Catholic Commentary
Antiochus VII Besieges Tryphon at Dor
10In the one hundred seventy-fourth year, Antiochus went into the land of his fathers; and all the forces came together to him, so that there were few men with Tryphon.11King Antiochus pursued him, and he came, as he fled, to Dor, which is by the sea;12for he knew that troubles had come upon him all at once, and that his forces had deserted him.13Antiochus encamped against Dor, and with him one hundred twenty thousand men of war and eight thousand cavalry.14He surrounded the city, and the ships joined in the attack from the sea. He harassed the city by land and sea, and permitted no one to go out or in.
1 Maccabees 15:10–14 depicts the military collapse of Tryphon, a Seleucid usurper, as the legitimate king Antiochus VII pursues him to the coastal fortress of Dor and besieges it with overwhelming force, cutting off all escape routes. The passage illustrates the principle that wickedness and treachery ultimately bring about their own downfall, as Tryphon's stolen kingdom disintegrates when a credible alternative appears and his forces abandon him.
Wickedness carries the seeds of its own undoing: Tryphon's elaborate schemes collapse when his forces abandon him, and no fortress can contain a man whose power was built on betrayal.
Commentary
1 Maccabees 15:10 — "In the one hundred seventy-fourth year…" The Seleucid Era date (174 SE = approximately 138 BC) is characteristic of 1 Maccabees' sober, annalistic style. The author writes as a careful historian, anchoring sacred narrative in datable, verifiable time — a reminder that biblical salvation history is not myth but event. The phrase "the land of his fathers" identifies Antiochus VII as a legitimate Seleucid heir returning to reclaim his dynasty's territory from Tryphon, a military adventurer who had seized the throne through treachery (cf. 1 Macc 13:31–32). The rapid reassembly of forces around Antiochus signals how thin Tryphon's legitimacy was: his army was held together by fear and momentum, not loyalty. When a credible alternative appears, allegiance evaporates.
1 Maccabees 15:11 — "King Antiochus pursued him, and he came, as he fled, to Dor, which is by the sea" The verb "pursued" (ἐδίωξεν in the Greek) carries urgency; Tryphon is no longer a king directing events but a fugitive reacting to them. Dor was an ancient Phoenician port city on the Mediterranean coast south of Mount Carmel, known in the Old Testament as a Canaanite stronghold (Josh 11:2; 12:23). Its geography — backed by sand dunes, facing the open sea — made it a natural last refuge: defensible on three sides, with sea escape as a theoretical option. The author's topographic precision is characteristic of 1 Maccabees, which consistently grounds theology in real geography.
1 Maccabees 15:12 — "For he knew that troubles had come upon him all at once…" This rare glimpse into Tryphon's interiority is theologically charged. The Greek behind "troubles had come upon him all at once" (συνηντήκεσαν αὐτῷ αἱ κακίαι) recalls the wisdom tradition's teaching that evil ultimately rebounds upon the evildoer (cf. Prov 26:27; Sir 27:25–27). Tryphon had murdered the young Antiochus VI, betrayed his allies, and attempted to destroy Simon Maccabeus through deception (1 Macc 12:39–13:22). Now the weight of those accumulated crimes collapses upon him at once. The desertion of his forces is not merely military bad luck; the narrative presents it as consequential — a moral reckoning unfolding in time.
1 Maccabees 15:13 — "One hundred twenty thousand men of war and eight thousand cavalry" The enormous figures (whether precisely historical or rhetorically amplified, as was conventional in Hellenistic historiography) serve a literary and theological function: they establish the totality of Tryphon's isolation. Against such overwhelming force, no merely human cunning can prevail. The listing of infantry and cavalry separately echoes the martial inventories of earlier biblical battles (cf. 1 Sam 13:5) and implicitly recalls the Psalmist's refrain that "some trust in chariots, some in horses" (Ps 20:7) — a trust that belongs to the proud, not the just.
1 Maccabees 15:14 — "He surrounded the city…permitted no one to go out or in" The coordinated land-and-sea siege is the passage's dramatic climax. The image of total encirclement — ships attacking from the sea while armies press from land — is a picture of absolute containment. Spiritually, the author invites the reader to see in Tryphon's entrapment the principle that wickedness carries within itself the seeds of its own undoing. The closing phrase — "permitted no one to go out or in" — echoes siege language elsewhere in Scripture (2 Kgs 6:32; Jer 39:2–3) and prefigures the theme of judgment as closure: the door that shuts on the foolish virgins (Matt 25:10), the sealing off of the way that leads to destruction.
Typological and Spiritual Senses: Patristically, the Church Fathers read the Maccabean books as illustrations of spiritual warfare and moral courage. Origen (Homilies on Numbers) and Ambrose (De Officiis) both drew on Maccabean material to counsel the faithful that perseverance and righteousness will outlast the power of tyranny. The collapse of Tryphon's coalition typologically anticipates the final defeat of all powers that oppose God's kingdom — the eschatological reversal in which the mighty are put down from their thrones (Luke 1:52).
Catholic Commentary
From a Catholic perspective, this passage sits within the broader canonical witness that God is Lord of history — that human injustice does not have the final word. The Catechism teaches that divine Providence "guides history toward its ultimate end" (CCC §302) and that God permits evil while remaining sovereign over it, ultimately drawing good even from human sin and violence. Tryphon's collapse is not presented as the result of Simon Maccabeus's military genius alone, but as the convergence of forces that God's providential order sets in motion against those who violate His covenant people.
The Church Fathers were attentive to 1 Maccabees as moral and spiritual instruction. St. Ambrose, in De Officiis (I.40), cited the Maccabean wars extensively to illustrate the virtue of fortitude as inseparable from justice — one fights not for personal glory but for God and the common good. In this light, Antiochus VII's besieging of Tryphon is an instrument of restorative justice, even if Antiochus himself is not a man of the covenant.
The deuterocanonical status of 1 Maccabees — affirmed by the Council of Trent (Session IV, 1546) against the Protestant Reformation's narrower canon — means the Church reads this narrative as inspired Scripture, not merely edifying history. This matters: the judgment falling on Tryphon is not incidental color but revealed teaching about how God relates to human pride, cruelty, and political violence. St. Augustine's framework in The City of God (Book V) — that earthly kingdoms rise and fall according to a divine moral economy — finds vivid illustration here: the city of man, built on betrayal and force, cannot sustain itself.
For Today
Contemporary Catholics encounter Tryphon-like figures regularly — not necessarily as military despots but as people whose influence, careers, or power structures are built on manipulation, broken trust, and the exploitation of others. This passage offers a bracing pastoral word: such edifices do not last. When the author writes that Tryphon's forces "deserted him," he describes a dynamic Catholics can observe in institutional and personal life — charismatic but corrupt authority eventually hemorrhages the loyalty it once commanded.
More personally, the passage challenges the Catholic reader to examine where their own "forces" — their energies, commitments, and alliances — are placed. Are they built on covenant faithfulness, as Simon's were, or on opportunism, as Tryphon's were? Pope Francis, in Evangelii Gaudium (§228), warns against the "self-absorbed" Christianity that pursues security over mission; Tryphon's desperate retreat to Dor is the ultimate image of a self-protective posture that has run out of room. The faithful are called instead to the open-handed trust that Providence will vindicate righteousness — not by escaping siege, but by standing firm within it.
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