Chapter 13
Antiochus came against Judea. Judas killed four thousand in the camp of Antiochus, and the largest of the elephants, and he takes Ptolemais, etc.
13:9-11 But the king, unrestrained in mind, came on, intending to show himself more wicked toward the Jews than his father. When Judas learned of this, he commanded the people to call upon the Lord day and night, so that, as always, so now He would help them, since they feared being deprived of their law, their fatherland, and the holy temple; and that He would not allow the people, who had only recently taken a brief breath of relief, to be again subjected to the blasphemies of foreign nations, etc.
The history that recounts the war of Antiochus Eupator and his steward Lysias against the Jews has already been mentioned in the previous book and there explained also according to allegory. But it is now related in sequence that four thousand men in the king’s camp were killed by the Jews during the night, and the greatest of the elephants, together with those stationed on it, was destroyed. This is expressed more clearly in the earlier narration, where it is reported that Eleazar, son of Saura, a Jew, seeing one of the beasts armored in the king’s mail and towering above the other beasts, and thinking that the king was in it, broke into the legion, ran under the feet of the elephant, and killed it; but as it fell, the weight of the beast crushed him, and he died. The spiritual meaning of this is explained there, where the arrogance of the proud is shown to be broken by their own effort, as Scripture says: “Everyone who is arrogant is an abomination to God” (Prov. 16:5); and again: “Before destruction the heart is exalted, and before glory it is humbled” (Prov. 16:18); and elsewhere: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6); and in the Gospel the Lord said: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matt. 23:12).
After these things, however, the history explains how Demetrius, the son of Seleucus, coming into Judea and having gained the kingdom, was stirred up through Alcimus against Judas and his companions, where it is written therefore: