1. Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven] The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. And all the proud] This is in reference to ver. 15 universally diffused. of the preceding chapter. The day that cometh shall burn them up] Either by famine, by sword, or by captivity. All those rebels shall be destroyed, It shall leave them neither root nor branch.] A proverbial expression for total destruction. Neither man nor child shall escape. Verse 2. You that fear my name] The persons mentioned in the sixteenth verse of the preceding chapter; ye that look for redemption through the Messiah. The Sun of righteousness] The Lord Jesus, the promised Messiah; the Hope of Israel. With healing in his wings] As the sun, by the rays of light and heat, revives, cheers, and fructifies the whole creation, giving, through God, light and life everywhere; so Jesus Christ, by the influences of his grace and Spirit, shall quicken, awaken, enlighten, warm, invigorate, heal, purify, and refine every soul that believes in him; and, by his wings or rays, diffuse these blessings from one end of heaven to another; And ye shall go forth] Ye who believe on his name shall go forth out of Jerusalem when the Romans shall come up against it. After Cestius Gallus had blockaded the city for some days, he suddenly raised the siege. The Christians who were then in it, knowing, by seeing Jerusalem encompassed with armies, that the day of its destruction was come, when their Lord commanded them to flee into the mountains, took this opportunity to escape from Jerusalem, and go to Pella, in Colesyria; so that no Christian life fell in the siege and destruction of this city. But these words are of more general application and meaning; "ye shall go forth" in all the occupations of life, but particularly in the means of grace; and Grow up as calves of the stall] Full of health, of life, and spirits; satisfied and happy. Verse 3. Ye shall tread down] This may be the commission given to the Romans: Tread down the wicked people, tread down the wicked place; set it on fire, and let the ashes be trodden down under your feet. m before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: 6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and 5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the pro- smite the earth with a curse. Exod. xx. 3, &c. Deut. iv. 10. Psa. cxlvii. 19. 1 Matt. xi. 14; xvii. 11; Mark ix. 11; Luke i. 17.. Verse 4. Remember ye the law of Moses] Where all these things are predicted. The Septuagint, Arabic, and Coptic, place this verse the last. Verse 5. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet] This is meant alone of John the Baptist, as we learn from Luke i. 17, (where see the note,) in whose spirit and power he came. Verse 6. And he shall turn (convert) the heart of the fathers (y al, WITH) the children] Or, together with the children; both old and young. Lest I come, and, finding them unconverted, smite the land with a curse, n cherem, utter extinction. So we find that, had the Jews turned to God, and received the Messiah at the preaching of John the Baptist and that of Christ and his apostles, the awful cherem of final excision and execration would not have been executed upon them. However, they filled up the cup of their iniquity, and were reprobated, and the Gentiles elected in their stead. Thus, the last was first, and the first was last. Glory to God for his unspeakable gift! There are three remarkable predictions in this chapter-1. The advent of John Baptist, in the spirit and authority of Elijah. 2. The manifestation of Christ in the flesh, under the emblem of the Sun of righteousness. 3. The final destruction of Jerusalem, represented under the emblem of a burning oven, consuming every thing cast into it. These three prophecies, relating to the most important facts that have ever taken place in the history of the world, announced here nearly four thousand years before their occurrence, have been most circumstantially fulfilled. In most of the Masoretic Bibles the fifth verse is repeated after the sixth-" Behold, I send unto you Elijah the prophet, before the great and terrible day of Jehovah come;" for the Jews do not like to let their sacred book end with a curse; and hence, in reading, they immediately subjoin the above verse, or else the fourth-"Remember ye the law of Moses my servant." m Joel ii. 31. Ecclus. xlviii. 10.- Zech. xiv. 12. has ascended on high; he has sent forth his Holy Spirit; In most MSS. and printed Masoretic Bibles there are only three chapters in this prophet, the fourth being joined to the third, making it twenty-four verses. In the Jewish reckonings the Twelve Minor Prophets make but one book; hence there is no Masoretic note found at the end of any of the preceding prophets, with accounts of its verses, sections, &c.; but, at the end of Malachi we find the following table, which, though it gives the number of verses in each prophet, yet gives the total sum, middle verse, and sections, at the end of Malachi, thereby showing that they consider the whole twelve as constituting but one book. MASORETIC NOTES On the Twelve Minor Prophets. Joel 73 146 Obadiah 21 Jonah 48 Micah 105 Nahum 57 In one of my oldest MSS. the fifth verse is repeated, and written at full length: "Behold, I send you Eli- The sum of all the verses of the Twelve Minor Projah the prophet, before the It is on this ground that the Jews expect the reap- To GOD THE FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST, BE pearance of Elijah the prophet; and at their marriagefeasts always set a chair and knife and fork for this prophet, whom they suppose to be invisibly present. But we have already seen that John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord, was the person designed; for he came in the spirit and power of Elijah, (see on chap. iii. 1,) and has fulfilled this prophetic promise. John is come, and the Lord Jesus has come also; he has shed his blood for the salvation of a lost world; he I have this day completed this Commentary, on which I have laboured above thirty years; and which, when I began, I never expected to live long enough to finish. May it be a means of securing glory to God in the highest, and peace and good will among men upon earth! Amen, Amen. ADAM CLARKE. Heydon Hall, Middlesex, Monday, March 28, A. D. 1825. AN EPITOME OF THE JEWISH HISTORY FROM THE TIME OF NEHEMIAH AND MALACHI TO THE BIRTH OF CHRIST, FILLING UP THE CHASM BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. As many have wished to see an epitome of the Jewish | history, from the days of the prophet Malachi to the advent of Christ, in order to connect the history of the Old and New Testaments, I have prepared the following, which, in such a work as this, is as much as should be expected. 7 On all hands Malachi is allowed to have been the last prophet under the Old Testament; and he flourished about four hundred and nine years before the coming of Christ, according to the commonly received chronology; and Nehemiah, who was contemporary with him, was the last of those civil governors appointed by God himself. His last act of reformation is fixed by Prideaux, B. C. 409; soon after which it is supposed that he died, as at this time he could not be less than seventy years of age. For the administration of affairs in his times and in those of Ezra, whom he succeeded in the government of Judea, the reader is referred to the notes on Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel. We have seen, in the book of Nehemiah, that, on the return of the Jews from the Chaldean captivity, many of them brought strange wives and a spurious offspring with them, and refusing to put them away, were banished by Nehemiah, and went and settled in Samaria. Among those exiles there was a son of Jehoiada, the high priest, named Manasseh, who had married the daughter of Sanballat the Horonite, and put himself under the protection of his father-in-law, who was governor of the place. After the death of Nehemiah, Sanballat obtained a grant from Darius to build a temple on Mount Gerizim, near Samaria, of which he made Manassch, his son-in-law, high priest. This temple was begun to be built B. C. 408. From the building of this temple, Samaria became the refuge of all refractory Jews and though by this means the old superstition of the land was reformed to the worship of the God of Israel, they of Jerusalem would never consider the Samaritan Jews otherwise than apostates. On the other hand, the Samaritans maintained that Mount Gerizim was the only proper place for the worship of God. This people rejected all traditions, and adhered only to the written word contained in the five books of Moses. Nehemiah's death was also attended with a change of the Jewish government at Jerusalem. Judea had no longer a governor of its own. It was united to the prefecture of Syria; the rulers of which committed the administration of both civil and ecclesiastical affairs to the high priest for the time being. By this means the high priesthood became an office under the heathen; and towards the latter end of Artaxerxes Mnemon's reign, B. C. 405, who succeeded his father Darius Nothus, B. C. 423, the office was conferred by the governor of Syria and Phenicia. For Bagoses, the governor, took upon himself to displace Johanan the high priest, in favour of the said priest's brother Joshua; which nomination, though it did not take place, (for Johanan slew his brother Joshua in the inner court of the temple, as he endeavoured by force to usurp the high-priest's office by virtue of the governor's com mission, B. C. 366,) was attended with this bad consequencethat Bagoses, hearing of the murder, came in great wrath to Jerusalem, and laid a heavy fine upon the nation, which lasted seven years, or during the whole of his government. Artaxerxes Mnemon died B. C. 359, with grief at the brutality of his son Ochus, who had so terrified his eldest brother Ariaspes, that he poisoned himself, and had his younger brother Harpates assassinated. So that Ochus succeeded to the dignity and empire of his father. In the third year of Ochus, about 356 before Christ, Alexander the Great was born at Pella in Macedonia. Ochus, having reigned twenty-one years, was poisoned by his favourite Bagoas, in hopes of getting the whole government into his own hands, and to put the crown on the head of Arses, his youngest son, whom he also poisoned soon after, and raised Codomannus, a distant relation of the late king, to the throne. This new king took the name of Darius; and when Bagoas had also prepared a poisonous draught for him, he obliged Bagoas to drink it himself; by which means he saved his own life, and punished the traitor. It was about the year B. C. 336 that Alexander the Great succeeded to the kingdom of Macedon, on the death of his father Philip, who was slain by the noble Macedonian Pausanias, as he celebrated the marriage of his daughter with Alexander, king of Epirus, before he set out upon the Grecian expedition against Persia, being chosen captain-general of the united forces of Greece. Alexander also succeeded to that command by a new election. In one campaign he overran all Asia Minor; vanquished Darius in two battles; took his mother, wife, and children prisoners; and subdued all Syria as far as Tyre, B. C. 332. During the seige of Tyre, he demanded the submission of the neighbouring provinces of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. The two former submitted to him; but Judea would not renounce their allegiance to Darius so long as he lived. This brought upon them the wrath of the conqueror; who, having taken Tyre, by carrying a bank from the continent through the sea to the island on which the city stood, and burned it down to the ground, destroyed and slew all the inhabitants in a barbarous manner, both in the sackage of the town, and afterwards in cold blood; and then marched to Jerusalem to wreak his vengeance upon the Jews. Upon his approach, and the report of his having crucified two thousand of the Tyrian prisoners, the high priest Jadeua and all the city were under dreadful apprehensions. They had nothing but God's protection to depend upon. They fasted and prayed: and God in a vision directed the high priest to go in his pontifical robes, attended by the priests in their proper habits, and all the people in white garments, and meet Alexander out of the city. As soon as Alexander saw this procession moving towards Epitome of the Jewish History from the time of him, and the high priest in the front, he was overawed, drew p near, bowed down, and saluted him in a religious manner; alleging that he did so in regard to that God whose priest he was; adding, moreover, that the high priest so habited had appeared to him in a dream at Dio in Macedonia, assuring him of success against the Persians. Jaddua conducted him into the eity; and, having offered sacrifices in the temple, showed him the prophecies of Daniel, concerning the overthrow of the Persian empire by a Grecian king. Alexander was well satisfied with his reception at Jerusalem; and at his departure granted the Jeurs a toleration of their religion, and an exemption from tribute every seventh year. And the Jews were so well pleased with the conqueror's behaviour, that, upon his signifying that he would receive as inany of them as would enlist into his service, great multitudes entered under his banner, and followed him in his other expe ditions. The Samaritans met him with great pomp and parade, as he left Jerusalem, and invited him to their city. But Alexander deferred both the invitation, and petition for certain privileges, till his return from Egypt; and left his favourite Andromachus governor of Syria and Palestine. Ptolemy Soter was succeeded by his son Ptolemy Philadelphus, B. C. 285, who completed the college or museum of learned men, and the famous library at Alexandria in Egypt, which was begun by his father, and contained seven hundred thousand volumes, and placed in that library an authentic translation of the book of the law. This translation was finished under the inspection of Eleazar the high priest, and is called the Septuagint, on account of the joint labour of seventy-two translators employed in it, B. C. 254. Ptolemy Philadelphus died in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, and in the sixty-third of his age, B. C. 247. He was a learned prince, and a great patron of learning; so that men of learning flocked to his court from all parts, and partook of his favour and bounty. Among these were the poets Theocritus, Callimachus, Lycophron, and Aratus, and Manetho, the Egyptian historian." B. C. 247, Ptolemy Euergetes succeeded his father Ptolemy in Egypt. He found Onias, the son of Simon the Just, in the pontificate at Jerusalem, who was very old, weak, inconsiderate, and covetous. And Euergetes, perceiving that the high priest had for many years kept back the annual tribute, sent one Athenion, an officer at court, to Jerusalem, to demand it, being a very large sum, with threats of sending an army to dispossess them of the country upon refusal. Andromachus, coming some time after to Samaria upon business, was burned to death in his house, as it was thought on purpose, by the Samaritans, in revenge of the slight which This demand and threatening threw the whole nation into they apprehended Alexander had shown them. But as soon great confusion; and one Joseph, the high priest's nephew by as Alexander heard it, he caused those to be put to death who his sister's side, rebuked his uncle sharply for his injustice and had acted any part in the murder, banished all the other inha-ill management of the public interest, proposed Onias's jour bitants from Samaria, planted therein a colony of Macedonians, and gave the residue to the Jews. Upon the ruin of the Persians, Alexander had erected the Grecian or Macedonian monarchy. But coming to Babylon, after the conquest of the most part of the then known world, he gave himself up so much to drunkenness and gluttony, that he soon put an end to his life, B. C. 323. Here it cannot be amiss to observe, that Alexander was of a bold and enterprising spirit; but more full of fire than discretion. His actions, though successful, were furious and extravagantly rash. His few virtues were obscured with more and greater vices. Vainglory was his predominant passion; and the fables of the ancient Greek heroes were the only charts by which he steered his conduct. His dragging Balis round Gaza, his expedition into India, his drunken procession through Caramania, and taking to himself the name of the son of Jupiter, are so many vouchers of this assertion. And, were all his actions duly considered and estimated, he would be properly characterized the great cut-throat of the age in which he lived; as all they are who delight in bloodshed, and will forfeit ALL to obtain universal monarchy; whereas those only are the true heroes who most benefit the world, by promoting the peace and welfare of mankind. In a righteous cause, or a just defence of man's country, all actions of valour are worthy of praise; but in all other cases victory and conquest are no more than murder and robbery. Therefore Alexander's heroism is to be avoided, and not to be followed, as the surest way to honour and glory. Alexander was no sooner dead, than Ptolemy Soter seized upon Egypt; and having in vain endeavoured to gain Syria, Phoenicia, and Judea from Laomedon, whom Alexander had appointed governor instead of Andromachus, who was burnt, invaded them by sea and land, took Laomedon prisoner, and got possession of those provinces also, except Judea; which, upon the account of their allegiance to the surviving governor, refusing to yield, felt the severity of the conqueror; for, understanding that the Jews would not so much as defend themselves on the Sabbath day, he stormed Jerusalem, took it without resistance on that day, and carried above one hundred thousand of them captives into Egypt. From this time we may date the Jews' subjection to the kings of Egypt. And it was in the fifth year of this Ptolemy's reign that Onias the Jewish high priest died, and was succeeded by his son Simon the Just, on whom an eulogiun may be found in Ecclus. 1. 1, &c., B. C. 292. Simon the Just was high priest nine years, and is supposed to have completed the canon of the Old Testament by adding the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Malachi, and the two books of Chronicles, with the aid and assistance of the great synagogue. He was succeeded by his brother Eleazar, his son Onias being a minor, B. C. 291. ney to Alexandria, as the best expedient, and, upon his uncle's refusal, offered to go in person to pacify the king's wrath, which was accepted by the high priest, and approved by the people, B. C. 226. Joseph all this time had entertained Athenion in a most elegant manner at his own house, and at his departure loaded him with such valuable gifts, that when he arrived at Alexandria, he found the king prepared much in his favour to receive him, and made himself more acceptable by informing him concerning the revenues of Calesyria and Phanicia, whose value he had inquired more perfectly from their farmers, with whom he had travelled to court part of the way; and was thereupon admitted the king's receiver general of Calesyria, Phanicia, Judea, and Samaria. He immediately satisfied the king for his uncle's arrears with five hundred talents he borrowed at Alexandria on the credit of his new office, which he enjoyed twenty-two years, though he met with great opposition at his first collecting, till he had brought some of the ringleaders to exemplary punishment. B. C. 221. All things were again composed at Jerusalem; and Philopater having succeeded his father Ptolemy Euergetes in Egypt, and defeated the army of Antiochus the Great, he in the fifth year of his reign took the tour of Jerusalem while he visited his conquests. But this was very unfortunate for the Jews. For Philopater being led by a vain curiosity to enter into the sanctuary and the holy of holics on the great day of expiation, B. C. 217, where no one but the high priest was allowed to enter, he was opposed by the deprecations and lamentations of the people; and when he would still advance beyond the inner court, he was scized with such a terror and consternation, that he was obliged to be carried back in a manner half dead. He recovered; but when he left the city, he vowed revenge. And accordingly, he was no sooner returned to Alexandria than he deprived the Jews of all their rights and privileges; ordered them to be stigmatized with a burn representing an ivy leaf, under pain of death, in honour of his god Bacchus; and excluded all persons from his presence that would not sacrifice to the god he worshipped. Then he commanded as many Jews as he could seize in Egypt to be brought and shut up in the Hippodrome, or place for horse-races, at Alexandria, to be destroyed by elephants. But God turned the wild beasts upon those that came to see the dreadful massacre, by which numbers of the spectators were slain; and so terrified the king and his subjects with other tokens of his displeasure and power, that Philopater immediately not only released the Jews from the Hippodrome, but restored the whole nation to their privileges, reversed every decree against them, and put those Jeurs to death who for fear of persecution had apostatized from their religion. Ptolemy Philopater was succeeded, B. C. 204, by his son Ptolemy Epiphanes, then only five years old. This minority Nehemiah and Malachi to the Birth of Christ, gave Antiochus the Great an opportunity to regain Calesyria and Palestine: in which expedition the Jews had shown so much favour to Antiochus, that he granted them many favours, a liberty to live according to their own laws and religion, a prohibition to strangers to enter within the sept of the temple, &c. But as soon as Ptolemy was marriageable, he made peace with him, and gave him his daughter, with Calesyria and Palestine for her portion. On this occasion Joseph, who had been Ptolemy's receiver general in those provinces, and displaced by Antiochus, was restored. Ptolemy in a short time had a son; and it being customary on such occasions for all the great officers of state to congratulate the king and queen, and to carry them presents, Joseph, whose age would not permit him to take so long a journey, sent his son Hyrcanus, B. C. 187, who, upon an unlimited credit given him by his father, when he was arrived at Alexandria, borrowed a thousand talents, or two hundred thousand pounds sterling, with which, buying a hundred beautiful boys for the king, and as many beautiful young maids for the queen, at the price of a talent per head, and presenting them each with a falent in their hands, and disposing of the remaining sum among the courtiers and great officers, he so obliged the king and queen, and all the court, that he found it easy to supplant his father, and obtained the king's commission for collecting the royal revenues in all the country beyond Jordan. Hyrcanus, having thus abused his trust, went with a strong guard to execute his office; and being met by his brothers, killed two of them. He came to Jerusalem; but his father would not admit him to his presence, and he was shunned by every body. Upon the death of his father, which happened soon after, he endeavoured by force of arms to oust his bre thren from the paternal estate. This disturbed the peace of Jerusalem for a while; till at last his brothers, being assisted by the high priest and the generality of the people, drove him over Jordan, where he lived in a strong castle, till he fell upon his own sword and killed himself to avoid the punishment with which Antiochus Epiphanes, upon his succeeding to the throne of Syria, threatened him. B. C. 175. Antiochus the Great being slain by the inhabitants of Elymais, as he attempted by night to plunder the temple of Jupiter Belus, thereby to pay the Romans according to his agreement, his son Seleucus Philopater succeeded him in the provinces of Syria, Judea, &c., and resided at Antioch. Seleucus, at his first advancement to the dominion of these provinces, continued his father's favours to the Jews; but being afterwards informed by one Simon a Benjamite that there was great treasure in the temple, he sent one Heliodorus to seize it, and to bring all the riches he could find therein to Antioch. Heliodorus attempted to execute this commission; but he was so terrified at the sight of an armed host of angels that appeared to defend the entrance of the sacred treasury, that he fell speechless to the ground; nor did he recover till the high priest interceded to God for him. This same Heliodorus poisoned his sovereign Seleucus, hoping to obtain the kingdom; but his design was frustrated by Eumenes, king of Pergamus, and his brother Attalus, who set Antiochus Epiphanes, another son of Antiochus the Great, on the throne of Syria. Epiphanes, at his accession to the throne, finding himself hard pressed by the Romans, endeavoured to raise their heavy tribute by all manner of exactions. Amongst other means he deposed the good and pious high priest, Onias, and sold the pontificate to his brother Jason for the yearly sum of three hundred and sixty talents; and afterwards he deposed Jason, and sold it to his brother Menelaus for three hundred talents more, B. C. 174. Menelaus, having invaded the pontificate by these unjust means, and finding himself straitened to raise the annual pay ment according to contract, by the means of Lysimachus, another of his brothers, he robbed the temple of many gold vessels, which, being turned into money, he paid to the king; and bribed Andronicus, the governor of Antioch, to murder his brother Onias, lest at any time he should stand in his way. It is true that at the instance of the people Andronicus was seized and executed for his villany and murder, and Lysimachus was put to death by the mob at Jerusalem; yet Menelaus found means by bribery, not only to acquit himself, but to obtain sentence against, and even the execution of, the three delegates that went from Jerusalem to prosecute him in the name of the sanhedrin. But while Antiochus was engaged in the Egyptian war, Jason, on a false report that the king was dead, marched with a thousand men, surprised the city of Jerusalem, drove Menelaus into the castle, and cruelly put to the sword and to other kinds of death all those that he thought were his adversaries. Immediately the news of this revolution and massacre reached Autiochus, he hastened to reduce the Jews to their obedience; and in his way, being informed that the inhabitants of Jerusalem had made great rejoicings at the report of his death, he was so provoked, that, taking the city by storm, B. C. 170, he slew forty thousand persons, and sold as many more for slaves to the neighbouring nations. He entered the holy of holies, sacrificed a sow upon the altar of burnt-offerings, and caused the broth or liquor thereof to be sprinkled all over the temple. He plundered the temple of as much gold and furniture as amounted to eight hundred talents of gold. Then, returning to Antioch, he made one Philip, a most barbarous and cruel man, governor of Judea; Andronicus, as bad a man, governor of Samaria; and continued Menelaus, the worst of all, in the pontificate. And, as if this was not sufficient to satisfy his rage, he not long after sent an army of two and twenty thousand men, under Apollonius his general, with commission to put all the men of Jerusalem to the sword, and to make slaves of the women and children; which was rigorously executed on a Sabbath day, so that none escaped but such as could hide themselves in caves, or reach the mountains by flight. This cruelty soon after pursued the Jews, wherever dispersed for by a general decree to oblige all people in his dominions to conform to the religion of the king, one Athenæus, a Grecian idolater, was pitched upon to receive and instruct all the Jews that would turn idolaters, and to punish with the most cruel deaths those who refused. It was at this time that the temple was dedicated to Jupiter Olympius; the books of the law were burned; and women, accused of having their children circumcised, were led about the streets with these children tied about their necks, and then both together cast headlong over the steepest part of the wall, B. C. 167; for many of them chose rather to die than to renounce their God; as the holy zeal and religious fortitude of the very aged and pious Eleazar, a chief doctor of the law, and of the heroine Salomona and her seven sons, do testify; whom neither the instruments of death could terrify, nor the allurements of the tyrant could persuade, to forfeit their interest with the Almighty, either by idolatry or dissimulation. Matthias, great grandson of Asmonaus, and a priest of the first course, retired with his five sons, John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan, from the persecution at Jerusalem, to a little place called Modin, in the tribe of Dan: But as soon as they were discovered, Antiochus sent one Appelles to that place, to oblige all the inhabitants, on pain of death, to turn · idolaters. This officer delivered his commission by endeavouring to persuade Matthias to embrace idolatry, tendering to him the king's favour, and promising him great riches; which the good priest not only scornfully rejected, but slew the first Jew that dared to approach the idolatrous altar; and then, turning upon the king's commissioner, he despatched him and all his attendants, with the assistance of his sons and those that were with them. After this he put himself at the head of as many Jews as he could collect; and, having broken down the idols and the altars of the heathens, retired with them into the mountains. Here, as he took measures for their defence, he was joined by a numerous party of Assideans; a valiant people, who practised great hardships and mortifications, and were resolved to lay down their lives for the recovery of the temple. By these, and the accession of great numbers of other Jews Matthias found himself in a capacity to take the field; but as their mistaken notion about resting on the Sabbath day had been one great cause of their being surprised by their enemies, and brought many great misfortunes upon them, because they would not defend themselves on that day from their enemies, he caused it to be unanimously agreed and decreed, that it was lawful, and that they might defend themselves, and repel force by force, on the Sabbath day, should they be attacked. After this decree had passed, with the approbation of the priests and elders, Matthias left his lurking-places, marched |