1 Maccabees 9:63–69

1 Maccabees 9:63 — Bacchides Mobilizes The phrase "he gathered together all his multitude" deliberately echoes the language used of previous Seleucid campaigns in 1 Maccabees (cf. 3:27; 6:28), signaling that this is no minor punitive expedition but a full imperial deployment. The detail that Bacchides "sent orders to those who were of Judea" is theologically loaded: it reveals that there are Jewish collaborators — the "lawless men" named explicitly in v. 69 — actively abetting the oppressor. The narrative thereby establishes a moral contrast between the faithful remnant and the apostate informers, a contrast central to the entire book's theology.

1 Maccabees 9:64 — The Siege of Bethbasi Bacchides' deployment of "engines of war" (Greek: μηχαναί, mēchanai) — siege towers, battering rams, and catapults — underscores the disproportion of force. Bethbasi (likely located south of Bethlehem near the Judean wilderness) was a modest fortification, and the elaborateness of Bacchides' siege apparatus signals imperial overkill. The "many days" of siege warfare heightens the dramatic tension: the faithful are encircled, battered, and apparently at the mercy of history.

1 Maccabees 9:65 — Jonathan's Strategic Withdrawal Jonathan's departure "with a few men" into the surrounding countryside is not flight but a deliberate tactical decision — a classic interior-lines maneuver. He entrusts the city's defense to his brother Simon, establishing the fraternal partnership that will define the rest of the chapter. The phrase "a few men" is a recurring theological marker in 1 Maccabees (cf. 3:18: "it is easy for many to be shut up in the hands of a few"), insisting that the odds are irrelevant when God's purpose is at work.

1 Maccabees 9:66 — The Strike Against Odomera and Phasiron Jonathan's targets — Odomera and the children of Phasiron — are Arab tribal leaders or local strongmen allied with Bacchides, possibly serving as a supply line or blocking force. By attacking them "in their tents," Jonathan disrupts Bacchides' logistical network and sows panic in the besieging army's rear. The specificity of these names, unusual in a text often stylized in its battles, suggests the author is drawing on actual military records or campaign memoirs, lending the narrative historical grounding.

1 Maccabees 9:67 — Simon's Sally and the Burning of the Engines The coordinated timing of Simon's sortie with Jonathan's external attack is the tactical masterstroke. Simon and his garrison "went out of the city" — breaking the passive logic of siege defense — and set the engines of war on fire. This act of destroying the siege machinery is not merely pragmatic; it is deeply symbolic. The tools of imperial destruction are consumed. The fire that Bacchides brought to overwhelm the faithful is turned back upon his own instruments of power.

Verses 68–69 — Bacchides Defeated and the Informers Punished The text's language is precise: Bacchides was not merely repelled but "defeated" and "afflicted severely." The narrator then delivers the theological verdict: "his counsel and expedition was in vain." This echoes the Wisdom tradition's insistence that plans made against the righteous ultimately destroy their authors (cf. Prov 21:30). The fury Bacchides turns on the "lawless men" — the Jewish apostates whose counsel brought him — reflects a tragic irony: those who betrayed their own people for Seleucid favor are destroyed by the very power they served. His final decision to "depart into his own land" is a narrative reversal, the great empire retreating before the faithful few.

From a Catholic theological perspective, this passage belongs to a rich tradition of reading the Maccabean literature as a theology of perseverance under persecution — a tradition explicitly affirmed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (§§ 520, 1808), which holds up the courage of those who suffer for justice as a participation in the virtue of fortitude, one of the four cardinal virtues.

The Church Fathers saw in the Maccabees prototypes of Christian martyrs and fighters for righteousness. St. Augustine (City of God, XVIII.36) recognized the books of Maccabees as canonical testimony to fidelity under imperial pressure, and St. Ambrose drew on Maccabean heroism in De Officiis to define the duties of the Christian soldier and pastor — not as aggression but as the disciplined defense of what is holy.

More specifically, the two-pronged strategy of Jonathan and Simon typologically anticipates the Church's own mode of spiritual combat: the "going out" into the world (mission, engagement) paired with the interior defense of the sacred (worship, prayer, sacrament). Neither posture alone is sufficient; it is the fraternal coordination of both that breaks the siege.

The destruction of the "lawless men" at the chapter's end is not presented as vengeance but as a narrative consequence of apostasy — a theme the Catechism develops in its treatment of scandal (§§ 2284–2287): those who lead others away from fidelity to God bear a grave moral weight. Bacchides' retreat vindicates the teaching of Psalm 33:10: "The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing."

The siege of Bethbasi is a parable for the Catholic community in any age that feels encircled by overwhelming cultural, political, or institutional forces. Two temptations attend such moments: passive despair (waiting for the walls to fall) and reckless individualism (charging out alone). Jonathan and Simon model a third way — discerning division of labor, mutual trust, and coordinated action.

For the contemporary Catholic, this means recognizing that the spiritual life is never only interior or only active. The person of prayer who also engages the world, and the activist who sustains a contemplative core, together "set the engines of war on fire." Parish communities facing marginalization, Catholic professionals navigating hostile workplaces, families trying to form children in faith against the grain of secular culture — all can find in Bethbasi a pattern: hold the center, strike at the supply lines of temptation and despair, and trust that "counsel and expedition" mounted against the life of faith will ultimately collapse under the weight of its own futility. The fraternal bond between Jonathan and Simon also reminds us that no Catholic fights alone; the Church is constitutively communal.