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1 Maccabees 9:2-4
New Catholic Bible
1 Maccabees 9:2-4
New Catholic Bible
2 They took the road to Galilee and, besieging Mesaloth in Arbela,[a] they captured it and killed many people. 3 In the first month of the year one hundred and fifty-two they encamped outside Jerusalem,[b] 4 and from there they marched to Berea with twenty thousand foot soldiers and two thousand cavalry.
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- 1 Maccabees 9:2 They took the road . . . Arbela: this is a reconstruction of the Greek text, which reads: “They took the road to Gilgal and camping opposite Mesaloth captured it” but makes no sense. For Gilgal was in the Jordan Valley close to Jericho while Arbela was a hill in Galilee; Mesaloth were caves overhanging a gorge west of the Sea of Tiberias.
- 1 Maccabees 9:3 That is, March–April of 160 B.C., a few weeks after the rout of Nicanor. Scholars have noted that the interval of time is too short for the Syrians to have been able to gather together a new army, but perhaps this may be explained by Bacchides’s volatile nature.
