This provoked rebellion among the Jews, and from 167 BC onwards the family of the Maccabees led a successful revolt. One of these Seleucid rulers, Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164 BC), persecuted Jews, forbidding circumcision and sabbath-keeping, and defiling the Jerusalem temple. After Alexander’s early death in 323 BC, his empire was divided and Judaea came under his Macedonian successors: the Ptolemies in Egypt from about 301 BC and then their rivals the Seleucids in Syria from 200 BC. Their supremacy came to an end when Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great) defeated King Darius III at the Battle of Issus (333 BC). At the end of the Old Testament narrative, the Persians, or Achaemenids, were in power, and Judah (then called Yehud, what was left of the nation of Israel) was one of their many provinces.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |