2 Maccabees 8:7-9
New Catholic Bible
7 usually preferring the night as being especially advantageous for such attacks. His reputation for valor spread far and wide.
First Victory over Nicanor.[a] 8 When Philip[b] noted that Judas was making steady progress little by little and that his successful excursions were becoming ever more frequent, he wrote to Ptolemy, the governor of Coelesyria and Phoenicia, asking for his help in defending the royal interests. 9 Ptolemy immediately appointed Nicanor, the son of Patroclus, one of the king’s Chief Friends, and dispatched him in command of at least twenty thousand troops from various nations to exterminate the entire Jewish race. As his associate he appointed Gorgias, a general of considerable military experience in the skills of war.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 2 Maccabees 8:8 See 1 Mac 3:38—4:24 for a parallel account of the campaign of Nicanor and Gorgias, with certain differences.
- 2 Maccabees 8:8 Philip: the one who had been left by Antiochus at Jerusalem as superintendent (see 2 Mac 5:22) with the powers of a local governor (see 2 Mac 6:11); Ptolemy was already remembered as the protector of Menelaus in the trial held at Tyre in the presence of Antiochus (2 Mac 4:45-46).
