The Importance of the Maccabees
The “New Thing” Begins
If you’ve been taught to skip the Maccabees—or to treat them as historical filler between Malachi and Matthew—it’s time to go back. The Maccabean books are not just Jewish history. They are the pivot point. They hold the key to understanding the Gospels, the apostolic mission, and even why Paul speaks the way he does about Gentile inclusion. The “New Thing” that Isaiah foresaw begins here.
If you’ve been taught to skip the Maccabees—or to treat them as historical filler between Malachi and Matthew—it’s time to go back. The Maccabean books are not just Jewish history. They are the pivot point. They hold the key to understanding the Gospels, the apostolic mission, and even why Paul speaks the way he does about Gentile inclusion. The “New Thing” that Isaiah foresaw begins here.
1–2 Maccabees: A New Kind of Warfare
For the first time in the biblical narrative, righteous people are martyred, not the wicked. This isn’t just another cycle of exile and return—it’s an apocalyptic shift.
For the first time in the biblical narrative, righteous people are martyred, not the wicked. This isn’t just another cycle of exile and return—it’s an apocalyptic shift.
Martyrdom becomes holy.Purity begins within. The Maccabees don’t go out to fight the Greeks until they’ve purged idolatry from their own ranks.The sword is taken up—but only after repentance.
As Jo often says: “The Maccabees didn’t win because of violence. They won because they repented first.”
Violence without internal cleansing would have just been more empire.
Yichus and Edom: The Conversion of Nations
Here’s where it gets even more overlooked. The Maccabean victory leads not just to Jewish independence—it leads to conversion.
Here’s where it gets even more overlooked. The Maccabean victory leads not just to Jewish independence—it leads to conversion.
Edomites and Nabateans are absorbed into Israel.This is Noahide Judaism in action: righteous Gentiles joining the covenant through basic faithfulness, not full legal adoption.Herod the Great descends from this converted Edomite line.Herod Agrippa II—his descendant—eventually hears Paul and nearly becomes a Christian.
This is not accidental. This is theological warfare.
As Jo teaches:
“The true warfare is conversion, not destruction. The armies of Gog are slain by the Word, not the sword.”
“The true warfare is conversion, not destruction. The armies of Gog are slain by the Word, not the sword.”
The Maccabees prefigure this. Jesus fulfills it.
From the Maccabees to the Gospel: Hillel vs. Shammai
The Maccabean legacy fractures into two Pharisaical rabbinic visions:
Shammai: strict, legalistic, exclusionary.Hillel: generous, covenantal, inclusive of the Noahide righteous.
Jesus of Nazareth does not emerge from nowhere. He walks in the path of Hillel. He eats with sinners. He welcomes centurions and Canaanites. He represents the true “new thing” Isaiah spoke of: not a political conquest, but a purified, expanding Israel open to all who fear God and do what is right.
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So how should we read the Bible?
Don’t skip the Maccabees.
Don’t miss the turn.
The New Testament doesn’t begin in Matthew—it begins when the righteous are first willing to die rather than assimilate, when Judah purges itself, and when the sword is wielded only after repentance.
That’s when the “new thing” begins.
That’s when the war turns.
And that’s how we learn to fight—by converting Edom, not killing him.
