Around 166 b.c., armed fugitives move through the harsh limestone ridges of Judea under the cover of night. Judas Maccabeus quietly pulls 6,000 exhausted men from the surrounding villages. The winter winds whip through the unheated camps. A paralyzing dread grips the ranks as a massive Syrian army marches south. Slave merchants trail the enemy column with heavy iron chains clanking in their wagons. The Jewish fighters face complete annihilation or a lifetime of brutal forced labor. They cry out to the Almighty. The Creator hears their plea and prepares to grant them total victory.
King Antiochus owed 2,000 talents of silver to the Roman Republic to satisfy an older war indemnity. The king ordered his general Nicanor to pay this massive debt. Nicanor planned to capture Jews and sell them to Gentile merchants at a rate of ninety slaves for a single sixty-pound talent of silver. He brought an army of 20,000 men to execute this transaction. Judas divided his poorly equipped fighters into four units. They attacked the Syrian camp directly. The element of surprise shattered the enemy lines. They killed 9,000 soldiers and seized the very silver intended for their own purchase.
The iron shackles meant for human wrists became the physical proof of Nicanor's arrogance. Men often calculate the profit of their cruelty before they actually secure the victims. The merchants arrived with heavy purses and empty chains expecting an easy transaction. Instead, the intended slaves took the silver and left the chains rusting in the dirt.
Never spend the coin from a harvest you have not yet gathered.
Nicanor stripped off his armor and fled back to Antioch wearing the simple tunic of a runaway slave. The recovered loot provided a sudden influx of wealth that sustained the widows and orphans of a battered rebellion.