It is the year 160 BC, and in Judea, a force of 24,000 Syrian invaders is being met by
a band of only 3,000 Jewish defenders.
Hopelessly outnumbered, the Jewish defenders know that they must make a stand here and
hopefully buy time for the rest of their newly-independent nation to rise to arms.
It is a grim choice, but one that must be made if the nation of Israel is to be free
for the first time in almost 500 years.
Leading the 3,000 Jewish soldiers is a man who has by now become a legend in his own
right.
Judas Maccabeus, the Hammer of Israel, knows that he will not survive this day.
By his counting, he's lived through one too many desperate fights anyways, and yet always
managed to find victory.
Perhaps God's blessing will fall on him this day too- though he isn't counting on it.
He has but one objective in the coming battle: kill the enemy general and give his people
a chance to defend their freedom.
The invading army is made up of 24,000 Syrians; the new Syrian king, Demetrius I, is eager
to reclaim Judea after it's secession from the Seleucid empire under the leadership of
Antiochus V. The two armies line up on a large desert plain, and with a trumpet call the
Syrians charge forward, utilizing their favored phalanx fighting formation.
The main Jewish line quickly breaks, the fighting men demoralized by the 8 to 1 odds, and thousands
of defenders flee for their lives.
Judas however refuses to flee.
By his side remain 800 of Israel's bravest warriors, men who have fought with the rebel
leader for years, and have become a lethal fighting force.
If Judas had a few thousand more like them, surely the day would end in victory.
However, perhaps he could buy Israel another sort of victory with his own life.
Judas rallies his remaining forces and charges at the enemy's vulnerable flank.
The Syrian phalanx is a nigh-impenetrable wall of muscle, shield, and spear from the
front- but the Syrians are not well disciplined, and the phalanx has trouble adjusting to the
unexpected thrust into their vulnerable flank.
The Jewish defenders cut through the Syrian lines, Judas himself leading the charge.
Like an arrow they fight their way straight into the heart of the massive Syrian formation,
on a suicidal charge with one mission: lop the head of this invading snake, kill the
Syrian general.
Buy time for Judea to muster its defenders.
The walls of the phalanx close in behind the Jewish thrust.
Completely surrounded by enemies, Judas and his diminishing forces thrust ever deeper
into the Syrian forces...
Eight years earlier, Judea was another territory of the sprawling Hellenistic Seleucid empire.
The ancestral homeland of the Jewish people had not had its independence since the disastrous
invasion by the Babylonians in 586 BC.
For the devoutly religious Jews the loss of their independence was only compounded by
the seeming silence on behalf of God, whom had spoken through prophets to his people
for millennia, and yet now a hundreds-of-years long silence echoed from the heavens.
Occupied and serving a God who had gone mysteriously silent, the Jewish people clung to their traditions
regardless, their faith and hope in God's promised savior to come.
After seizing Judea from the Egyptians in 198 BC, the Seleucid empire allowed the Jews
to continue governing themselves and worshiping their god freely.
These provisions ensured that the vitally strategically important Judea remained relatively
quiet, the Jewish people generally happy to be left alone as long as they could live and
worship as they pleased.
This peace would come to an end in 168 BC, as the new Syrian king ordered a radical change
in policies.
Antiochus IV found himself in a strategically poor position.
To the south west he faced an Egypt wholly hostile to his empire.
To the southeast the ambitious Medes and Parthians were constantly probing for weaknesses amongst
their neighbors, eager to snatch up territory.
To the northwest, Rome's might grew by the day, and its borders pressed ever closer.
Judea, caught in the middle of these various powers, was an important trade hub for Antiochus,
and he knew he needed to secure it in order for his empire to continue thriving.
His first step would be to force Hellenization upon the Jewish people, ordering a royal decree
that all Jewish subjects must recant their monotheistic religion and adopt the Hellenistic
pantheon of Gods.
He also ordered that the Jews were to learn to speak and write Greek, and set his occupying
administrators to the task of re-educating the Jews away from their one true God.
Given the decades of meekness exhibited by his Jewish subjects, Antiochus believed that
the forced conversion would not only strengthen his empire's grip on the region, but would
go relatively smoothly.
Antiochus severely underestimated the convictions of the Jewish people to their God.
In order to protect his empire, Antiochus marched an army to Egypt and laid siege to
Alexandria.
For the Syrian king the thought of Jewish revolt at his back was completely inconceivable.
The Jews had been quiet and obedient subjects for as long as could be remembered, and their
numbers were barely at a quarter million- with few of those men of fighting age.
The idea of a Jewish revolt was preposterous.
Antiochus and his forces were poised to take Alexandria.
Soon though, emissaries from the Roman empire arrived and warned that if the Syrian forces
did not pull back, Rome would declare war.
Cutting his losses, Antiochus decided it would be best to leave Egypt and not provoke the
wrath of Rome.
By now though, riots broke out in Jerusalem with the Jewish people refusing to conform
to Hellenistic culture.
Eager for a chance to repair his image on the world stage, Antiochus redirected his
returning forces to Jerusalem, thinking that it would be an easy insurrection to crush
and show the world that his forces were still strong.
In no time, the Syrian forces entered Jerusalem and killed thousands of Jews.
They destroyed countless historical documents containing Mosaic law, and looted and desecrated
the Jew's holy temple, dedicating it to Zeus instead.
From the survivors, young mothers and their children were thrown from the city walls to
their death.
The message was clear: submit, or die.
To continue the process of Hellenization by force, Syrian units moved into the Judean
countryside and its many villages.
A syrian unit came across the village of Modiin, and there they ordered the local priest, Mattathias,
to sacrifice a pig to Zeus.
The elderly Mattathias refused to engage in a vulgar display of idolatry, and the officer
leading the Syrian men ordered another Jewish priest to perform the deed.
The man agreed, when suddenly, despite his age, Mattathias whipped out a ceremonial dagger
and killed the Syrian officer, quickly followed by the traitorous priest.
In a flash, the Jewish revolution was born.
Mattathias's five sons incited the townspeople against the Syrian unit, which was killed
to a man.
Knowing they would be hunted and killed for their act of sedition, Mattathias and his
sons, along with about 200 people, fled to the hills.
With only fifty fighting men amongst them, Mattathias began to instruct the newly formed
Jewish resistance in the art of guerilla tactics, the old priest proving to be a keen mind in
this unusual form of warfare.
The Syrians were slow to react, and took over a year to respond to the uprising.
This gave Mattathias plenty of time to prepare his small, but growing force of Jewish rebels.
During that year though, he passed away due to his old age, but his son, Judas, took up
the mantle of leadership.
Judas had been busy during that year the Syrians foolishly gave him, growing a network of spies
that spanned across Judea and recruiting men from across the nation.
Despite a growing force though, the men lacked proper equipment and most of the weapons were
either converted farm implements or homemade.
New arms would have to be seized through battlefield victories.
The Syrians at last responded to the rebellion, sending in a two thousand strong force versus
the six hundred fighting Jews.
The Syrians however were poorly trained, and their generals gave no thought to asymmetrical
tactics such as ambushes, feints, or battlefield deceptions.
They were accustomed to simply lining up their mighty phalanxes and turning battle into a
massive pushing match, victory decided by the greater number of forces.
Judas, on the other hand knew that he could not afford to face the Syrians head on.
So instead, he plotted a deadly ambush.
The Syrian forces advanced through rocky, mountainous terrain, not even bothering to
disperse their forces or send out scouts to guard for ambush.
Judas split his men up into four smaller units, two to attack the Syrians on either flank,
one to attack their front, and the fourth to strike at their rear.
Laying in wait across the rocky hills, Judas and his men watched as the Syrians blundered
straight into their trap, marching their entire force as one unit into a narrow canyon.
With a rallying cry Judas launched his attack.
A small force immediately struck at the front of the formation, bottling it up in the canyon.
A second and third force struck at the Syrians on their flanks.
Jewish archers and slingers rained death down into the canyon from above.
Unable to see what was going on, the forces at the rear of the Syrian formation pushed
and jostled, trying to get to the front.
The chaos and confusion quickly led to a complete collapse of order, aided by the death of the
Syrian general leading the formation.
Soon, the Syrians had been wiped out to a man, and Judas and his rebels had an entire
battlefield's worth of much-needed equipment to arm their growing forces.
Believing that the defeat of the expeditionary force sent against the Jews was due to the
incompetence of its commander, the Syrian general Seron was determined to end this rebellion
once and for all.
By now a major Syrian garrison had come under siege near Jerusalem, and Seron knew that
he had to end the siege or risk having vital supply lines cut.
To move against the siege, Seron at least took the precaution of avoiding most of the
hill country in his initial deployment by moving along the coastal plain, spreading
his forces out to guard against the same ambush that had decimated the first expeditionary
force.
Eventually though, Seron was forced to turn his forces inland.
He decided that he would shortcut through the dangerous hilly territory by a narrow
pass at Beth Horon.
While risky, he knew that if he moved quickly he could get his forces through and then turn
around and back onto the much smaller Jewish force.
It was a bold gamble that would not pay off.
Judas had early in this war understood the necessity of military intelligence, and had
thus established a formidable system of informants and spies.
In no time at all Jewish scouts had spotted Seron's sudden redeployment, and Judas raced
to the pass at Beth Horon to lay a deadly ambush.
Leading thousands of men, Seron came upon the pass and immediately separated his long
column into many smaller units- this way it would be impossible to trap his forces in
the narrow canyon.
Confident he had beaten the Jews to the canyon anyways though, Seron confidently entered
at the head of his forces.
As the Syrian vanguard neared the end of the canyon, Judas once more rose from behind his
hiding place, letting loose with a mighty war cry.
Immediately Jewish archers and slingers hidden all along the slopes of the canyon let loose
with devastating volleys.
Leading the charge, Judas and a small force smashed into the Syrian vanguard, trapping
it in the canyon.
Judas carved his way through the Syrian phalanx, reaching General Seros and killing him where
he stood.
Left leaderless and hounded on all sides by archers and slingers, the Syrian forces quickly
retreated in mass disarray.
Judas and his men gave chase, killing many Syrians before they reached the safety of
the coast, and leaving behind much of their critical supplies.
As news of this stunning victory spread across the land, Judas' force of only a thousand
quickly swelled to over six thousand.
Now he was a force to be reckoned with.
Much to the benefit of the Jews, a civil war broke out in the eastern half of the Seleucid
empire, forcing Antiochus to split his forces.
He ordered his relative Lysias however to lead a force into Judea and crush the rebellion,
telling him, “Uproot and destroy the strength of Israel and the remnant of Judea.
Blot out all memory of them in the place.
Settle strangers in the territory and allot the land to the settlers.”
Antiochus would not be satisfied with nothing less than the total extinction of the Jewish
people.
The new invasion force, led by three Syrian generals, entered Judea and camped along the
large plains.
They were determined to not be ambushed in the hill country as their predecessors had
been.
Judas however knew that his forces wouldn't be able to rely on ambushes forever, and had
spent the time awaiting the new invasion force training his men in conventional tactics.
Yet Judas would once more prove to be the superior of the Syrian generals, and even
when fighting a conventional pitched battle, he would show that he had a keen mind for
trickery and deceit.
The Syrian forces numbered at 20,000, with approximately 6,000 fighting men under Judas'
command.
To make matters worse, as the Syrians set up their camp, they were reinforced unexpectedly
by fresh troops from south of Judea.
The Syrian camp sprawled before the Jewish rebels, added to daily by the tents of hundreds
of traveling slave traders eager for what they believed would be a plunder for the ages.
Judas split his forces up into four 1,500 man brigades and they set up camp across from
the Syrians.
The Syrian general Gorgias planned to surprise the Jewish forces with a night time assault
and quickly made preparations, but once more Judas's spy network alerted him to the plan.
Judas thus put into play a plan of his own.
He ordered that hundreds of bonfires be lit, and then proceeded to pull the bulk of his
forces out of the camp, leaving behind a small force to tend to the fires and give the impression
that all was normal.
With a trumpet blast, the Syrian forces surged forward and into the camp, only for the Jews
left behind to flee from the assault and into a nearby valley.
In the dark the Syrians mistook the fleeing forces for the entire Jewish army, and quickly
pursued into the valley.
Upon entering, a force of 1,500 Jewish fighting men descended from the hills, once more trapping
Syrian forces in a deadly ambush.
In the meantime, another force of 1,500 had quietly moved to the north of the Syrian camp
and planned to attack it from the rear at daybreak, when Judas' main force of 3,000
would launch a dawn attack on the main camp.
Unfortunately though, Syrian spies had gotten word of the dawn attack and as day broke,
Judas was surprised to find the entire Syrian camp up and men falling into their phalanxes.
Thinking quickly, Judas split his three thousand men into smaller, one thousand man units.
The smaller units quickly outmaneuvered the lumbering Syrian phalanx and overwhelmed the
cavalry meant to protect its vulnerable flanks.
Unable to adapt to new battlefield conditions, the poorly trained Syrians were quickly overwhelmed
as their phalanx shattered to Judas's smaller, but more flexible forces.
Back at the secondary encampment, 12,000 Syrians remained- though they had not expected to
have to fight that day as they believed the phalanx engaging the Jews would shield them
from battle.
Suddenly, the 1,500 men that Judas had sent under cover of dark to attack the camp from
the rear rose from their hiding places and tore into the Syrian camp.
The unprepared soldiers were caught completely unawares, and soon fell to the slaughter.
Meanwhile though the phalanx at their front had shattered under Judas's assault, and panicked
men fled to the perceived safety of the second camp.
There they rushed headlong into the chaos of the secondary Jewish assault, and were
caught between the two forces.
Thousands of Syrians were killed, many more fled along with the slave traders.
The Jewish army was left not just with yet another stunning victory against a numerically
superior foe, but with vast amounts of equipment and wealth- much of it from the slave traders
who had planned on taking surviving Jewish warriors and their families as slaves after
their defeat.
Judas would go on to secure many more victories for the Jewish rebellion, eventually pushing
the Syrians out of Judea.
The Jewish people had at last achieved their freedom for the first time in hundreds of
years, and Judas negotiated an alliance with Rome that saw Rome recognize it as an independent
state.
Knowing that he could not let judea's independence last or else encourage other enemies to join
Rome against him, the new Seleucid king, Demetrius, ordered a massive 24,000 man army into Judea
to crush the Jews.
The move took the Jews by surprise, and they had disbanded most of their army not believing
Demetrius would risk war with Rome by invading them.
Thus Judas found himself on that fateful day in 160 BC, facing off against a force of 24,000
with barely 3,000 men.
His only goal was to buy time for Judea to remobilize, and once more throw the Syrian
invaders out of their homeland.
Judas and his remaining 800 pierced into the heart of the Syrian formation, making a beeline
for the General leading the troops.
Knowing how poorly organized and trained the Syrian forces were, Judas hoped that chopping
the head of the snake off would throw the Syrians into disarray long enough for Judea
to muster its defenders.
It would cost him his life, but it was a price worth paying to keep his people free.
Judas and his men cut deep through the Syrian forces, but the invader's numbers were just
too many.
Desperately fighting to reach the enemy general, Judas and his men were eventually overwhelmed
by sheer numbers- but not before cutting down many Syrians.
Judas' death however would inspire the Jewish people to rise up and once more.
With the re-conquest of Judea proving to be far too costly an affair, the Seleucid empire
grudgingly agreed to grant the Jewish state the right to govern itself and worship as
it chose- the only thing it had ever wanted in the first place.
Judas the Hammer would go on to become a national hero of the Jewish people, giving his life
in battle so that the Jewish people could worship their god in peace, honoring the ageless
traditions of their ancestors.
Now that you've watched that video, why not learn more about some of history's biggest
bad asses?
Click on this video here, or maybe for a change of pace, click this one here!
Either way, you can't choose wrong, so click now!