"... The plea for the Lord “to look upon” Jews who suffer oppression recalls Lord’s decisive “looking upon” Israel to deliver them from Egypt (1:27; compare Exodus 2:25). The epitome picks up this strand to begin the reversal of fortunes in Jerusalem and Israel as the people pray that the Lord would look upon them (2 Maccabees 8:2; compare 7:6). The description of the Jews as “rejected and despised” reflects the humiliation of the exiles (Isaiah 49:7). The deliverance of Israel would reveal to the gentile oppressors that the Lord is God (1:27). This theme derives from Hezekiah’s prayer in the temple as Sennacherib’s forces surrounded Jerusalem, Solomon’s petition at the dedication of the First Temple, and the effect of the exiles returning to Judah according to Deutero–Isaiah (Isaiah 37:20; 1 Kings 8:60; Isaiah 40:5; 45:3; 49:26). In 2 Maccabees, Antiochus IV Epiphanes is the gentile adversary whose afflictions provoke him to acknowledge that the Lord of Israel is God, but at a point in time that is too late to save him (2 Maccabees 9:12, 17–18). Retributive theology associates the petition to afflict the adversaries in the festal letter with the fate of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the epitome. The verb “to punish” (2 Maccabees 1:28) describes both the torture that the king inflicted upon the Jews and also the affliction he eventually suffered in return (9:6; 7:13, 17). The arrogance of oppressors points to the disposition, which Antiochus manifested in his attacks on the temple but which also, by the king’s own admission, hastened his death ..."